| Tips & Tricks to help your maps get noticed | 12 Jan, 2012 |
| Shredster7 | (8 comments, 904 views) |
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The way I discover "gems" amongst the sea of maps on MX by using the "Random" option under "Find Tracks", and I'm sure a lot of users do the same thing on the site.
Now, picture this: You've spent hours, or even days, working on this killer map. You're super excited to upload it, and you casually skip over the screenshot uploader. Nobody cares about some stupid picture, right? Wrong. When I'm repeatedly hitting that Random Tracks button, I always ignore tracks without a screenshot. I don't know what the track looks like. I don't know what to expect in said track. I don't know if said track is worth the download. It sounds cruel - and it is - but the default No Screenshot image makes the track feel unprofessional, and from there, the human brain almost automatically assumes that the track behind the download link is sloppy or unimaginative. For all I know, I just skipped over your pride and joy without a second thought. 
"But how do I take screnshots?" You ask. Well, there are two methods. The first method is the Print Screen (Prnt Scrn) key on your Keyboard. Just go into the editor, angle the camera in a way that highlights a cool portion of the track, and press Print Screen. From there, you can paste the screenshot into any image editor (I prefer Paint.NET) and resize, recolor, and caption the image until your satisfied with the image (Make sure it's a .JPEG that's 400 pixels wide and 290 pixels tall). If you want to get really fancy with your screenshots, you can utilize the MediaTracker to include the Car in the screenshot! (Protip: When recording the MediaTracker ghost, try to slow down a little bit and swing out a tiny bit more on the turns.) Once you've recorded a MediaTracker ghost, go into the In-Race MT editor and move the camera around until you've found a good looking spot. Use the Playback controls until the car is near said spot, then move the camera around until your satisfied. Once your ready, hit the Take Screenshot button near the top of the menu, adjust your settings, and presto! You now have an image waiting in your My Documents > ManiaPlanet folder. Congratulations, you've already greatly increased the chances of your track getting downloaded! But there's still another issue to deal with. So I'm browsing the random tracks as usual, when I stumble across a track that has "Mini" in the name. NO. Just... NO. Another download repellent is bad names. Generic names like "Mini Superspeed" or random names like "Elephant" generally imply that the track is either more of the same generic track design, or a really, really bad LOL type track. However, an offshoot of a random name can be utilized into something much more likely to grab someone's attention, I.E. "The Speeding Elephant" (Dibs on that name, BTW). Other good names could be based off of Texture Mods ("Chill Out") or portmanteaus ("Column-seum"). Sometimes, outright crazy might do the trick too ("Mansion of Mushrooms"), provided it still makes some sense. TL:DR, There is a print screen key on your keyboard and you WILL have basic image editing software. Also, make sure to name your creation something unique. |
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| metoxys writes ... | 16, Jan, 2012 |
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tl;dr ALL THE THINGS
PNG, not JPG. JPG will cause noob artefacts |
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| chuckie writes ... | 13, Jan, 2012 |
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Of course more people will try your track if you have a screenshot, so I hope most mappers will make screenshots. It doesn't need to be a good one, sometimes just an overview of the track is enough.
I've tried a lot of tracks here on MX, with and without screenshots. Many of the tracks with screenshot was bad. (Seen objective on) So a track with screenshot doesn't automatically make it good, but of course more players will try your track. (in most cases.) I can say the same thing about tracks without a screenshot. A track isn't automatically bad if it don't have a screenshot, but more players will probably skip the track. TLDR; No screenshot does not equal a bad track. Screenshot does not equal a good track. |
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| dreadmullet writes ... | 13, Jan, 2012 |
Excellent guide! 
Don't forget the track description. I usually don't download maps that have no description. If you've put hours of your time into making a great map, you could at least write a few words about it. Also, if half of your description is made out of typos, that's going to look really bad. (It's "you're" not "your"!) |
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| tcq writes ... | 13, Jan, 2012 |
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Have to agree with the screen shot thing. If there is a map without, i usually don't bother to download it. If there isn't a screen shot, but the other described this map a little (e.g my first map, i tried this and that), than i'm interested in downloading it, even without screen. But if both lacks, than no way i download it.
About the name giving, if you take a look at the bunch of Mr.DVD and his individual map names, i have to agree. Usually a map name should point out what the map is about. And in this case i would say to call it mini should be okay. Because if you are planing to create a bunch of them (e.g. 10 mini maps) you would like to make them seen as a part for your work, so that another player might check out your other maps. But that's only my suggestion. @Enai Siaion That might be a good idea, depending of the aim of the author. If you put your map into the MTC you get a feedback according to the rules of the contest, which doesn't mirror your mapping style at all. |
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| fraxyl writes ... | 13, Jan, 2012 |
Those are good ideas, but I think what people really want is instant gratification and I think this is ok to a point, but what you really need is patience. People will eventually look at your tracks and if they're fun, they'll get played. Looking for screenshots is ok, but you cannot tell how a map feels to drive on by the screenshot. 
Link removed. Don't track spam! |
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| md writes ... | 12, Jan, 2012 |
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elephant is an amazing name for a track. i'm gonna use it.
as for the rest of your post, hi5 bro
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| XT kruemelyeti writes ... | 12, Jan, 2012 |
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one other option: start a screenshot competition.
i really second that! tracks without a screenshot aren't interesting, tracks which are called "mini" aren't individual. i think when i've built 20, maybe 30 tracks or even more i guess i will be remembering every track just by it's name. well, imagine you've built 30 minis, i think it's hard to distinguish them all. Hopefully, some people will read this, because there are maybe some really cool talents out there, who are just getting ignored, because they cannot take a damn screenshot, very good blog! |
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| Enai Siaion writes ... | 12, Jan, 2012 |
I'm guilty.  I thought minis would be more popular, I thought unusual names ("Pantokrator") would help, but at least I have screenshots.
Anyway, another tip is to do anything you can to make your track stand out on the new tracks page. I prefix new tracks with "»»»". I'm not saying you should xXx$$*SPAM*LIKE*THIS*$$$xXX but it can help. Post a replay too, so the track really jumps out on the new tracks list. And if you are really interested in feedback so your tracks will be as good as they can be, make a track for the MTC. You'll get lots of downloads and then the judges will look at it. |
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