Welcome to the ManiaExchange Monthly Track Contest (MTC) December 2019 hosted by Rexine!

In the MTC your task is to build a track on a given theme. Later, all the submitted tracks are rated and a winner is determined.

🚧 Theme of the Month: Power of Two² 🎁
Theme by Clearvision

Your map has to be built inside a box of volume 256





---


Theme Rules



• Make your track fit into a 256 volume box (e.g. 8x8x4, 16x4x4, 32x2x4...)
  
• Scenery has to be built inside of the box *(for Lagoon it can extend outside only so far as needed to fit your blocks inside of the box)*
  
• The car can go outside of the box so long as it doesn't touch any blocks that lie outside



---


Allowed



• All environments and titlepacks
  
• Blockmixing
  
• Embedded items
  
• Custom time of day
  
• Mods
  
• TMUF cars
  
• 64x64 maps

Not Allowed



• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks
  
• Maps that require Openplanet
  
• Trial maps



---


General Rules



• You may submit one track maximum
  
• Duo tracks are allowed, but each map counts as one track for each author involved
  
• MTC should be present in the track name
  Examples: Boxed In (MTC) ; [mtc] I Have the Powerrrrr! (of 2) ; MTC – ᴹʸᵐᵃᵖ ᵁᵖʰᵉʳᵉ (check that any special characters do not break in the TM or MX track name)
  
• The track should be built in the most recent version of the game



---


Deadlines



• Your track should be uploaded before the end of Monday, December 30th at midnight PST
  
• Tracks submitted within the deadline will have the 31st to make any last minute edits
  
• Public voting will go from January 1st to January 8th, or until the internal judging is finished
  
• Results will be posted January 9th at the earliest

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)



---


How to Submit



• Upload your map to this map-pack and optionally post a link to your map in this thread
  
• You can update your track within the deadline as many times as you want
  
• Submitted courses may be updated within 24 hours of submissions closing, in case of any necessary last minute changes. New courses may NOT be submitted in this time frame
  
• Updating your track after the revision deadline has passed will lead to a disqualification. You are free to update your track once the results are published

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a mixture of 70/30 between internal judging and public voting if there is 1 public voter, 60/40 for 2-3, and 50/50 for 4+



• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a map (your score on your own map will be removed, so give it whatever you want!)
  
• Every map will be judged with a decimal number from 0 (bad) to 10 (good). All votes greater than/equal to 7 or less than/equal to 4 require constructive feedback on why you gave it that score
  
• Note that you have to judge a stage entirely! You cannot judge only half of it. If you are not able to finish the map, your vote can still count! Please only leave that as a very last resort, and still judge the entire map fairly
  
• You need to verify your vote by making a post here (for example: "Voted ")
  
• One best and one worst vote for each map will be ignored if more than 10 people vote
  
• The overall score will be a mixture of the average public score and the average internal score
  
• You must have access to all environments and vote on all maps for your votes to count

Good luck!
If you have any questions, please ask

32x2x4 would mean for exemple 32 lenght, 2 width & 4 height?

No, it can be any combination since the volume would remain the same.

Indeed. The valid combinations you can have are as follows, with the lengths ordered with the longest first, and the shortest last:

[64 x 2 x 2] - Requires 64x64 base
[64 x 4 x 1] - Requires 64x64 base
32 x 8 x 1
32 x 4 x 2
16 x 16 x 1
16 x 8 x 2
16 x 4 x 4
8 x 8 x 4

You also have to take into account the height of the blocks you are using - most starts, finishes, checkpoints and such are a 2x1x1 block. A simple way to check this is by comparing it to a platform block, or by trying to place the same block one step above them. If they are taller than the platform block (and thus, if you place the block then hit page up, the block placement cursor is red) then it's at least 2 blocks high.

Also, note that the underground - as in below the default level - counts in terms of the size of the map. For example, if you have a map which is 16 blocks long and 4 blocks wide, and you have the track dip down two blocks below the ground, that means you only have two blocks of space above ground. I took this into account when I was making my map, as it uses an underground section one block below the ground, meaning that I only had seven blocks of airspace to play with instead of eight.

I will mention as an addendum that the 'underground' CPs and multilap in Stadium are two blocks high, but I highly doubt anyone would try to make a map which is just fully 'underground' there.

Finally, terrain editing. With this, I would say that any terrain editing counts as part of the scenery - with maybe the exception of the ground/water in Lagoon, Valley and Canyon. So if you use Dirt in Stadium, the size of the dirt area must fit within the box, while making hills outside of the box in Valley or Canyon would most likely go against the rules.

Yes, terraforming has to be inside of the rectangle.

So its not allowed to just cover the whole builing area in dirt that you can build dirt hills inside the box?

The fences at the side make it kinda hard to use dirt in any way then

Yeah it'll be a challenge for dirt, but it's still not allowed. You can at least use the dirt blocks that don't require hills unhindered.

This is a great MTC idea.

/me tries to decide if I could make 2x2x64 high work...

magnets

Because the Lagoon environment relies on terraforming to build just about anything I'm allowing terrain to extend outside of the legal building area ONLY as far as required to fit the whole track on it.

This is actually an extremely benevolent act of leniency on my part because Lagoon annoys the s**t out of me