How to add car skins in Trackmania2 Stadium

[MrWafWaf]

Okay so I bought TrackMania 2: Stadium a few days ago on steam, and i've been trying to add some skins from Maniapark to the game so I can customize it a little.

Stadium is the ONLY game I have from Trackmania and it never stated on steam that I needed anything else. When I go onto Youtube however all the guides are from 2013-2015 and look different from the UI that I am dealing with.

I have tried multiple ways to do this and even people within the game have told me what to do, but the methods do not work... I have downloaded the ZIP file and the LOC file from Maniapark and put them in C:\Users\"Name"\Documents\Maniaplanet\Skins\Models\StadiumCar and restarted the game, but that didn't work.

I've tried going onto the game's documents and going from Mania's methods for creating and putting the file in the game but that file location doesn't even exist. That tells me to put it in: username/my documents/maniaplanet/skins/vehicles/arenaplayer/ But after doing my research that is because THAT specific file is only for a thing called StormMan? I'm not sure.

Another thing is when I go to my profile and go to the advanced section, the option for allowing custom models/skins on multiplayer is unticked and I am unable to tick it. This could be a reason I am not seeing it but I have no idea how to make that option available to me?

Literally any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks for your time in advance. I wish this was simpler.

[Dommy]

After you downloaded your car skin, put it in one of these directories:

If it's a 2D skin (a paintjob for StadiumCar):
<your user data folder>\Skins\Models\StadiumCar\

Or if it's a 3D model (custom car shape):
<your user data folder>\Skins\Models\CarCommon\
This option is preferred, in case you ever decide to get another environment - the skin will be available here as well.

User data directory is by default located here:
C:\Users\<your username>\Documents\ManiaPlanet\

Restart the game (if it's running) and from here navigate through the menus:
> Enter TrackMania 2 Stadium
> Go to the Profile menu (top right of the menu)
> Models
Pick the newly added skin and you should be ready to go!

Sidenote: When downloading a skin, make sure to click on "Download locator" - it's a text file ending with .loc, which has the direct URL to the skin. Put it in the same folder your skin is - it will tell other players that your skin can be downloaded faster, directly from the given URL, instead of doing it via P2P system.

Lastly, the option to enable/disable multiplayer skins can be changed via the launcher as well. Start the launcher ("Options" when starting the game on Steam), go to Configure, Advanced and Network/Game (not sure which of these has this setting).

Quick edit:
It may happen, that some skins may not work since the ManiaPlanet 4 update.

[MrWafWaf]

Thank you for the reply.

This is actually the annoying thing. As soon as I posted this post, the "models" section that you mention showed up and I could select my car just fine, however after closing the game and reloading after playing another game that option within the profile section is completely missing :/ I'm not sure what is happening... Do you need to be a certain level before you can select your own car designs and such? It's an on and off occurrence.

[Dommy]

If you're in the main menu of ManiaPlanet and click Options > Profile, it will display the global profile settings of ManiaPlanet. To customize TrackMania Stadium profile, you first need to enter it by choosing its tile and then clicking Enter button. All options will be available from there.

It's true that menus are complicated for new players, but hopefully Nadeo team may come up with fancier solutions in the future.

[xrayjay]

Through the launcher you can open the directory very easily like this:


Once clicked on "Car skins" button your windows explorer opens with the main directory "Models", as dommy said, if you want to use a 3D model you should put the zip file of the model into the folder "CarCommon", if this folder doesn´t exist, create it (case sensitive!)

.../Skins/Models/CarCommon/Carmodel.zip f.e.

don´t unzip the skins and models.

And not to forget, (public) skins only work in paid versions of the game, but as you told you bought stadium, there shouldn´t be an issue with that.

[Thmyrke]

hi, i recently purchased tm2 stadium but i cannot tick the 'allow custom models' box. help?
thanks