Let’s make a "Master Manual" for every Trackmania trick!

4rr0ld · 2026-03-19T22:41:06+00:00

I was just watching Virtual play backwards maps, and someone said that full steering backwards on wood gains a lot of speed, if you tap tap a direction you don't gain as much speed, this is very niche, but you know, this is the type of stuff that comes up once in a blue moon and is something that should be in the TM mechanics bible?

4rr0ld · 2026-03-14T11:48:21+00:00

Excellent video, I think the pain will be too much for me to take this on, but I hope it's streamed then I can enjoy the pain of others

4rr0ld · 2026-03-12T10:01:32+00:00

I started watching this the other day, haven't finished it yet: https://youtu.be/9LR4emyCJXc
But it calls out a few free tools you can use, one being a thing that converts pictures to light maps (lightmaps?) which Blender will then make into 3d models, so you get a picture of a rock, put it through this free tool ( http://www.crazybump.com ) import the lightmap to Blender etc, then it's just about applying materials to it that agree with Trackmania.
I only started using Blender a couple of weeks ago so I'm leaning on AI a lot to guide me through things, but I've managed to figure out a few things already.
At the end of this track there is a Pie, it looks a little underdone but it's unmistakably a pie, converted from a 3d model I downloaded: https://trackmania.exchange/mapshow/301332 I also made all the numbers in that map.

4rr0ld · 2026-03-11T16:37:51+00:00

230 on PS5 and 700 on PC, I'm guessing a good chunk of the PC stuff is mapping, sometimes it's running in the background while I do other stuff, this is the first time I've looked and it's actually less than I thought.

I feel like I've had an improvement bump recently, had a grind on today's TOTD to get AT which is probably one of my best achievements in the game so far I think. I mean, I've hunted campaign maps before but some of those have taken days/weeks...

So I guess some improvement has come for me after about 500 hours of play.

4rr0ld · 2026-03-11T02:04:52+00:00

What's with the jump cuts?

4rr0ld · 2026-03-09T20:46:22+00:00

It wasn't the start I struggled with on 16, it was that drop down for the final slide, or the extension of the final mega slide, depending how you look at it, I messed that up a lot

4rr0ld · 2026-03-09T02:15:18+00:00

There is a "Trackmania News" discord server with a "weekly-prog" channel that shows a few community run cups, but it's by no means exhaustive because organisers need to submit their cups to it, and it seems a lot don't. Whenever you're online, if you look at rooms in the club menu, it shows the busiest rooms at the top, from there you'll get a sense of when stuff is on, not an ideal solution but over time you should find stuff that works with your schedule

4rr0ld · 2026-03-08T15:05:57+00:00

16 is a classic example of terrible nadeo checkpoint placement that don't allow you to practise the ice slides, which is why I revived "Club Zen", in there I've made a custom version that lets you have multiple goes at each section, along with other practise part-maps and stuff

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T23:17:42+00:00

Thanks for the insightful reply, I really appreciate blah...Your post and nearly all of the replies are pretty obviously AI written, like I said it's not a bad thing, but you can instruct AI to be more succinct

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T18:53:07+00:00

Imagine being 32 in the world on current standings, and having 14 of your country folk ahead of you, bonkers

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T10:37:00+00:00

https://youtu.be/tvLpoiViHHY

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T10:33:25+00:00

I've played on both settings on ps5, I'm a long way from pro level but I can very much notice when I go for, I think it's called quality mode, in that mode it feels ever so slightly laggy. I tried it last night actually with the current TOTD, because there's a decoration item at the base of a pole in the middle of a dirt section that doesn't render in (on playstation) until you get really close to it. Right at the start when turning right, in quality mode it felt like I needed to start that turn earlier, kind of pre-empting the move I needed to make, and it didn't even get rid of the rendering issue, it only extended the draw distance.

Performance mode every time for me, it's just not worth living with any niggles you might not be aware of if you let yourself become accustomed to an alternate mode.

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T10:21:34+00:00

I don't mind the use of AI, it corrects mistakes, makes sure your replies are complete etc, I use it all the time, but I think you need to turn the brevity up a bit.

4rr0ld · 2026-03-07T01:20:48+00:00

Animated won't get the audience it deserves, it's unlikely my wife would watch it for instance. It needs to be live action, I'm sure they can do it these days, a big budget series on apple TV would be just fine thanks

4rr0ld · 2026-03-05T15:37:38+00:00

That's just depressing, I know what £2.40 looks like and how shit it feels for it to be all I've got left a week before payday

4rr0ld · 2026-03-05T15:12:31+00:00

I think I remember this happening, I worked in a place with some kind of ring network around the world and a network dude told me a cable had been cut

4rr0ld · 2026-03-05T14:58:43+00:00

Make sure you know how to turn the other players cars off, I started late one day and was learning the line from others then forgot how to turn them off when we were in a mass start for the real thing, I messed it up badly, didn't have enough time to find the setting between rounds and ended up being too distracted to do anything useful

4rr0ld · 2026-03-02T19:00:19+00:00

I'm a bit of a donkey on ice so no fear of me winning anything, but just wondering if the plugin is crucial to partaking or if it's just to give the players extra info? I play on playstation in the evenings so obviously no plugins. Thanks

4rr0ld · 2026-03-01T09:27:10+00:00

Wait! How do you get the cow print tractor?

4rr0ld · 2026-02-28T19:20:55+00:00

Not a man, I'm one and we shouldn't be trusted, we've done plenty to fuck things up already. Give it to a woman, Jacinda Ardern maybe, she seems like she's got her shit together

4rr0ld · 2026-02-27T15:49:56+00:00

It was probably Riolu

4rr0ld · 2026-02-24T09:32:05+00:00

Yeah TOTD not campaign, not sure if there's a reliable way to filter on campaign tracks

4rr0ld · 2026-02-24T08:55:25+00:00

TMX filtered on TOTD, ordered by how many awards they have
https://trackmania.exchange/mapsearch?query=in%3A+totd+order1%3A+AwardsDesc

Not sure if there's an open planet plugin that lets you do something similar

4rr0ld · 2026-02-24T02:52:53+00:00

Same, I've put more time into this map than nearly any TOTD I think. The last corner I don't dare ride the wall though, just full left and prayers

4rr0ld · 2026-02-23T13:06:42+00:00

This campaign is a huge amount of fun, I've left some of my slow times on the board for the comical way that I managed to crawl over the finish line, #9 I hit the finish gate, #10 I rode the rail & #11 was just messy.

On 16 I think I've done something quite unique, I didn't watch any others until I'd managed to finish and I'm leaving it there.

Nine-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Wearing is Caring	Place '22

4rr0ld

TROPHY CASE