I already know how these worked for Stadium, always computed at the startup of a track according to the quality setting set in the menu.

Yet how do these work in Canyon? If I recall correctly when you compute shadows in the editor they are saved into the tracks data so other people won't have to compute it themselves. Yet sometimes on a track startup it computes shadows anyways.

For example: Say my setting for lightmaps is at default. On some tracks startup it doesn't compute shadows, for some tracks it does. Is this because of the quality saved in the track file is lower quality than default, or are lightmaps actually not saved into the track file at all yet?

If you had downloaded a track from a previous version of the game, you would need to recompute the shadows even if the track has its shadows computed.

E.g. if I had made a track in beta 1c and would upload it to this site without recomputing the shadows for the current multiplayer beta, you would need to do that. You get the idea.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.