Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC), August 2017!

In the MTC your task is to build a track on a given theme. Later on, all of the entered tracks will be rated and a winner will be found.

Theme of the Month: Two Tiles Wide
The area on which the track is built may be only two tiles wide (but as many tiles long and high as you wish).


• The track must not be any wider than two tiles.
  
• The track can be as high or long as you want.
  
• Scenery may exceed the width limit. You may build scenery outside the limit, as long as the vehicle never drives there as part of the route.
  
• The vehicle may exit and return to the two tiles wide area as part of the route, as long as it never touches any surface outside the limit while doing so.
  
• Blocks or objects that are wider than two tiles wide may be used, but only if your car never drives on the portion of the block outside the two tiles wide limit.
  
• The author time must be between 40 seconds and 1 minute 30 seconds.
  
• GPS trigger can be outside the two tile wide limit.
  

Deadlines

• All tracks should be submitted before the end of Sunday 3rd, September 2017 PDT
  
• Public voting will go from September 11th to September 24th
  
• Results are calculated on September 25th

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)

General Rules

• MTC should be present in the map name. Example: MTC - Skyfall (check that any special characters do not break in the TM or MX track name)
  
• Maximum 2 maps per author.
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map counts as one track for each author involved.
  
• The track should be built in the most recent version of the game available.
  
  
• All environments are allowed
  
• Custom objects are allowed, if embedded or included in the titlepack.
  
• Blockmixing is allowed
  
• Stadium64 map base is allowed
  
• The only custom titlepacks allowed this month, besides the base titles:
  • TMPlus Lagoon (55MB)
    
  • Competition (aka ESL) (249MB)
    
  • RallyCross (174MB)
  
  
• Envimixing is not allowed this month
  
• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks are not allowed

How to Submit

• To enter a track, simply upload and post a link to your submission here:
  MTC August 2017: Submission Thread
  
• You can update your map within the deadline as many times as you want. Though be mindful of replays submitted to your map!

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a 50/50 mixture of the public voting system and the internal judging

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a map, but the vote for your own map will not count (give your own map a 10).
  
• Every map 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, and if you have any questions, please ask!

By the way, here's some interesting figures I've compiled for maximum sizes possible this month:

Canyon: 39H x 32L x 2W (includes below canyon level)
Valley: 39H x 48L x 2W (includes tunnel levels)
Lagoon: 47H x 48L x 2W (includes tunnel levels)
Stadium: 39H x 32L x 2W (includes tunnel levels)
Stadium64: 64H x 64L x 2W (includes tunnel levels)

H = height
L = length
W = width

Not saying you have to build using the entire space available, but this gives some indication which bases have the most space.

Wow, glad I logged in to check if there was an MTC, absolutely love this theme and I have to take a crack at it now!

Nice Line!

These two were added to the rules after the initial post:

• The vehicle may exit and return to the two tiles wide area as part of the route, as long as it never touches any surface outside the limit while doing so.
  
• GPS trigger can be outside the two tile wide limit.

From Discord:

bcs| Keissla says:
Is this block allowed if you only drive one way? the other way would then be scenery which is allowed outside the 2 wide

The answer: yes that would be allowed

good old tmx theme, will give a try.

Hm, I started to get some ideas of a Canyon/LagoonCar map, but then I saw envimix isn't a thing this month.
Why is that? Because of the TM2 titlepack still not updated?

Poutrel says:
I saw envimix isn't a thing this month.
Why is that? Because of the TM2 titlepack still not updated?

Yes, exactly. Not everyone has access to the TM2 titlepack since it's not in the store anymore. This can also affect judging. Plus there's a bug with using mesh editor objects with TM2 titlepack. They don't display properly. So I decided to disallow it this month. Sorry. If Nadeo surprises us with a new version of the TM2 titlepack this month, I might change that rule mid-MTC. But I wouldn't count on it. Sorry!

---

Some more clarifications from Discord...

Clearvision says:
What if the block is on the outside and the car is inside the area?

Voyager made this example screenshot. You're not driving on that block, but just using it as a border and possibly hitting it as a wallbang. The block is outside the two tile wide area, but the car never leaves the area. It's a grey area. But it is allowed.

fredair says:
what about blockmixed blue ground outside of the 2 blocks? You can put them there (using white fabric roof) and hide the white roof with tmnf (and convert the map afterwards) so it is invisible

If the blue ground (in Stadium) exists as part of the route outside of the two tile wide area, it would still be considered a surface, regardless of how it got placed there. Same as grass. So it is not allowed.

You can of course drive on blue ground inside the two tile wide area.

I'm not sure how many people use the "helpers" grid in TM. I don't use it usually, but for this MTC it can be a nice way to check your map to make sure all the driving surfaces are inside the two tile wide area.

To turn it on, hit "M" in the editor, and then you'll see this nice grid, which stays active even when placing objects:


*Credit to skyslide for the heads up about this hotkey.

Are we allowed to use blocks outside of 2 block wide radius to change car directions, like, it flies outside of 2 block wide area, hits a block and comes back to 2 block radius?

krismayhem says:
Are we allowed to use blocks outside of 2 block wide radius to change car directions, like, it flies outside of 2 block wide area, hits a block and comes back to 2 block radius?

No, the only time the car can use blocks outside of the two tile wide area is when the car itself never leaves the area. For example, in Voyager006's screenshot above using the wall at the edge of the area as a wallbang.