I've been playing some version of Trackmania for probably 20 years now. I started with (I believe United Forever). Made a lot of maps. Good times.

I introduced my stepson to UF three summers ago and then last summer he told me there was a NEW Trackmania. I told him I knew about Turbo and Shoot, but he said no -- just regular Trackmania.

So I downloaded it through the EPIC games launcher. And I love it. Bought a year club membership.

And I'm back to making tracks again. Now, here's my problem:

There are no environment folders on the version of Trackmania I have now. So when I try to download and use a 'thing' off one of the various exchanges I can't seem to get them to show up in the track editor. By 'thing' I mean "block" or "item" -- not sure what terminology to use. Basically just "SECTION OF TRACK".

So first off, what ARE the different exchanges for -- that is, which games do they correspond to?

Trackmania^2 Exchange is for what game? I don't think the one I have because that one is just called Trackmania, not Trackmania with a tiny 2 after it.

Shootmania Exchange -- self-explanatory.

Trackmania Exchange -- is this one for my game?

If so, why are there only maps and map packs available for download? Shouldn't there also be a place for "SECTIONS OF TRACK" -- whatever those are called?

Then there is also Item Exchange. What do THOSE pieces go to?

Why are there no environments in my Trackmania?
Which exchange(s) should I be using?
Where in hell do I put the track pieces I download from whichever of these exchanges I'm supposed to be using so that they will actually show up in the map editor?

Thank you,

Jack

Haha the Trackmania franchise spaghetti has claimed another victim. No, you're not the only one who thinks it's confusing, and these are very valid questions. Let me try to clear your mind a little bit:

The game you are playing is Trackmania, sometimes referred to as Trackmania 2020, or TM2020. It has only one environment, Stadium.

The track sharing site for Trackmania is trackmania.exchange, that's where we are right now.

Trackmania² is an earlier game with it's own client (called ManiaPlanet). It has several different environments, including an older iteration of Stadium.

The track sharing site for Trackmania² is Mania Exchange. If you play solely Trackmania 2020, you can ignore it.

Item Exchange is a website where players can share their custom items for both Trackmania 2020 and Trackmania². The item page will indicate which version the item is for, and there's a filter to search for items only made for Trackmania 2020.

To install items, you need to place the files in Documents/Trackmania/Items. Once downloaded, restart your game and you should find the items in your items folder (accessed with the F3 key in the editor).

Please note that TM2020 and TM² items/tracks are NOT cross compatible. You can only access them with the game they were made in.

I hope this was helpful, please ask if something is still unclear!

Yes it was helpful. Thank you.

I have another question if I can impose. I'm trying to make a scale model of my hometown because I'm homesick. So my thought was I could use the 256^3 map someone made -- and then import a giant gbx file that was basically just a plane in 3D that had as its surface a picture of a Google map of the roads of my hometown. Then I could rotate it so it laid flat on the ground, and use it as a reference to build all the roads in my hometown on top of it. And then after that start adding buildings... I know. Huge project.

But so far I am having no luck.

If you had to do the same thing, what approach would you take?

I've tried downloading Blender and using the 'import images as planes' technique but I can't get the Nadeo Importer to recognize it, even though I'm pretty sure I followed all the instructions.

I've looked for giant signs, and only found a mega sign pack for 'mania' that apparently won't work with 2020 bc I put it in the Skins/Advertisement/Any folder and restarted and it doesn't show up. I've even gone into the .loc files and gotten the URLs but they end in .dds so I can't even get a sign to accept their URLs.'

I'm going to keep at this until I figure out a way to do it. Hopefully you can speed the process a little. Thank you for taking the time,

Jack

Oh, just so you get some idea of my level of dedication to this project?

I took a giant hi-res snapshot off of google earth, calculated the scale, and realized that I needed to cut two halves of the file into 24 sections, so they'd be small enough to open in Macromedia Flash, so that I could then cut each 1/24th into 24 equal pieces. The plan being to upload each one of these, and then lay signs down flat and ... you get the idea. But 2x24x24 = over 1,100 pictures... And when you have the 256^3 empty map loaded, every addition you make takes 3x as long... so it literally takes 10 minutes to do 12 pictures. I knew that was unsustainable.

19.2 hours. Yeah, under optimum conditions. But I was hoping to somehow streamline the solution.

In other words, if someone can make a 256^3 map, can't they make a GBX file that is say, 256^2 that you can add a giant picture to?

I like how you just got back into the game and you jump straight into a massively complex project.

Did you ever finish the project?