Welcome to the Monthly Track Contest (MTC) for February 2018, hosted by Arkive!

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

Theme of the Month: Rise Over Run
Build a course that's consistently ascending or descending.


---


Theme Specific Rules

• Every CP, Start, and End block must be either above or below the previously passed CP/Start/End
  
• Order must be completely ascending or descending; you cannot place CPs ascending for one half and descending for the other half
  
• Only the aforementioned pieces count; all other pieces can be placed at any height
  
• For ascending, a piece is considered above its predecessor if the bottom of the piece is at least one grid unit above the bottom of the predecessor piece
  
• For descending, a piece is considered below its predecessor if the top of the piece is at least one grid unit below the top of the predecessor piece
  
• Only the primary end needs to comply with the ascending/descending theme; alternative ends may be at any height
  
• CP/Start/End items will be measured by all heights the item's selection bound occupies; see the forum post below for further details.
  
• Multilap starts are allowed if the laps are set to 1

Example of a valid entry:



All required blocks are in ascending order. There is an end below CP2, but it is not the primary end. While the top of both CPs are the same, the bottom of CP2 one is above the bottom of CP1, so it is considered higher.

Example of an invalid entry:



While the CPs are both below the start, the top of both CPs are in line. As such, CP2 has not "descended" from CP1 and is invalid, even though its block extends below CP1. Likewise, though an end is below CP2, the primary end is in line with CP2 and has not descended.

Example of an odd, but valid CP pair:



This technically works as either ascending or descending, since the top and bottom of CP2 are below/above the top and bottom of CP1. If you were to reverse the CP order, then this would not work in either case.

Allowed:

• All environments
  
• Blockmixing
  
• Envimixing
  
• Embedded items
  
• TM2 TitlePack (for Envimixing)
  
• Stadium64 base
  
• Mods (if a locator is included)

Not Allowed:

• Multilap
  
• Player made TitlePacks
  
• Press Forward, Left, Right, or similar tracks

General Rules

• You may submit ONE TRACK maximum
  
• Duo tracks are allowed; but each map counts as one track for each author involved
  
• Your author time must be between 30 seconds and 2 minutes
  
• MTC should be present in the track name. Example: "MTC - Upsy Daisy" or "going down (mtc)" (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



---

Tips

• The default "CursorCoords" plugin lists the lowest height of the selected block in the Y coordinate spot
  
• Clicking the "Block Properties" button in the upper left of the editor lets you see the important blocks outlined



---

Deadlines

• Your track should be uploaded before the end of Sunday February 25th, 2018 at midnight EST
  
• Public voting will go from February 26th to March 4th
  
• Results are calculated the week of March 4th



---

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

• To submit a track, upload it to MX and post a link to your submission here:
  MTC February 2018: Submissions Thread
  
• You can update your track within the deadline as many times as you want

Judging: Public and internal
We will use a 50/50 mixture of the public voting system and the internal judging

• Everyone is allowed to judge, even players who submitted a track, but the vote for your own track will not count (give your own map a 10)
  
• You must have access to all environments and vote for all tracks for your votes to count
  
• Every track will be judged with marks from 1 (bad) to 10 (good)
  
• The internal judging will note some detailed feedback with points based on categories (Theme [20p], Creativity [10p], Funfactor [10p], Detailwork/Scenery/MT [10p])

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please ask!

I didn't see anything about a minimum checkpoint limit, is there one?

There's no minimum CP requirement, no.

... says:
Multilap starts are allowed if the laps are set to 1

If I were to build a multilap map for that MTC do I need to put in a real ending block that would follow the ascending or descending pattern, or is it fine to go back to the starting point for the end of the lap (with no ending block whatsoever)?

You would need to add a new end block. Functionally, any multilap start/finish blocks should only be used as start blocks. That said, it's perfectly fine to use the block as an alternative end, just not the primary one.

Got it

Can the CP descend by more than one? for example CP1 y=8 and CP2 y=5?

Yes, the amount a CP ascends/descends by does not matter.

Due to a bit of debate and a handy item by Xrayjay, I have removed the item restriction. Details on how to judge CP/Start/End item heights are below.

CP/Start/End items will be measured by all heights the item's selection bound occupies. Hold ctrl and hover over an item while in item mode to show the item's selection bound. If it's hard to tell if an item extends into a height area, use Xrayjay's ruler item to get accurate measurements. Examples are provided below, and don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions or just want me to check if an item is in a valid spot.

In this example, we'll be using a long item placed at an angle. For demonstration purposes, pretent it's a CP item. First, let's get the item's lowest height.



Here, the item looks like it's in height 6, which the ruler shows is between 0 and 8.



Highlighting the item proves that, indeed, the item's lowest point is at about 1 on the ruler, which is in the height 6 region. Therefore, we have proven that this item's lowest point is at height 6.

Now, let's find the item's highest height. Here, the item appears to be in height 8, which is 16 to 24 on the ruler.



However, highlighting the item shows that it actually extends up to about 30. Since we are using the selection bound rather than visuals, this item's highest point is at height 9 rather than height 8.



You will also notice that the CursorCoords plugin shows that the item is at height 7. Items are unreliable with this plugin, and therefore you cannot use this plugin to determine an item's height.

Is there any min/max time limit?