Communal Guide to Ride Creation

Read this thread if you wish to improve your ability to create a quality ride! Initially I had made this thread for myself, however, the responses in this thread are of great use to anyone and everyone.

Sub-questions for everyone:
> How do you go about creating the ride of a track?
> What are some tips and tricks you have, some knowledge you've gained which isn't common knowledge?
> Is it dependent on the environment you've created around it?
> How do you balance difficulty with enjoyment?
> Do you have a goal in mind when you create a ride?
> (And anything else you can think of, which I haven't.)

Spoiler: Question I wish to answer

The question I want to answer/solve for myself, with the help of others' opinions and knowledge: How would I go about creating a track (ie the 'ride') which is enjoyable, innovative, clever and has the perfect difficulty level?

This is mainly targeted at ghosters and track-creators who focus on the ride as much as, or more than, the detail. I want to improve on this myself, so if you don't know the answer/don't have anything to contribute, please don't post and instead learn from others that do.

mR..A Eryp Ness Max007x Pancakes345 Reborn pssst spruce Stig and anyone else who has knowledge in this area.

e; turns out Ness made a thread covering some/most/all of this: http://blackhatrider.com/forum/topic8019.html shows why you should do research, rip. Help from others is still wanted/needed, however!

e2; BHR clearly went down, however, i added the above thread to a list for Anonyymi to save. Here are the screenshots from the first post in said thread:

Spoiler: Ness' Words of Wisdom from BHR 2014

 

sorry about the narcissism in the one thread, but I hope it helped some people out.

honestly, the biggest thing that I could say that applies to everyone, no matter their style: play your tracks while you're making them! make it a priority. if you don't want to play it, someone else might not either. it's hard to judge what other people think is gonna be fun, but the best indicator is if you think it's fun. my favorite part of making a track is playing it, and if a part doesn't seem like fun to me, I try and make it better. I don't think there's a real secret to fun, a lot of the time it's just playing around and having fun yourself. and usually, if I enjoy playing it for the whole time I'm working on it, the community does too (sometimes, lol. looking at you, Aurora).

as for difficulty, you'll get a feel for that as you play around. idk if people do this but I feel like they might: if you have problem with a hard part in a track but leave it in, thinking other people are better riders, it won't be liked. the best difficult track is one that can be mastered (and that has to be mastered by you, first). if you can't master it, don't use it. if you can't beat it reliably after you master it, it's probably too luck-based and it's not gonna be fun. usually you'll push yourself in the right direction if you keep that in mind. you'll make difficult and challenging and fun trials. fun for a lot of people is challenging themselves with a fair challenge and overcoming it. if you as a trackmaker do this, people will love you for sure!

innovation is just taking risks and seeing which ones pay off. when you play your track over and over and it doesn't feel like anything new or exciting, that's probably when you'll give it a shot. throw some lines around, play a whole bunch, erase some lines and add some more, play a whole bunch and "ooh that was interesting, let's see if I can do that reliably". it can take a lot of work sometimes, it's new territory, but it's always worth it in the long run I think. it's a lot of fun to do anyway. riding a bike is fun in general, it's not really work if you know what I mean. that's why play is such a big focus to me. if that's 90% of my time working on a track, I'll have fun and the players will have fun.

complimenting the detail is interesting, usually track comes first, detail second for me. but a big part of my work is making a theme and branching off from that. and that's where all of this comes together. plasticorp had tons of factory stuff that you wouldn't see in a track. so I had the opportunity to challenge myself. I had new objects that could be played with (and detailed) in tons of different ways, I could give myself new challenging tricks to master, I could take risks. not everything worked at once. there is so much erasing when it comes to taking chances. but like I said in that thread, I think every time you erase something that you worked hard on, you keep the skills you learned and the next thing you make will be better. and then you're left with something you won't ever want to erase because it's so fun.

I hope this helps! this is how I do it, and even nowadays I'll go back and play my tracks (I made them specially for me to enjoy!). it all comes back to that. if you enjoy making it and riding it, others will too.

 

yeah, the points that ness made really hit the spot. if you have fun playing the track, other people will!

try new things though! like ness said, innovation is key. one thing i really enjoy about my own tracks is that they give me a sense of freedom. i can go wherever i'd like in the track. i don't have to worry about a set path - instead, i can create very own path.

the possibilities are endless man! i think that ultimately the best choice is to do what makes you happy. if something makes you happy, chances are that other people will find joy in it too. good luck!

 

Only make tracks for fun

 

I mainly draw the whole ride then detail parts to see how it looks
once i'm happy with a smooth ride and a good style I detail the entire thing. i agree with Eryp recycling is really satisfying, I will add it ONLY if it is smooth tho.
for example an old track:
bones: www.freeriderhd.com/t/54403
detail: www.freeriderhd.com/t/129017

Edit: if your looking for a trial track don't ask me

 

Gonna bump this thread as I think ive come up with my own ways of ride creation since the creation of this thread, and furthermore this is a great tool/resource for all

The key for me in creating a ride comes down to a few things: correct checkpoint placement, no unfair sections, a challenging level of difficulty and recycling/unique pathing. Ill cover the former 2 characteristics now as i dont have time for the other 2, will edit them in later

Correct Checkpoint Placement refers to the best placement of checkpoints relative to a section of track. Checkpoints are used to save progression, and if you wish to keep people interested in your track, should be optimally placed after especially challenging sections of track; no one wants to go through a really challenging portion of track over and over again. It's frustrating and anti-fun. Checkpoints negate this, whilst still allowing for high levels of difficulty; it opens your track up to both newer and experienced players. Take for example the below screenshot from Temple of Time, where there are 2 checkpoints placed rather close together:

Spoiler: Screenshot

This is because at the first checkpoint the player has just had to backflip and land upside down after going at high speeds, and just following this has to slow down dramatically to reach the goal. Then, has to appropriately gauge the correct speed to hit the gravity reset at, flip over and land the right way up. It is a relatively difficult portion of track, one that involves a fair amount of key inputs and testing. The checkpoints take away a lot of frustration this could otherwise have, and still allows for me as the creator to bring the player up through the temple without using something like the teleporter, whilst not sacrificing enjoyment for the average player.

Unfair Sections refers to sections of track that are hard due to poor ride creation, and are often the result of using either the curve line tool, brush, or using a lot of small lines in a small area. All of these things results in glitchy and unpredictable rides, which can ruin people's play through of a track. When the game is taken out of the player's control, it is unfair, and furthermore unfun. Nothing for me is more annoying or frustrating to play than unpredictable and unfair rides. This takes no great skill to fix; simply use the straight line tool pretty well always to make a ride. It can also be impacted by particularly heavy detail; wouldnt recommend sacrificing one for the other, but is up to you.

That's all I can write about for time being, but am gonna tag Nitrogeneric for a future post; he has a track coming with some really next-level innovative rides, and id love to hear how he created them in this thread

 

I feel like this thread isn't really my place, being relatively new in the grand scheme of Freerider. Throughout my time making tracks in this game I've found that sharing your track with other people to see how they enjoy the ride is a great way to tweak your level.

In anything really, it's nice to have an outside input so that you know what's wrong and right, as being the creator of a level you naturally play it over, and over, AND over again, which will typically result in you, the trackmaker getting better at your own track. With another person who's never played your level, with no experience playing it you will get a more accurate representation of the difficulty.

Sometimes, especially with larger tracks, the route can be difficult to solve. It's also nice to get an outside source for this as you can put "markers" to show where to go next or even decide to number the stars. This thread has been super helpful for me and many others, so I would like to add the most valuable resource I've found throughout my time playing this game, you guys!

 

Hey, Logeton here on this account because my forum main was stripped of OA and I can’t access this thread on that account. One trick I’ve started to do as of lately is use curve tool with a scenery line, and then trace over it with the physics line tool (I’ll explain more in detail later but I don’t really have time rn so you have this badly formatted message for now).

 

some advice mR..A gave me

 

Good knowledge in this thread

 

I just found this thread, and it'll help me a lot in a big collab i'm working on. Thanks

 

For a lot of tracks I would draw a loopy line on a piece of paper and then try to recreate it on free rider. Like the later snowy slopes tracks I did that. That way you can plan for the intersections and not have to erase parts of the track and try to make it work.

Also there's usually 2 different ways the bike will land from jumps so obviously compensate somehow either with mid air boosts or a more forgiving landing. To make it "feel" nicer you can make the further landing part of the mountain and then the shorter landing a rail that jets out if that makes any sense.

And play it over and over and over and over and over.

This is advice for "hold up" tracks where you don't really let go of the up arrow. (Basically all my tracks)

That's the best advice I have for you.

 

some advice from coager that would be helpful to have on this thread

 

Always hype your tracks to seem better than they are

 

Ok, I know I am not very good at track making but I wanted to give my opinion on this. I would recommend to make rides based on what you like to ride. Yes I know that it is pretty self-explanatory, but if you are making a track just for a feature or for a contest you will make yourself miserable. You can make it more fun by adding gameplay that you like instead of just following a basic formula. For instance, I really like trials. Just because some other person doesn't like trials, what should stop me from making them as long as I enjoy it? Since I like trials a lot I am trying to get better at factory and cave detailing because they go well with trial tracks. Also, fool around in the editor to come up with new and unique ideas. Anyways, I know that I am not very good at making gameplay, but I still hope that this post was helpful

 

Always like the feat mods’ posts

 

make eli and minus feat mods