"TRIALS X JAM FINAL" CUSTOM TRACK | Forums

[rlmergeuser]

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[luthanick]

I tried your level when it was the V2. I'm trying your final version right now. I'll pause as I go and tell you spots I like/don't like.

-I don't like the halfpipe. I like the rollin start, but the driving line in the halfpipe is awful. I know it's not easy to make to actually ride the pipe, but I've played other levels where they pull it off pretty well. Since this is the draw to your track (it's in your thumbnail) I was expecting this part to work much better. The tires are ok, but the flaming barrels make no sense and they don't set you on fire. Either set the rider on fire, which would be unavoidable without further changes, or turn off the fire. The tires with the monster trucks is an obstacle that fits the theme well and works fine. I really, really don't like that random cut to black and white camera. Completely random and irritating. From the checkpoint on the green box the next section has a little bit of flow which is good, but that quick camera cut is again annoying. If you wanted to change and keep it ok, but I can already see the obstacle that I think you were trying to emphasize, so it isn't necessary. I did like those ramps right before the line of taxi cabs though. Some lag on those taxi cabs. I'm not a big fan of completely random objects. You have a theme here with the competition, but the random pile of logs and the line of taxi cabs feels more contrived than natural.

Here's a part that I think you did really well on. The wooden walkways where the moon shows up and the birds/bats flying is VERY good looking. It might be the best spot in the track. It quickly ends with the (again kinda random) slab of road up to the highway. on the highway the decoration is ok, until the road resting on the tree part. Having those three different cameras for the back tire rail section makes it difficult to set up and there is some lag coming into it.

I enjoy the obstacle itself, but it seems out of place in terms of difficulty. If someone who has never seen it tries your track they will most likely quit in frustration. That kind of feature is usually used on ninja tracks, not hard.

The next obstacle, climbing on top of the red box, again has too many camera changes. If you used interpolation instead of straight camera cuts you could have the multiple angles that you want with a smooth transition between them. As it is the straight camera cuts are annoying and at worst disorienting. Going up the box the camera switches to another angle for literally less than a second. That should always be avoided unless you interpolate it smoothly.

The last section was okay.

I hope I didn't sound harsh. I'm trying to give you feedback to improve and not just say "I didn't like this". I can see you put work into the track. Playing through a second time and writing it down I see that my big gripe is the cameras. The environment settings you use were really nice. You only really showed off the environment at a few brief sections. I think smoothing out the cameras and making sure the track doesn't lag would be the best improvement.

[rlmergeuser]

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[luthanick]

The track is probably a hard track. I'm not good at determining track difficulty, but it's got a few places that require hard difficulty maneuvers.

Regardless of how difficult that rail actually is to perform, it is considered a ninja skill object because it is beyond the skill set required for extreme tracks. At least I'm pretty sure that is the general consensus on what makes a ninja object. Again, I like the rails, but it makes the difficulty rather inconsistent. I'm speaking as someone who released a track that I would STILL consider hard and had, last time I looked, only 4 people finish it. I used a new skill that I didn't consider very difficult because I had practiced it over and over until it was habit and forgot how a person new to that skill would be frustrated. Even had one of the veterans tell me that it was not a hard track, but ninja.
Just trying to say that you should try to keep it at whatever difficulty you are aiming for. Look at the skills required in the different license tests and in the extreme tracks. Still, I am very guilty of getting excited and placing things beyond the difficulty level.

On several occasions I have made obstacles simpler or removed them altogether because I had someone test it and tell me that it didn't fit or it was too hard. I loved those features, but once I accepted the feedback and tried to improve it I found out that I could make it even better than it had been before. Don't be afraid to destroy your precious feature to try something better, but save a copy before you do

I didn't like the B+W cam and my friend who was trying it didn't like it either. I didn't feel like I was in a x games run on that obstacle. Maybe if I had been launching a dirt jump to a dirt landing I could have accepted it, but it didn't help that it was right after a checkpoint. Seeing it once isn't as bad as seeing it several times.

I don't think there is anything wrong with using the cams to reveal the upcoming obstacles, but make the transition smooth. I can't speak for everyone, but I hate cut cameras in general. They can be done, but most of them are done rather poorly. I find they usually disrupt the atmosphere of the track. Your track has atmosphere, show it off by using interpolation on your cameras. I'd recommend not using the camera events and simple setting up triggers to switch the cameras on and off when you want them to switch. Takes a bit more time to rig up, but the end result is SOOOOO much better. That way you can set the cameras to interpolate smoothly in and out of the regular camera.

If you want to know how to set up the switches for cameras like that just let me know. I can walk you through it easily. Anyways we are all learning more and more about making our levels better. I do cringe a bit when I look at some of the things in my first level that I adored while making it.

So keep up the work, and use lots of testers. You get great feedback before you get too attached to things and they spot things you miss or take different lines that you never considered. hit me up on LIVE if you need a tester. I'm always down for giving/receiving feedback.

[rlmergeuser]

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[luthanick]

You can't test skill games with friends before uploading, but otherwise you can set up a private match with your friends and pick any tracks that you have saved. When you go to add a race, switch to the right until you see "My Tracks"

I use this so much now. I shudder to think of how unfinished my current track was when I was ready to upload it. Luckily I had someone test it and tell me to wait and make sure it is done right. Private match test runs are an editor's best friend.