How to Build Any Banked Turn in the TrackMania Mesh Modeler

A tutorial on how to build custom items (banked turns) in the Mesh Modeler in TrackMania 2020 Map Editor
Comment you have any tips, questions, or better ways to do it!

[@dbeevr]

It still amazes me how Trackmania is basically a custom build 3D-editor.

[@DennisVlaanderen]

7:24 it's also worth noting that subdividing increases the amount of triangles the GPU needs to render which will negatively impact game performance if an item gets too big or if you have many items with large numbers of subdivisions. Generally a good goal to aim for is having less than 20k vertices on a finished model.

[@FelixIsGood]

It's also worth noting that triangles mostly are not the limiting factor today. For the GPU those blocks are batched together ( Instancing ), means that this should be a single draw call, also blocks you do not see are excluded from rendering anyway. However you can still go over what your GPU can render but those limits are high these days.

[@fatzzke]

Im getting major blender donut tutorial vibes. Good job!

[@adamk284]

My thoughts exactly :)

[@Freiti1098]

Thanks. I struggle so hard with the editor. This is great help Looking forward to see more 😃

[@Robit_Tv]

Excellent video! I have just begun playing around with the editor, and haven't touched the item editing modes yet. I think this explained the basics perfectly to get started.

[@nikel3246]

Great we need more tutorials like this! 😎👍

[@Kikkacsa]

I have to ask. At the end there, you have 17000 faces for a turn. How big is the resulting item in Kb? Great vid, thank you!

[@mattdto]

Thanks, that's a great question! That one item is 431.6 kB. The max for a map is 4 MB, which means you can have like 10 items built this way. Reducing the number of faces should reduce the item size further, but too few faces will make the block choppy to drive on. More faces is smoother for curves. In the video, I did the subdivide twice, but I think doing it once would be fine. Also, we can reduce the faces by skipping the extrude step and making the block just a flat plane (in the video we would move the item up by 2m instead of extruding to make to 2m thick). Then, cover up the edges with other scenery so the players can't tell. (so it would be 0m thick instead of 2m thick, just a 2d item).

[@meehdrescher]

You can still optimize it a bit by not subdividing it as many times, just experiment a bit!

[@TheJackLPs]

@@mattdto you can also optimize it by keeping the amount of faces on the top surface you drive on but reducing it on the sides and the bottom since you‘re never driving there. Also removing the texture on said sides helps keeping the file size down. Great tutorial!

[@mfnbpwnz]

Great video. Thanks!

[@L33Tbii]

this tutorial saved my life :) ♥

[@Seagate2k]

holy crap... i never knew that the map editor(creation) was this advanced. now i understand how other people make these smooth twist and turns etc, but damn!!!!! the learning curve is kinda steep xD got a long way to go still :) gg nice vid

[@mattdto]

Thanks!!! :)

[@PioMine]

Great vid. keep it up!

[@nachoqt]

Learnt a lot from this. 👀

[@kanvolu]

Great video, thank you man

[@geckoztom]

bro i love you so much for this video!

[@Dizasteroner]

Amazing again ^^ Thanks

[@phlipclip5097]

Wish I weren't color blind. Also, this was the first map tutorial I watched and thought all mappers made maps this way. Booted up Trackmania a month ago and found the block layout and thought it was new haha.

[@dynstinn]

i am a 3d modeler and animator and thank god i understand what you said, the pints are called vertices by the way

[@mattdto]

Thanks!

[@pumpkincell]

rl good keep up good work

[@TheREALSaver]

I think this tutorial is really well made, so good job! :D However, when I tried to make a banked turn, I had one little problem which I am not sure how to fix. The turn itself turned out great, but there are parts where it doesn't exactly line up with the road itself, the road sticks out a bit. If I did anything wrong, let me know, because I can't figure it out, and I did it multiple times xD

[@mattdto]

Thanks! If you want you can post a screenshot of the issue in the TrackMania Scenery Hub discord, discord.gg/EZtyB5rM and we can chat there to figure out what happened. There is a #mesh-modeler channel with lots of people who can help out (including me)

[@TheREALSaver]

@@mattdto I'll make sure to do that later! Thank you very much for the advice Matt!

[@TheREALSaver]

@@mattdto Update on this: Tried this again for the 3rd time now, it now works well, and it lines up perfectly. I still haven't found out what was the problem with my first attempts, but atleast it works now. Thanks for the advice regardless!

[@UnjustMule82]

@@TheREALSaver awesome, I’m glad it worked this time! The mesh modeler can be pretty finicky

[@nickmack7282]

this has to be the most awkward 3D editing tool, props on getting it to work mate!

[@mattdto]

Thanks!! Yeah it's a pain to learn, but super powerful once you do!

[@GodCallsMeDivine]

1:58 what did the default cube do to you 😔

[@ca1ebyt6]

yes i need this for kekl mapping

[@mattdto]

Do it! You can even make a whole map with deformation. I did this for a previous kekl map: trackmania.exchange/maps/65841/kekl-budget-rainbow-road

[@hondo190]

Great. Thank you! Could you also make a tutorial for the rounded turn? That seems way more difficult.

[@mattdto]

Check out this tutorial! Basically, you can start with the shape of an existing block, and then deform it to make a turn. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4ewdqR6r6-Jns0si=41KiDNH90bCC1QvP

[@tntaco07]

Even out of blender the default cube cant escape its fate

[@NotKnafo]

no snapping on rotation tool?

[@TobiTheHuman]

Why isnt there a function that just lets you snap the new piece to the existing one via knot points? would be so much easier...

[@tetwa9350]

you can use the normal banked turn and scale it in the editor. sure, it doesnt look just as nice, but it still works in 9/10 cases

[@altonito777]

​@@tetwa9350 at least I did not watch this video for no reason as I may do that ! Thanks

[@tetwa9350]

@@altonito777 there's also an asset pack on item exchange with a sheer endless amount of turns, if you don't find what you're looking for there then... idk

[@geckoztom]

I was trying to make my perfect 'dream-set' after watching the video,...I think i did the exact same thing, but it keeps screwing up with more complex (bigger turns with sloped edges) shapes for me. Like the inner part of the turn has all parts sticking out and the deforming created a face every step of deformation. Im currently trying with subdividing the shape or using a smaller base than 1 lenght, but i hate how you get so many edges fast and make the item too big. Guess i'll just stick to platform shapes and editting existing blocks lol. Or i need to find out how to delete unwanted faces

[@mattdto]

Thanks for watching! Yeah I think my new video has a better way of doing it this and isn’t as laggy: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4ewdqR6r6-Jns0

[@phlipclip5097]

Just found out you can't really undo deformations so easily. I kept having that problem because I kept messing up the deformation selection.

[@TheDarkSaplings]

Why isn't there a laps track in Trackmania 2020? 🤔🤔🤔 I really love laps track.

[@ArthurPierrot]

How do you do a banked to flat turn ? When I try, then angle at the end is not perfectly flat

[@mattdto]

Great question! I’ll make a video on it to explain. Essentially, you have to start by making an item from an existing block like 5-2-7-4 to get the curve right.

[@mattdto]

I just posted a tutorial on flat to bank turn: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4ewdqR6r6-Jns0

[@tonyg1011]

very smooth but i feel like i can make that with the normal advanced editor

[@stupid_french]

Thx for the tutorial ^^ really helpful

[@kindathor]

I'm doing literally exactly what he's doing, but the step at 12:21 my block doesn't move over, it just makes more faces and creates this weird funky turn. Instead of a curve, it goes straight to the point where you move it on the red axis, then makes a sharp 90 degree turn, goes for the 80m and then makes a another sharp right where it ends. I'm following him click for click, number for number, I don't know what's going on.

[@mattdto]

This sounds like it might be a difference between the dark green dot, and the yellow green dot in the middle of the face. Do you have more than one yellow-green rectangle showing up? (The thing that you can move around) The dark green dot lets you create more of those rectangles like I used in the purple metal pipe video. You have to click the yellow green dot once to select it, and then click on it again to move it. If you click on the dark green dot, it will leave it in place and instead create a new yellow green rectangle. Hopefully this helps!

[@kindathor]

@@mattdto oooh gotcha yes that's what I was doing thank you xD

[@eddythebreaker9622]

kinda like solid edge

[@crystalkalem9289]

Watching this video is like chewing wasabi covered shards of glass oh my fucking hell this is torture.

[@glorysynex]

Fucking legend

[@Nolaf9]

I still have one question how to make 180 degres turn not 90 degres

[@mattdto]

It works best to make two 90 degree turns and put them together, because then you can use them on other tracks. The other option is do the first 90, then click the dark green dot, move it, and click to create another light green rectangle (with a dot in the middle) and you can move it to where the turn ends.

[@mattdto]

Eyebo’s tutorial does a 180: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pKPOqHWElNR3j5o

[@Nolaf9]

Thanks didnt expect response so quickly

[@1324marcus]

if u press make item from block on a 1x1 straight block of grass u coulda skipped the first 10 minutes

[@MtPunkin]

Nadeo has a serious issue. they need to make doing stuff like this easier. It is currently way to difficult to do this stuff, even with good tutorials like this.

[@mattdto]

Yeah ideally they would let you select the surface when you place a block, the same way as the color picker. Because right now if you want each shape block in each surface (ice, plastic, dirt, etc), you get way too many items to organize.

[@plinkTM]

I made a mess of this mesh turn 🤣

[@mattdto]

xdd try this approach, I think it works a little better: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4ewdqR6r6-Jns0

[@plinkTM]

@@mattdto Thanks! It was a lot simpler than this one!

[@jorgennorstrom]

There are so many better ways Nadeo could go about making custon track pieces. sadly its gated behind a pretty steep learning curve

[@brandonstymis8225]

Xbox has nothing compared to this we have the basic things