Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC) February 2019 hosted by Rexine!

In the MTC your task is to build a track on a given theme. Later, all the submitted tracks are rated and a winner is determined.

Theme of the Month: Transition Triage
suggested by fredair
Include at least 1 transition both ways between five block groups





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Theme Rules:



• Include a transition to and from every combination of block groups listed. e.g. For Stadium, road to dirt, dirt to road, road to platform, platform to road, platform to dirt, dirt to platform, etc
  
• Each transition must progress into a stretch of track lasting a minimum of 3 seconds that features the block group being transitioned to this is no longer a requirement
  
• Transitioning to block type 2 from 1 and then directly back to type 2 is only allowed twice. All other transitions have to be to a different block type than the previous one (this limitation only applies to the transitions for the theme
  
• You aren't limited to just these transitions
  
• For Stadium, the block types are road (1, 2, & 3), platform (5), dirt (6), underground (7), and terrain
  
• For Valley, the block types are wide road (3), underground (4), dirt (6 & 7), platform (5), and the field terrain (the blocks from 11-2 count as well)
  
• For Canyon, the block types are road (1, 6, & 7. 4 is allowed as long as you're going into or from the road portion of the blocks), platform (2 & 3. 4 is allowed as long as you're going onto or from the platform portion of the blocks), canyon roads (8), underground (9), and terrain
  
• For Lagoon, the block types are road (1 & 2), platform (4), underground (5), beach (6), and terrain
  
• Your track should be at least 30 seconds long



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Allowed:



• All environments
  
• Blockmixing
  
• Embedded items
  
• Custom time of day
  
• Mods
  
• Envi-mix titlepacks
  
• TMUF cars

Not Allowed:



• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks



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General Rules



• You may submit one track maximum
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map counts as one track for each author involved
  
• MTC should be present in the track name
  Examples: Block Hop (MTC) ; [mtc] Variety ; MTC – Surface Transit (check that any special characters do not break in the TM or MX track name)
  
• The track should be built in the most recent version of the game



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Deadlines



• Your track should be uploaded before the end of Thursday, February 27th 28th at midnight PST
  
• Public voting will go from March 1st 2nd to March 8th 9th
  
• Results will be posted March 9th at the earliest

Prizes

Honour and the right to brag! (Jozii used to say that. I hope some still remember him? )
The top 3 winners will receive a showcase of a track of their choice (< 10 awards)



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How to Submit



• To submit a track, upload it to MX and post a link to your submission here:
  MTC February 2019: Submissions Thread
  
• You can update your track within the deadline as many times as you want
  
• Submitted courses may be updated within 24 hours of submissions closing, in case of any necessary last minute changes. New courses may NOT be submitted in this time frame
  
• Updating your track after the revision deadline has passed will lead to a disqualification. You are free to update your track once the results are published

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a mixture of 70/30 between internal judging and public voting if there is 1 public voter, 60/40 for 2-3, and 50/50 for 4+



• Everyone is allowed to judge including players who submitted a track, but the vote for your own track will not count (give your own map a 10)
  
• You must have access to all environments and vote for all tracks for your votes to count
  
• Every track will be judged with marks from 1 (bad) to 10 (good)
  
• The internal judging will note some detailed feedback with points based on categories
  Theme [20p], Creativity [10p], Funfactor [10p], Detailwork/Scenery/MT [10p]
  

Good luck!
If you have any questions, please ask

Does each of the 20 transitions have to be direct? What about the block sets that aren't mentioned?

For example, for Stadium, block sets 4, 8, and 9 aren't mentioned. Does that mean I can transition from platform (5) to dirt (6) via a block from set 4? Or would it have to be from 5 to 6 directly, without anything from 4, 8, or 9 in between?

Edit: Same question re: items--can those be used to "bridge" transitions?

Edit2: If the answer is "no, you need to transition directly" does that mean that we can't use block sets at all if they aren't mentioned?

Yes, all 20 transitions have to be direct.

You can use items to make the transitions smoother, but no more than that.

All block sets are allowed.

AR »rexine, thank you for the clarification!

The rule that you had to stay on the block group you just transitioned to for at least 3 seconds was taken out.

An extra day is added to the deadline, for those that started maps already adhering to this rule.

AR »rexine says:
Your track should be uploaded before the end of Wednesday, February 27th 28th at midnight PST

That should probably be changed to Thursday, just to avoid confusion.

February 2019 Public Voting Link: https://goo.gl/forms/nVGqxP0OHrhjmvYJ3

There are 7 MTC entries. Download them all here.

In the voting sheet, give your score before your feedback (0 to 10, decimals are allowed). If you have comments, leave them right after your score. For example:

5.9 - Not bad. Could've done better on the scenery.

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a map (your score on your own map will be removed, so give it whatever you want!)
  
• Every map will be judged with a decimal number from 0 (bad) to 10 (good). All votes greater than/equal to 7 or less than/equal to 4 require constructive feedback on why you gave it that score
  
• Note that you have to judge a stage entirely! You cannot judge only half of it. If you are not able to finish the map, your vote can still count! Please only leave that as a very last resort, and still judge the entire map fairly
  
• You need to verify your vote by making a post here (for example: "Voted ")
  
• One best and one worst vote for each map will be ignored if more than 10 people vote
  
• The overall score will be a mixture of the average public score and the average internal score
  
• You must have access to all environments and vote on all maps for your votes to count

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A panel of judges will also judge the maps.
This internal voting will follow the format of:
Theme (20p) | Creativity (10p) | Fun (10p) | Detail (10p)

All public voting will close on March 9th, 2019 at midnight PST.

Voted.

Edit: Except for some reason the ocean material wouldn't load properly for me on Transitional? It was blinding white and I couldn't drive it. Other lagoon maps seem to work fine, so I don't think it's something broken locally?

I didn't score the map. If necessary, throw out my votes, I guess?

Voted
Yes transitional had weird lightning for me too, probably shadows calculation done on ultra

Try opening the map on the editor, change a block, recalculate shadow and test it on the editor?

Mayuri says:
Voted
Yes transitional had weird lightning for me too, probably shadows calculation done on ultra

Try opening the map on the editor, change a block, recalculate shadow and test it on the editor?

I actually ended up doing that earlier. Great minds. (rexine, I replied to your PM.)