Step 1 - Prepare the music
Look for your favourite piece of music and convert it to .OGG format.
The best compression method would be "1/mono channel" & "optimised for low bandwidth", this way the music file will get loaded quickly from the webspace it will be put on.
You should consider editing the .OGG file's properties, once it has been converted... Like an MP3's ID3 tag, OGG can also store information like Artist name, Track title and Comment... These 3 tags will be displayed within Trackmania when the music is beeing played, so don't leave it empty !!!
After this, you can convert your .OGG file to a .MUX file (you don't have to, but you can if you want).
The whole conversion process is described in detail on the "Sound formats" tutorial.
Step 2 - Uploading the music + creating a locator
A music file is useless if it's only on your own harddisk, therefor you must load it up to a webhost, so other players' gameclients will load it from there...
If you have to use a free webhost, It's important that the uploaded file is directly accessible when you call the file's URL.. This feature is called hotlinking or direct linking....
Example:
WRONG http://www.freewebhost.com?mymusic123.html
You can be sure that this URL will not deliver the music file without showing some stupid stuff on a webpage.. in this case, the TM gameclient won't be able to use the file... |
RIGHT http://www.freewebhost.com/files/mymusic.ogg
This URL will deliver the music file without anything else. That's how it's got to be. |
Always test your URL after you uploaded the music file to a webhost. A webhost which allows hotlinking, would e.g. be WWW.FILEDEN.COM but of course you can find many others...
After you uploaded the music file, create a locator for it and put it into this folder:
C:\...\My documents\Trackmania\Challengemusic\
Also put the real music file into the folder as well.
If you have a problem finding the right folder, look at our "File locations" tutorial...
Step 3 - Implement the music URL into your driving track
Go to your Track editor and select the little camera symbol on the left bottom section to make the mediatracker menu appear...
Then chose "SELECT CUSTOM MUSIC"... |
 |
Now a file dialogue will pop up and you can chose your music file in the song listing... then press "OK".
Note: The "Add your own music" button is just a converter, with which you can convert your ogg files to mux files. |
 |
Now you can save your file and publish your track...
