Tutorial: Modifying the Vehicle with Triggers & Parameters

Introduction

Triggers are a new addition to Unlimiter, although they work sort-of similar to MediaTracker clips from 1.3. The new advantage is that triggers benefit from all editor features: they can be freely moved, resized, and scaled. They can be found in the last folder, together with clips, and can be seen with a lightning bolt icon.

Let's use triggers to modify some vehicle parameters on this example track.

Example track preview.

Examples

Example: Making the Car Big

In the first example we will scale the car up 2 times when it crosses the trigger. Follow these steps:

1. Place the trigger just after the start line.

Trigger on the track.

2. Prepare the ingredients. First, you need a parameter set, which is just a group of parameters that will be triggered when you cross over the block. Create a new parameter set, then click on it and add a new parameter: Scale with a value of 2. This should be the first one in the list that pops up.

Steps to create a parameter set with a Scale of 2.

3. Afterwards, set up a trigger group. Create a new group, click on it, and you'll see various options appear. What we're looking for is to execute the parameter set when the car crosses the trigger, so we need an "On Enter" property (but you can experiment with other ones). Open it using the arrow at the right, then set Type to Parameter Set and choose the set as seen in the image below. Remember to click Select, or otherwise your choice won't be saved!

Steps to create a trigger group with a chosen parameter happening on-enter.

4. Use a shortcut LCtrl + LShift + click on trigger - you need to click on the trigger block you've placed in step 1. An "Existing Block Properties" menu should appear - choose "Add trigger to trigger group" and navigate to the group you've created in step 3. Also remember to click Select to confirm here! The group should be added to the block as in the screenshot below.

Note

To skip needing to click Select every time, you can hold LShift when picking the list item.

Adding trigger to group.

After this is done, you can try to validate the track and see if everything works. To make it easier in the future, you can enable the "Automatically add to new block" option when creating a trigger group in step 3 - this will skip the last step and add this group to every trigger you place automatically.

Example: Vehicle Change

We will now change the car from the StadiumCar to the DesertCar on the same track.

Note

This part of the tutorial is only for TrackMania United. Nations players do not have the necessary game files to allow car switching.

1. If you haven't got the setup from the previous example, repeat steps 1-4 from that tutorial.

2. Go to the Miscellaneous menu, select "Vehicles" and enable the American car (the in-engine name for the DesertCar).

Enabling a vehicle.

3. Go back to the parameter sets menu and instead of adding a Scale parameter, add a Transform (should be second on the list). In the Value column, type "American" (the car name) and close the window. If you want to delete a parameter, you can do it using the trash can button to the right (highlighted in red on the image).

Adding a DesertCar Transform.

Test the track now, and you should change the car mid-race after passing the trigger.