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TM Creative | Tutorial | Modifying Environments
Modifying Environments |
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Introduction
3 facts about Mods
 An Environment Modification (called "Mod") is a .zip archive file, containing modified texture graphics, which determine the looks of the Environment in which you play.
When a Mod is beeing loaded, Trackmania will replace its default textures, as long as the .zip file contains a specific modified texture.
All other textures will be the default ones.
To assign a Mod to a driving track:
While chosing which track to open for the Track editor, hold the CTRL button and then click your track.
A window appears, listing the mods which are installed.
ATTENTION !
In Trackmania Forever, lots of DDS textures have changed. Most of the new DDS textures are compressed with DXT1 format, either with/without alpha channel. |
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Download our TM CREATIVE STADIUM MOD
This Mod can be used as a specimen example for the zip's structure and content. |
I assume you're familiar with creating/editing .dds texture files.
I assume you're also familiar with file locations.
Examples
Some examples of how mods can make the Stadium environment look like...
| "Venice Challenge"
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"Fallen Angel"
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| "Sweet Dreams"
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"Tron"
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Part 1: Preparations
Nadeo's default Mod
Of course all textures which are loaded into the game must already exist on the harddisk.
Look up the detailed file locations for the environment textures you want to modify. In these harddisk folders you will find all the original textures.
Which texture does what ?
Every Trackmania environment has lots of textures... when browsing the texture folders, you will recognise a lot of these textures from the gameplay and often enough, the filename of the texture tells you what it's used for...
But to understand the purpose of every single texture, it will take lots of practice on environment modding.
You'll understand that we can only introduce a few examples of the Stadium environment, learning all the rest is up to you...
Which texture is compressed with which DXT settings ?
You should always save your modified texture with the same format settings as the original texture. Basically you have 2 possibilities to do that:
1) For lazy people: Try to save your new texture with different settings. The result file with the same file size as the original will have the right settings ;-)
2) For clever people: Let your favorite image viewer / graphic program show you the properties of the original texture file (DXT 1a,1c,3,5, mipmaps yes/no, alpha channel etc...) and use the same settings when saving your own file :-)
Needless to say
Just leave these files unchanged and where they are to keep the game’s original look intact. |
Structure of the .zip archive
The non-default mods are always integrated via a .zip archive file. Trackmania will automatically read all necessary files from the zip archive and integrate them into the gameplay.
Open up our TM CREATIVE STADIUM MOD zip file to view it's structure...
The root folder contains 1 file (Icon.dds) and 2 subfolders.
"Image" contains textures for all trackworks parts (road,grass,roofparts etc...)
"Moods" contains textures for your environment (day/night/...)
 "Day" contains textures for your daytime environment (sky,clouds,etc...)
Case sensitive
You're well advised to handle the directories filenames and folders case sensitive (upper/lowercase letters should remain as they originally are)... |
Working with temporary files
This procedure is good for people who are completely unexperienced in environmental modding, but it will provide a good overview of the stuff you're working on:
1) I'd suggest you create c:\temp\ , this shall be the "root folder" for your Mod...
2) Now go to your chosen[Environment]\Media\ folder and look out for the "Moods" and "Texture" folders...
3) Copy the "Moods" folders to c:\temp\
4) Go into the "Texture" folder and copy the "Images" folder toc:\temp\ . Don't copy the "Texture" folder itself, this won't work later on.
You have all default textures of your chosen environment copied to c:\temp\ ... Now you can start to work on specific textures you want to be modified...
Cleaning up the mess
Later on, after we edited all textures we wanted, we will clean up the mess and delete all files we didn't modify, so don't worry about the masses of temporary files ;-) |
Part 2: Working on the "Image" files
The files in this folder define the textures used on all the game blocks.
For some block parts, there are 3 different textures... "DNS textures"
Diffuse Maps
Diffuse map (end with letter D)
Diffuse is the map that shows how the texture will look in reality, with no special effects applied..
Save it in DDS format with DXT1 |
StadiumRoadTurboD.dds
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| PC0/1 (graphic settings) only uses the Diffuse map. |
Specular Maps
Specular map (end with letter S)
Specular map tells where the texture should shine, and in what colour.
In the alpha/transparency channel you set how much it will shine;
0% transparency = shiny
100% transparency = matte
The image looks like the Diffuse texure, but a lot brighter. |
StadiumRoadTurboS.dds
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| PC2 (graphic settings) uses Diffuse & Specular maps. |
Normal Maps
Normal map (end with letter N)
"Normal maps" are commonly used to apply "depth" to a diffuse map.
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StadiumRoadTurboN.dds
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But how to generate such a map ? There are several methods, but after all, they all do the same:
They create a "Relief" effect with the color (128/128/255) as the surface color. Every graphics program can apply this effect.
A "normal map" in nadeo is just a little different. In addition to the relief effect, all "red" elements are removed out of the RGB range of the picture, only green and blue remain...
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| PC3 (graphic settings) uses diffuse,specular and normal maps. |
Creating our own Diffuse Map
Source : StadiumInflatable2D.dds (512x512 pixel)
Surely you'll recognise this texture: it's the ugly grey floor on top of the inflatables, we want to create something nicer...
Note that StadiumInflatable has a 512x512 resolution so you should get/make a texture with minimum 512x512 to avoid losing quality.
As most textures in TM, it's a "tiled image", which means it will be repeated next to itself, left/right, above/below when put on objects... so make sure the borders to all sides fit the opposite side...
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| Original Texture
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New Texture
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Creating our own Normal Map
Source : StadiumInflatable2N.dds (512x512 pixel)
This is the map that makes the texture look much more realistic giving it some relief.
It's not really easy to create this map properly...
With Adobe Photoshop
1) Apply the "NormalMapFilter" (NVidia's Photoshop plugins) to your diffuse map picture.
2) The only value to be edited is the "Scale", it will set the "height" of the relief.
3) Click OK and you've already created your normal map.
4) Eliminate all red elements out of the picture: Set your background Color to Black, Select the whole picture (only in "Red channel") with the Marquee tool and press DEL. Take a look at the RGB channel to check the result.
5) Additionally, you might want to smooth your picture a lot, so the surface doesn't get too crumbly. |
With Corel Photopaint / other paint programs
1) Apply "3D Relief" effect to your diffuse map picture, options: Surface color RGB (128/128/255), chose Depth & Intensity after your taste.
2) Apply the Color channel mixer to remove all red elements out of the picture. The results should look similar to the ones below.
3) Additionally, you might want to smooth your picture a lot, so the surface doesn't get too crumbly. |
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| Original Texture
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New Texture
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| Save your picture as dds, options: DXT5, no alpha channel. |
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Creating our own Specular Map
Source StadiumInflatable2S.dds (512x512 pixel)
Specular map tells where the texture should shine, and in what colour.
1) Apply a brightness +80% / contrast +50% to your diffuse texture picture. This will show the shine color...
2) Select background color "black", then apply a 30% transparancy/alpha to your picture. Results should look similar to the pictures below...
3) If you can't directly save the file as DDS (DXT5 compression, with transparency), then export the picture to .PNG with transparency and convert to .DDS afterwards (e.g. with DDS Converter 2.1 or nvDXT) |
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| Original Texture
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New Texture
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Viewing the result
The inflatable surface will now use these 3 textures to deliver some 3-dimensional impression of the surface...
It takes some time indeed to work on all 3 textures, but a real quality Mod should follow this path.
Don't be too lazy, after all Environment modding is quite a piece of work ! |
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Part 3: Working on the "Mood" files
The files in this folder are very important as they can change dramatically the looks of a mod with little work. They determine of how the surrounding "world" looks like...
The Sky
SkyColor.tga (256x256 pixels)
You guessed right, this is the file where you can change the sky’s color :P
| Yet you have some limitations |
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The file represents an horizontal stripe of the sky, not all of it. |
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This means that the color at the top and bottom of the image will continue up and down respectively. |
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It’s not possible to add stars or other objects, cause the file is infinitely stretched horizontally |
| Before editing
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After Editing
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The Sunlight
LightSun.tga (512x32) before editing
The left ¼ of this file corresponds to the color of the shadows, the right ¾ , determines both the sun, and it’s light color.
Lightsun.tga after we edited it...
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The Clouds Part 1
| CloudsMinColor.tga (512x64 pixels) before editing
CloudsMaxColor.tga (512x32 pixels) before editing
This one will determine how the clouds in the sky look like...
Although the original files seam quite complex, there’s a simple way of editing them.
First you can reduce their resolution to 32x32.
Then just paint CloudsMaxColor.tga with the color you want for the enlightened part of the clouds and CloudsMinColor.tga with the color for the shadowed part.
 That's how our new CloudsMinColor.tga and CloudsMaxColor will look like. Trackmania has no problem accepting smaller textures than the original... But of course you're free to paint the graphics as complex as the originals... |
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The Clouds Part 2
StadiumFXClouds.dds (512x512 pixels)
This file is responsible for the clouds shadows projection in all the Stadium and building blocks.
You can use it to project anything you want, making cool new effects like huge flying logos, rainbow color or fog creeping on the floor etc...
Note that a small object becomes a huge projection, so you can’t have much detail.
Save it in DDS format with DXT1 (No Alpha)
| StadiumFXClouds.dds before editing
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StadiumFXClouds.dds after editing ;)
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Yes, our new cloud shadow will send a projection of our TMC logo through the stadium ;-) |
Reflections
EnvCubic.dds and EnvCubicSpecA.dds (768x128) before we change them ;-)
These files as well as the other Environment files are responsible for the Environment reflections on the reflexive surfaces, like a car’s or an inflatable’s.
Note that this files consist in 6 square images placed side by side, which are the six faces of a cube, that makes our Environment.
As you can see in the original file, it shows (from left to right) the
Stadium forwards / Stadium backwards / Sky / Floor / Stadium left / Stadium right.
So if have changed one or more of this elements, you may want to change this files accordingly.
 Attention! This is a texture for the "Big Boys", because it's a genuine "Cube Map".
If you want to keep it simple, you can also just work on it as a (2D) 256x256 pixel texture.
Most programs can only import this sort of DDS texture anyway (Photoshop and Nvdxt can properly import/export Cube Maps).
It has a little drawback, final result is not 100% as detailed as if you handled it with 768x128 pixels, but it will do just fine for most people... |
EnvCubic.dds and EnvCubicSpecA.dds (768x128) AFTER we change them ;-)
If you can, Save this file(s) as a cube map instead of a 2d texture, in DDS format with DXT5 (Interpolated Alpha). |
Part 4: Presentation
There are 2 files important left for identifying and presenting the Mod within TM.
LoadScreen.dds (1024x1024 pixel)
As the name suggests this file defines the screen that shows up, when a track is being loaded, when playing online or lan (not in solo mode).
The file is 1024x1024 pixels, but the visible part of it will be the central 1024x768, so the top and bottom 128 pixels stripe won’t appear.
Except for the bottom 32 pixels stripe which corresponds to the loading bar. Also note that in this area the black is set as an invisible/transparent color. |
| Before editing
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After editing
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Icon.dds (128x128 pixels)
As you may notice, this file is not among the original files.
This is the Icon that appears at the mod selection window in the editor. |
 Before editing:
Boring standard Icon |
 After editing:
our new flashy TM Creative Icon ;-) |
| To make one, just create a new 128x128 image file, make your icon and save it as Icon.dds with DXT1 (No Alpha). It's stored in the root directory of your zip file. |
Part 5: Finishing your work
Now that we modified all our files, we can clean up the mess and prepare to use our mod.
1) Delete all files which you did not modify out of yourc:\temp\Image andc:\temp\mood\. After all we don't want to use all the default textures in our Mod but just our modified files...
2) Use your favorite zip application to create an archive from the contents of thec:\temp (not including the folder itself, just all contents within). In case you forgot, check the "Structure of the Zip File". Use standard compression.
3) Put the .zip archive file into your ...My Documents\Trackmania\Skins\[Environment]\Mod\ directory. Restart Trackmania and you're ready to use it. Have fun ! |
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Part 6: Workflow by Firefly
The problem: When you make an environment mod, you can not "reload" the mod in the game, because it uses the cache data until you select a different mod, and then load your own mod again. Since i have seen a lot of people quit and restart the whole game to test their environment mods, here is my little advice that can save you a lot of time.
How to test your environment mods
1. Zip your mod, for example "test1.zip",and copy it into your skins folder ("My Documents/TrackMania United/Skins/Stadium/Mod")
2. Make another copy of that mod in the same folder, and rename it to "test2.zip"
3. Start the game
4. Load your track with the mod "test1"
5. Press ALT+TAB,and make your changes to your mod
6. Zip your mod as "test2.zip", and copy it in your skins folder
7. Switch over to the game with ALT+TAB again
8. Load your track and select the "test2" mod
9. Press ALT+TAB,and make edit your mod again
10. Zip your edited mod as "test1.zip", and copy it in your skins folder
11. Switch over to the game
12. Load your track and select the "test1" mod
13. Repeat at Step5, if necessary |
That way you don't have to restart the whole game, and can immediatly see your mod improvements everytime you reload your track.
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