[Canyon Blocks] Road split and road cross

[Fix]

Most of the time, we don't like separate ways (Y and T), because the player never know wich one is the good one.

Actually it's wrong what you say because many ways can bring you to finish like this:

I bet you that each one, excepted the true mirrored ones takes a different time to finish.

[EnaiSiaion]

Correct, but if the difference is small, players will have fun finding the best choice. In this case a path with lots of curves is shorter because you can cut corners, but you need to turn more. In a Nascar track I'm making there is a part where you go left or right past an obstacle; left is shorter but you slow down a little more in the (left) turn that follows. The difference is about half a second and the ideal path changes depending on your initial speed.

The obstacle itself is a ramp that leads to a shortcut, but the jump is very tricky and if you miss it you land on the regular track losing some speed along the way; in normal mode you just try until you succeed, but the track is intended for online laps mode and you're better off not trying unless you know you can do it.

Imo that is a fair use of splits, even though it took a large offroad section to do it.

Ps. what is your signature about?

[JeffyDMan]

Most of the time, we don't like separate ways (Y and T), because the player never know wich one is the good one.

Actually it's wrong what you say because many ways can bring you to finish like this:

And any driver on that track is going to take one of the outside runs, because they involve the fewest number of turns (1). I think that the issue that people are having is that they want to be able to create Stadium tracks all over again, in an environment that is not designed for them. Personally, I loved all of the environments in the old TM games, and Canyon is better than all of them.

[EnaiSiaion]

Nope. In stadium if you noslide you actually keep accelerating during a turn, so turning doesn't cost you time. And each opposite turn in this map cuts off a few metres from the distance you have to travel because the track has a certain width and you can huge the inside of the track.

You want to pick the route with the most curves as long as you can still drive the curves without braking or drifting.

[xrayjay]

EDIT : that's why they're low priority

and whats about these ones?


The "half way" is done with the green block, only the other two pieces are left

[xanatos.chimera]

The reason given by Fix doesn't make much sense to me either, since Nations dealt with splits and joins by indicating the correct direction with signage. The Black tracks in Nations featured one where you had lots of splits and joins for the track and just showed you where to go with arrows. So I don't see that as a problem. You also don't have to use the spits/joins to make asymetric tracks or multiple ways to finish anyway. Low priority is fine, but the reason given by Fix doesn't hold water. The use is up to the designer, or are we going to remove the dirt sections because you can make asymmetric tracks with those as well?

The lack of these blocks hasn't prevented some awful track designs anyway.

Besides the game shows you distance driven so the track author can even make sure the distances are about equal when validating the track.

[Fix]

It's fun to have these split blocks, you can make mirrored tracks.
I did almost all the blocks in TMO, and most of TMS and half of TMN. I did the planks on the side of the road in desert, I did the turbo ramp in the center in snow, the turbos on one side in snow. I did the Y shaped sections of highways in islands, and I believe I did the splits of TMN. And over the years, I discovered that the feeling I have everytime I come close to any junction, that feeling of 'did I choose the right path?' wasn't very positive.
TMN was just tons of variations of the same road block, mostly because of it's e-sports aspect , so it was easy to get these junctions done.
In canyon, closer to the TM Sunrise spirit in that way, we have a greater need of decorations and landscape variations, we need to do trees, terraforming, different types of roads, tunnels, etc... so the double path blocks are quit low on the todo list, you can achieve that with OffRoad or JunctionsToArena.

I agree the bowl blocks (that would be named ArenaLoopStartGTCurve2 and ArenaLoopEndGTCurve2) would add some new feelings and sensations. We didn't make the ArenaLoop at first to avoid breaking the 'real place' feeling that makes contrast and emphasis the unbelievable action (giant jumps, etc...) in a race.
Jumping above a house is a lot more impressive than jumping over a big block of concrete. The Bowls blocks are a step further to that 'strange spatial base' feeling (plus it costs a ton of polygons ) that makes them fun, but not top priority. Hylis may have other reasons in mind I already forgotten.

You will always miss some blocks, and you know, I miss a lot of blocks as well.
I always have... since the first Trackmania.
We are always a bit sad to not having done that block or that feature, to not having polished that menu or that texture, or that feature. Or to have "lost" time making that block instead of that that one.
There are so many things to do in all areas, TrackBuilders, RecordHunters, e-sports admins, CarSkins Artist, movie makers, etc... everybody wants it better.

Well, we are not as many as a Microsoft's Team working on Windows versions. Luckily Maniaplanet is not as big, but it's not a solitaire either.

Don't stop expressing that you miss blockA or blockB.
Just try not asking why they're not made : 1-we forgot, 2-we didn't have time, 3-it may be a mistake.
Anyway, that will give us experience to improve the future blocks sets in future environments.

[xrayjay]

I agree the bowl blocks (that would be named ArenaLoopStartGTCurve2 and ArenaLoopEndGTCurve2) would add some new feelings and sensations. We didn't make the ArenaLoop at first to avoid breaking the 'real place' feeling that makes contrast and emphasis the unbelievable action (giant jumps, etc...) in a race.
Jumping above a house is a lot more impressive than jumping over a big block of concrete. The Bowls blocks are a step further to that 'strange spatial base' feeling (plus it costs a ton of polygons ) that makes them fun, but not top priority. Hylis may have other reasons in mind I already forgotten.

You will always miss some blocks, and you know, I miss a lot of blocks as well.
I always have... since the first Trackmania.
We are always a bit sad to not having done that block or that feature, to not having polished that menu or that texture, or that feature. Or to have "lost" time making that block instead of that that one.
There are so many things to do in all areas, TrackBuilders, RecordHunters, e-sports admins, CarSkins Artist, movie makers, etc... everybody wants it better.

Well, we are not as many as a Microsoft's Team working on Windows versions. Luckily Maniaplanet is not as big, but it's not a solitaire either.

Don't stop expressing that you miss blockA or blockB.
Just try not asking why they're not made : 1-we forgot, 2-we didn't have time, 3-it may be a mistake.
Anyway, that will give us experience to improve the future blocks sets in future environments.

Ok, i don´t want to push you (ok may a little^^), but in fact of this the "import blocks" thing can be included now, the community will do the missing ones i guess

[Zaiks]

Ok, i don´t want to push you (ok may a little^^), but in fact of this the "import blocks" thing can be included now, the community will do the missing ones i guess

This. When the import blocks feature is put into the game I will force myself to learn to model blocks in whatever software is needed for it. Maybe I should start learning blender now so I don't get too frustrated when this feature comes.

[Trackmaniack]

Ok, i don´t want to push you (ok may a little^^), but in fact of this the "import blocks" thing can be included now, the community will do the missing ones i guess

This. When the import blocks feature is put into the game I will force myself to learn to model blocks in whatever software is needed for it. Maybe I should start learning blender now so I don't get too frustrated when this feature comes.

The trick is that each block would need to be very heavily vetted by experienced blockmakers (at the start maybe Nadeo team themselves and then pass the reins to the community), otherwise we'll end up with buggy or downright broken blocks...