How to "map for ET leagues"?

[tcq]

This guide focus mostly on TM2: Canyon, but you will find the "basic requirements" useful for all TM-Editions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How to map for ET?

First: If you are planning to submit a map for an ET competition, read the map requirements for this specific league. They will be announced in a thread in the responsive sub forum.
Before you upload a map, check (coppers limit, mood, CP-distance, cuts, length)if your map respects this requirements.

Second: If you are unsure about the requirements try older maps or ask in the forum.

Third: If an admin asks you to make changes, try to do them, because this will increase the possibility for your map to be chosen for the admin pack.

A good map should be:
Easy to complete: Each driver in each division should be able to finish this map and should be able to get some kind of “flowy” felling when driving the map. Don't build jumps which needs a specific speed to master them.
Hard to master: This means, the driver needs to work on it's driving line to get the best time (e.g. keep the traction on an uphill section, drive one slide closer to get the next curve better and ...)
As little random as possible: Think about jumps/landings, possible wallhits and wallbangs, the “wallbang benefit reduver”
As fair as possible: If the driver has a big crash, he should use a bigger amount of time as if he only crashes slightly => huge mistake means a huge loss of time, a little mistake means little loss of time
Fun to play: This is a subjective matter for each player, but remember the following. If you are pretty good at canyon ask a low lever driver to play this map and if he struggles in some sections, maybe think to overwork them, before submitting this map.

[tcq]

Basic requirements
When you create a map for ET, think during the whole mapping procedure about this basic requirements. It is always better to have a well-designed map from the start and to do minor changes after wards, instead of bringing up a map which is full of design errors. Because then, the admin will ask drastic changes and no one is happy. The admin, because it takes a lot of time to create a quality feedback and the author because he feels attacked on his pride as a mapper. Therefore, please check your map during the mapping process. It makes everything easier.

Coppers
Avoid in any case to overtake the XXXX coppers upper limit and please remember that remaining way below the limit is never a problem, it's even better.

Mood / light
Never send a night map.
Always check the shadows on the map. We don't want to have dark sections where you need to aim blind for the next section. This means, do not create light/shadow effects which can blind the player. Check especially caves and the entrances/exits of tunnels. When you build caves, take care to add lights (e.g. use the block 3-7-3, sunset mood:a GP road will have it's light turned on) or windows where the sun can shine through.
Tip: if you are bothered with light/shadow effects: try to turn the map by 90° or 180° or change the mood (press ctrl+shift+alt before opening the map).

Cuts
Check your map if it contains cuts. Don't forget that the walls at the border of the GP blocks have often holes, especially CPs. Most of the cuts we find are through those holes.

CPs
Distance gaps between two CPs over 10 seconds should be avoided. (12-13 seconds if you start at 0 km/h from the previous CP).
Avoid at any cost gaps of more than 13-14 seconds (launched start).
Avoid at any cost non-respawnable checkpoints (check each CP). A non-respawnable CP could be an artefact of block mixing or badly placed jumps.
Check that no one of your CPs is in the wrong direction. (Of course you can turn a CP to create a respawn route).
Avoid your CPs to be cuttable (if a player "cuts" a CP, he/she doesn't validate it and wastes his/her race)
The order is always CP+booster and not the other way around (to allow a fast respawn).
A CP is to be placed in front of a difficult section, not after wards.

Length
Check the length for the maps in the according thread. If we ask for a time between 55 and 65 seconds, this means the fastest players should be within this time window. Therefore, if you are usually 3-4 seconds behind the world record, then you should drive an author time around 59-60 seconds, to keep in the time window.

Jumps / bugs / smoothness
Jumps are allowed in league maps and can provide interesting sections, but you should take care to prohibit unnecessary hard or random sections. In the following, there are some advices for you, when building jumps.
- Length and speed of the jump: although "extreme" jumps are quite common on casual maps, they usually do not provide technical interest and are consistency killers. ET admins are not likely to like them, and it also makes your map not really league-styled.
- Avoid jumps which require a critical amount of speed: even if ET organizes competitions, we believe beginners should be able to succeed the jump even if they have not the perfect steering or technique.
- Avoid to tighten the landing area until the driver needs an amazing accuracy to succeed the jump. Adapt the landing area to the speed and the length of the jump. Basically, the faster the jump is, the larger the landing area should be.
- Avoid any kind of gameplay bug
- Hexadecimal work is allowed, but shouldn't produce unexpected behaviour of the car (avoid to create invisible edges that act on the gameplay)
- Try to avoid bugs, bumps, surface transitions in the landing areas of jumps: it produces often incosistent behaviour of the car
- Jumps are not expected to be ever fullspeed and you can create jumps where the drive needs to release throttle to not hit a roof. But be smart and do not produce extreme things this way (the player should have enough time to efficiently release gas).
- When you design a jump, think about the different kind of drivers.
How fast/slow will be the best/worst drivers and how far/short will they jump?

Avoid rough surfaces that produces strange behaviours of the car if you believe they input random aspects in the matches.

Difficulty
"Easy to complete, hard to master", that is a good description of what a league map should be. In other words, the maps shouldn't be too evil for beginners, but still challenging enough for pros. Some things that could make you miss this target:
Things that may make your map too hard:
- Obstacles (such as stones on the road, holes in the road, and so on): they make the maps quite tricky, especially when they are put in fast and/or blind sections of the track. The less they are to be anticipated, the more they will ruin the consistency of players and bring random inputs and frustration in the matches. Thus, we usually do not accept them in league maps. We will also refuse anything that is equivalent to an obstacle (in our mind). By default, any block that tightens a lot the width of the road will be considered as an obstacle. In rare cases, we might accept them if we estimate they provide technical interest without ruining the consistency.
- Trial styled parts: each part should be EASY to drive if the player slows down enough, only the speed (e.g risk) should make it difficult
- There are no forbidden blocks. However, the most extreme or crazy blocks Nadeo put in the game are often not really suited to the league. Be careful when you use them and always ask to yourself the following question: "does this use of this block comply with the general ET's principles?" Wallrides, loops, may fall in this category (depending on how this blocks are used), such as highly specific blocks.
Things that may make your map too easy:
- Fullspeed map, lack of technical sections (for instance repetitive easy turns), lack of turns combinations that demand the player to work on his trajectories.
Tips:
- Avoid at any cost all the obstacles in the field of the jumps (avoid then even more when it is impossible to see them before jumping), think especially to the spotlights and other stuff that are included to the GP blocks any may be in the trajectory when you jump from a GP block to another
- The sight of the road should be good everywhere (don't hesitate to remove sceneries from over the road, so that their shadows don't lie on the road, don't hesitate to remove scenery blocks in the inside side of the turns, so that the driver can anticipate a little bit where he/she have to go)
- Make sure the start is large enough so that the road is visible with multiple cars at the same time (especially if you submit it for the TNC, or even more, for the TFET)
- Think twice about the sensibility of the mistakes: a little mistake should lead to a little loss of time, a huge mistake should lead to a huge loss of time.

Diversity
Use as much various surfaces as possible: GP, concrete platforms, narrow roads and sometimes off road.
Build maps with both fast and slow parts
Do not put repetitive sequences such as accumulation of same-type turns/chickanes, even less accumulation of a single repetitive block
Do not make a map that have only right turns (or only left turns), or almost only…

Mode
Select multilap or start-finish block according to what is expected for the specific league you send the map for.

Fun
Fun is a highly subjective criteria and there is no objective advise that could help you to build a fun map. In this field, the most important thing is probably: build a map that pleases you.

Style
Remember the style expected is TECH, and suited to ROUNDS or LAPS races. Do not build time-attack maps or any other style (lol-maps, fullspeed, RPG, and so on…)
Make your map as beautiful as possible, as long as it doesn't overcharge the coppers count (it means: make a nice scenery, work on the layout)
Don't forget the podium! Hexadecimal stuff should not twinkle neither produce glitches. Don't hesitate to add signs so that people don't lose.

Originality
Innovative combination of turns, use of blocks/transitions could give a little bonus there. Don't cry if we don't validate this criteria often: we validate this criteria only if a map really impressed us, and to not have this criteria validated do not mean your map will always be rejected.

[tcq]

General tips and tricks
Here I would like to present you some tricks which could help you with your mapping. I would advise you, to use in some cases the tool TM2Unlimiter (http://forum.mania-creative.com/thread-2983.html ). In general, we aren't against block mixing, but don't build crazy things which lock unusually and disturbing (don't create flickering textures, black holes and so on). But for some of the following points, it's really useful. You can of course use it for other special tasks in your map, but be cautious. Sometimes less is more.

Removing pillars
To remove pillars has several benefits. It reduces the shadow calculation time (good for low end configurations), could help with some lightning problems due to shadows thrown by pillars. Furthermore they are sometimes obstacles, which we don't want.
To remove them there are multiple techniques.
You can place 8-1-1/2/3 below this block.
You can place 3-6-2 (if necessary, use the TM2Unlimiter for this task). You can even mix this block into other concret blocks, but if you do don't forget to cover it (use 5-6-5 or 5-7-2 for this task).

Blocking cuts
Take care to block cuts, if you see them.
If you use the start block 2-1-2 and directly use a u-turn, you can cut to this turn. To block this, you might want to use 5-5-x.
To block cuts in off-road sections, you can can use 5-5-x and hide it in 5-1-x. Or you use 5-6-5/5-7-x (with attribute Air).
If you build a GP CP, you can cut them through the holes which are left (1-2-4) or right (1-2-3). To block this, you can use either place directly 5-6-5 in the CP block, or use the combination between (5-6-5 and 3-6-7).

Bringing light
If you don't have much space, but need to add a light block (3-7-2), then you have multiple possibilities to do so.
Open TM2Unlimiter and place your light block, where you need it. Then select the colour of the light. The now placed block will create four poles, which might be disturbing in some sections of your map. To remove them, place the block 3-6-2. Even if it looks like, that this block kills the light, this isn't the case.
Another source of light could be, by placing the large mountain, to reflect the light back to the street. Works especially good in the sunset mood.
Furthermore, here are additional blocks which can help you to add light to your map (thx eyebo for this summary)

3-7-1 has a light on the bottom of it. Use it for a roof block. 3-7-2 has a light on the side. Use it for a wall. This two blocks works in all moods and lights can be coloured.
The blocks below are sign blocks which emit light during all moods:
3-7-3, 5-1-4, 9-2-4, 9-3-1
The following blocks have lights on top of them. But these only work during Sunset and Night...
9-4-2, 9-4-3, 9-4-4
The big tanks emit light during Sunset and Night:
9-1-1, 9-1-2, 9-1-3
The pipe blocks have ends which emit light during some moods: 9-2-X
This radio tower emits light during Sunset and Night: 9-3-2
These blocks light up the area nicely during Sunset and Night: 5-4-1, 5-4-2, 5-4-3
Many other blocks have lights such as the GP blocks. Also 4-1-2 and 4-1-3 can be used next to your track to light it up on Sunset or Night tracks.
5-7-1 is a nice block to use on the borders of platforms on Sunset and Night tracks as it has a light on it.
The following blocks also have lights on them during Sunset and Night, but not very bright ones: 5-5-1, 5-5-2, 5-5-3
And don't forget about 6-1-2, 6-1-3, 6-5-2, and 6-5-3.. those arches in the dam blocks for cliffside roads. They put off light in Sunset and Night as well.
And of course 2-6-1 is a good source of light on Sunset and Night maps.

Way layout
This is a very important task for the mapper. Make the driving path clear. For this, very helpful are the following blocks.
5-6-5 (use the air version of this block, to place it on the ground or near into a mountain).
5-7-x (use the air version of this block, to place it on the ground or near into a mountain).
You can place them for example to block the view on one section of the map. You just need to play a little bit with it.

Scenery
A very important aspect of scenery is, to give the driver a feeling when playing the map. It's simply completely boring to drive only on a map without anything else. Bring in some mountains (maybe due to light problems, place some trees or or or).
A fine thing, which works quite good as a scenery is, to elevate 5-1-1 to the level of your concrete block. Looks really great. But then you need to remove the pillars out of this block (by placing the same block (or 3-6-2) directly below it). Furthermore, you need to cover it's edges (use 5-6-5, 5-7-2) and voilà you are in Babylon
But to be honest, you only need to place Scenery, where you can see it. Everything else just contributes to a heavier map and the aim is to have the maps as slight weight as possible.