Maniaplanet Forum

I sincerely hope this is the right forum for this, if not, please let me know.
I will try to describe this issue as best as humanly possible, since I have read up on locators and sharing.
Questions are going to be marked by cursive text.

Problem (short version):
We can not see each others cars, even though I made all of them and we play online for over an hour.
By using locators referring to our webspace the car should be downloaded within 10 seconds, but isn't.



Situation (long version):
For our clan we have made custom (2D) skins for TM2 Canyon.
We have created a car using the painter, skinned it and saved it.
I then added custom made DetailsDiffuse.dds and DetailsIllum.dds
--> We have a working car, visible for everyone installing it.

For multiplayer-purposes I made sure locators are available for every player.
The files are named BSR_member.zip and have been copied to a private (but for everyone accessable) webspace.
Those direct links (which work when pasted in a webbrowser, include "http://www.", and take less than 10 sec to download) are saved in the BSR_member.zip.loc file, which is placed next to (and not in) the BSR_member.zip in the CanyonCar folder.
--> As far as everything in forums says this is correct

Is the usage of Locators for 2D-Skins correct?

My Attempts to resolve:
I already tried repeatedly to rename (only small letters) reupload and delete and recopy the files to the correct folders.
I also checked the locators multiple times, comparing them to working ones from the MX sign package.
P2P is enabled, as is downloading from locators.
When playing on a server one can see the "analyser" by pressing "-" twice.
I did exactly that and looked why we could not see our cars.
From what I saw, it seems as though the process works like this:
-- The server sees my car
-- I upload it to the server
-- the server says "I have the car"
--> everyone downloads it from the server.
Is this assumption correct? If so, is this what "Peer2Peer" means in this game?


(Why I think that is how it works:
I spend some time with one member on one otherwise empty server, after a long time I downloaded his car in a few seconds, from the same ip that I uploaded to (which is not his).
And the upload also started on a server that I was entirely alone on.)

Now, what I saw and described in the analyser is the so called "Nb Uploads".
Are these the Uploads from me to another player, or does it only relate to the server and P2P traffic is hidden from the analyser?

With the locators not working, I would need to play 10 hours on a server to upload my car (4.88MB, bad upload rate).
For clan wars that is less than great.
How can we manage to let others see our skins within the first played map (some minutes) when the capabilities (webspace etc) are given?


Lastly, it is very hard work to find out how this game works as there is very little official documentation, just saying..

Thanks very much in advance for reading this and trying to help!
It is greatly appreciated.

Heyho,

The usage of Locators for 2D-Skins you described is correct as far as I know.

I want to mention here a point, that I don`t really understand, but which solved the problem for me (and also for some team members), regarding getting my skin visible for others. I don`t know, if this is only a part of the problem.
I was struggling with this problem for quite a while (Maniaplanet settings, Firewall,...), because all was working fine in TMUF.
The magic word for me was "port forwarding" (router options). I forwarded the two ports for TM2 and it worked (same for team members). And it is also quite fast (about 1 map), so I guess it was downloaded online through my locator (I`m not sure here, but my model is more than 20MB and my upload is crap).

What I don`t understand:
Why did it work in TMUF without "port forwarding" with the same system (PC, router,...)?

What I now see ingame, looks quite random: I can see many models from Maniapark (not in my own folder), many stadium default skins, many user made skins on the stadiumCar, but also quite many grey cars. So from my point of view, I would say the P2P is working in Maniaplanet and the problems come from the player side. But, of course, I`m not sure here.

I have the same problems. I have forwarded the ports, but it still doesn't work.
Last year it was working good, but since (I think) the Februari update this year, there are problems.
I see some peoples skins, but some others from friends I play with every day never show up.

I really think the problem is Nadeo related.

BlueStormRiders wrote:Those direct links (which work when pasted in a webbrowser, include "http://www.", and take less than 10 sec to download) are saved in the BSR_member.zip.loc file, which is placed next to (and not in) the BSR_member.zip in the CanyonCar folder.
Is the usage of Locators for 2D-Skins correct?

This is correct. But a locator doesn't help if "normal" P2P do not work (see below).

From what I saw, it seems as though the process works like this:
-- The server sees my car
-- I upload it to the server
-- the server says "I have the car"
--> everyone downloads it from the server.
Is this assumption correct? If so, is this what "Peer2Peer" means in this game?

This is one way. A lot of dedicated servers have disabled P2P in the settings to save storage and bandwidth.

I don't know how P2P exactly works. But I understand it as following:
1. A Player with custom car skin connects to a dedicated server.
2. If P2P is enabled on this server, it ask the game client to upload the skin.
3. If the client has P2P enabled, it allow the server to get the skin.
4. If there is a locator stored on the client, the server try to load it.
5. If the locator is valid, the server load the skin from that URL and store it in its cache.
6. Otherwise the server try to load the skin directly from the game client.
7. So that a second player can see the skin, his client first ask the dedicated server to download the skin.
8. If the server has P2P enabled and the skin in its cache, it downloads the skin to the second player.
9. If the server has P2P disabled, the client ask all other connected player clients for this skin.
10. If one of the connected players has P2P enabled and the respective skin in its cache, it uploads it to the requested player client.
11. Now the second player can see the custom skin of player one.

In TMUF and in MP up to Beta 3 you don't need to configure port forwarding for this.
From MP Beta 3 RC1 (providing LAN mode) you need port forwarding TCP:3450 for steps 2 and 9.

How can we manage to let others see our skins within the first played map (some minutes) when the capabilities (webspace etc) are given?

First make sure that port forwarding TCP:3450 is properly configured. Make sure that the port is forwarded to the correct device/computer.

If a player uses a custom car skin with locator and builds a map in the track editor, the car and the locator URL is stored inside the map. This may ensure that the skin can be downloaded without P2P. But I am not sure.

Thank you all for writing!

@Electron:
Are you sure about steps 8. and 9.? I would think that if P2P is enabled I download from everyone who has it, and only if it is disabled I need the server.
I always think of P2P being direct user to user contact. But that is mainly how i see it working, too

I will definitely try port forwarding, but for that I have to wait for my flatmate to return, thanks for suggesting it, I will come back to it, when I tried it, and I will report whether or not it works.


I also made a testmap and added a sign by URL (works) and a ghost with the skin that drives around (works as well).
Then I checked the *.gbx file with notepad and searched for "http", finding both URLs, the one of the sign, and the one it must have read in the locator.
So the locator itself works!
I added it to our server and the analyser showed me downloading the skin within seconds.
After my teammates tried it, I will tell you if it also worked for them.
Hopefully when they have it cached they will also see it in live racing.

For now, that seems to be the best solution for a clan. Since in a war situation we will most probably race partly on our own tracks, adding the car skins to ghost in the Track will make everyone see our cars quickly..
remember though, I'm not yet sure if it works.

I kind of agree on it being Nadeo related, even though it might likely be easily configurable when one knows exactly where the fault lies.

so, I tested it with a friend:
I made ghosts in a map. One of them featured my car (with locator in my local folders), others featured the direct URL to different cars I made.
After Loading the map all cars are (very quickly) downloaded (using the webspace) and - once in cache - used in live Racing as well.
This also suggests the "Nb Downloads" and uploads are referring to only your own computer, not the server

This is now the most effective way to distribute lots of skins to players, if you know they are going to drive on the map at some point.

However:
When I connected to another server (without the map) everything was back to P2P, and very slow connections.
So, a working locator in a map does not make the locator work every time. sadly, but understandibly

This is still an open issue and I welcome anyone who can clear things up, but for now, I will just try to make sure a map featuring our skins is on many servers..
This also means spamming the skins into the world "just in case" someone will see us driving live, but thats better than grey cars...