
Hello and thankyou for downloading Silverrim Raceway, my rookie track effort for the 2003 MTMG Truck and Track Expo and my first ever MTM2 track!

Yes, that's right - Drive2Survive, truck-making stalwart since 1999, has finally broken into making tracks. What could have brought this on?

I've actually had ideas for one day getting into track making for quite some time now, but they were always just that - ideas. It wasn't until Phineus announced the 2003 Expo that I began thinking about it more seriously.  The first such contest in three years, this Expo was a little bit special - not only were we looking at tracks AND trucks this time, but there was also a Rookie category for each, both to encourage newbies to take their first steps as well as provide an opportunity for veterans who'd always dedicated themselves to one or the other discipline to 'see how the other half lives'. That is, a veteran truck maker like me would have the opportunity to try his hand at making his ever track (starting with a Traxx School project and then working from there), and vice versa for long-time track makers who've never even tried to repaint a truck.

This is an attempt at making a realistic tarmac racing circuit for MTM2 - one which I hope racers would adopt in place of driving around on Crazy '98. My intial inspiration came from my slot car track(!), although I ended up drawing from other titles in my racing games collection (most notably the recent V8 Supercars Race Driver by Codemasters) in designing the track and making the terrain undulate in a realistic manner. It took me hours to get it as smooth as it is... and then many hours more of precision-placing objects to align with it properly! But I knew what I wanted, and I think my infamous perfectionism paid off :)

Because I was on a tight time budget (I only started this less than two weeks before the Expo's August 4 closing date), I didn't have time for any custom modelling besides reskinning a couple of billboards, so I raided the MTMG, Malibu350.com and a few other sites for track props and other components.
Many of the buildings are CART models downloaded from the MTMG and adjusted for what I wanted (most needed resizing at the least, some like the second line of garages are the result of slightly more brutal work). The concrete barriers are EVO models and, along with the banners and MTMG billboards, are from Mal's place.
The backdrop is a repaired Excavation backdrop by Oliver Pieper.
I used the Crazy '98 checkpoints, but since they are only numbered up to six I also needed the extra Checkpoints by Alpine & Phineus & Oops.
I used two of Sir James' GK Tire Checkpoints, not as checkpoints, but to make a short tunnel (they are placed face-to-face so as to hide the Checkpoint text on their fronts).
Some of Enocell's excellent semi-trailer models have been used in the parc ferme area of the track, and two of Alpine's Toyota Tundra trucks as event support vehicles.
I used the F1 Curb models from Alpine's CTX Speedway track on many of my track's corners (I should know who made these models but I don't). Lining these up with the sloping terrain was a total pain, but worth it!
Rep Fan was complaining that noone ever uses his billboard model, so that had to go in. I also repainted one of Sir James' MTMG billboards, and one by KingDave and Sleeper, to make my own personal billboards.

Because I'm insane, all the ground textures are customs I made myself specifically for this track (not only are there three different radius turns, but diagonal roads too!). They have some foibles (off-centre road alignment, hmmm), and there are a few spots where I fudged things, but on the whole it worked out better than I anticipated and they look pretty gnarly :)

Thanks to Winterkill and SLO_Cope for their forthcoming help and advice at extremely short notice on the MTMG's Beta Room forum :)

Because I'm new to this, and didn't have time for thorough testing, I didn't know quite what to make of the different scenery detail levels so it's a bit ad-hoc at the moment. Normal and Complex give the best experience, they are identical except for the two Toyota Tundra trucks parked around the circuit, and a couple of trees. Sparse setting removes about half the trees, and most of the detail will be removed from the parc ferme area (the large area behind the pit lane) and some other buildings will be absent from other parts of the track, so it's good if you want to lap without any distractions. That said, I don't think anyone should have problems with lag whatever settign they use.

As for the computer-controlled trucks, I was able to figure out how it works but found the AI is rather uncooperative about following exact lines. They're pretty sloppy on most corners and are only good for laps around the 1:30 mark, which is about 15+ seconds slower than a competent player should be able to achieve.

All up, I'm very pleased with my first track effort - the course is fun and challenging and I'm very proud of the terrain. There are some things I didn't get around to (I had big plans for reskinning all those walls, and making a reverse-direction track looks like it might be fun)... maybe next time eh?

The end (or the beginning...)


Drive2Survive
2am, 5 August 2003