CCP#11 - Twinster Helix

CCP#11 - Twinster Helix

You may or may not want to turn up the music volume while playing it.
Best played with little to no bloom.

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Behind the name

Map name is a mix or Twister and Twin Helix. Their meaning both comes from the rollercoaster glossary :

• Twister – Describes a roller coaster layout that features many turns, crossovers and track that runs in many directions.
  
• Helix – A turn on a roller coaster course that forms a radius of more than 360-degrees.

Twin Helix, because at first i wanted to have that structure (double helix) in the map but instead i decided the helix in place would be a two-way one.

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Behind the scenes

You can find an album over here with a commented screenshot of each backup version of the map i had, for a total of 34. I started on October 27th (MP4.0) and continued until November 12th. Then i waited an answer regarding copyrights to include a game logo in the track. On November 27th (MP4.1), without any answer (finally got the approval, December the 12th :x) i decided to do it anyway and to finish the map. The final version was done on November 29th.
Overall, i put dozens of hours in the map, maybe around 80h total or more if we include the time passed outside the editor, trying to do different stuff like animated signs. As soon as i discovered how to do it, i was a bit like a game developer discovering particles. Note that this is only my third map. There's a lot of stuff i did for the first time with this map. Obviously the animated signs, but also the introduction (spoiler: i'm very bad with camera management), using a mod, creating custom blocks out of the nadeo ones.

I had several strange issues, probably due to the old mix-mapping that OpenPlanet allows you to use. I needed it for one block in the map to remove a checkpoint clip that is connected to a magnet block to do a platform/road transition where you don't fly off. Sometimes, the small curved grid used in the decoration to form a ball would disappear in one of the 3 ones. You can see in the album above the shadow disappearing from the "More Deco Track 1.5a" version to "More Deco Track 1.6". I didn't see that until a bit later. And it kept occuring here and there. Also after 4.1 came in, as soon as i removed the checkpoint clip with old mix-mapping, the game thought shadows were calculated in high and at the same time not calculated (full details).

At one point after i stopped recording every replay and started deleting unfinished runs, i was above 2600 tries on the map (including ~80 finished runs). Author time is far from great and i assume the best times will be sub 1:20. As much as i tried to get a good time, i never succeeded to have a "perfect" run for my level. I did beat my previous best time before the release but the run was worse all along except the finish so i decided to keep the 1:23.40 run as AT instead.

Last note here, i was so close to the embedding size limit of 1 Mo i couldn't add anything, even a 7 Ko item. As a little anecdote, with 4.1, the 64 bits client wouldn't allow me to save the map without OpenPlanet new feature (infinite embedding size) because the game considered i was above the limit.

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Behind the style & scenery

Mixing speed and drifts is probably what i like the most. Add a nice route and you've a fun (speedtech) track with a good amount of difficulty to keep it interesting. Like i say in my MX profile: "Futuristic racing games are my favorites, hence why i'm trying to create tracks that aren't too much flat.". That's also why this map has 2 references to a quite old racing game now that i quite liked even if there weren't much tracks in it for instance.
Speaking of references, you'll find several other ones, mostly on the signs.

Scenery-wise, i don't like to overdo, and i went for my own kind i guess (trash you said?), with custom blocks being a huge part of it, like the towers. The track is mainly supported with magnetic suspension. I like how it renders at the end (especially the fact you can interpret a background to the map), despite the towers also limited which blocks i could use in the scenery as most of them wouldn't suit well, at least for what i aimed for and the global vision i had for the map. The mod helps quite a lot to make the track feels better.

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Acknowledgements

•   skyslide, for the release of his Stadiumset v4 for embed. Several of these blocks are used in the map and are taking a huge place.
  
• All the authors involved in the X-Mas mod (stadium). Red version is used in this track.
  
•   Akiliyh, for hosting the event, and the few feedbacks he gave me that induced more scenery added, and a different safe finish. He unfortunately didn't have time to help me improve the intro, so i did what i could .
  
•   eFFecT, for the showcase of the map. You can check all the CCP 2018 showcases in this playlist.
  
• Admins of ManiaCDN. Despite i'm not using it this time due to copyrights stuff. I gathered everything that aren't static pictures elsewhere.
  
• You, if you played the map*. Feel free to leave a comment, either you liked the map or you didn't and/or found issues on it. I may fix it later.

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*There's a very small cutscene for you in the map to find by driving offroad. As a hint it's at ground level so no need to climb in the snow.

If wanted, i can share the blocks i created via a resource on ManiaPark for instance. Not sure it's worth anything though. That was the first time i did it and they're not optimized at all as well as far from perfects.

If one thing is missing imo, it's 1 or 2 tubes / tunnels. But that's for another map, maybe in 64x64 this time.