What do you do when making tracks?

[Santana 2.0]

That's a question that I want to make few times. Can be something personal but, what do you think while making tracks, and if you do something during the creation, to motivate/inspire yourself.

Personally, I hear music and see some tracks, in order to understand some details that could be used in mine...

[Hiken17]

i'm browsing this forum during make tracks and i'm watching what i can put in my track too

[Pasketi]

I'm faceplanting. It helps me decide the layout.

[sarcasm][/sarcasm][/sarcasm] Wait what?

Really I'm just sketching, and when something good comes up, I stick to it. Music just makes me want to play something else.

[The MNZ]

Generally i take a base on SnakeDitor, finish the LMap on paint, then put the first objects, pass to HMedit and finish.

[TuomoH]

An interesting topic, I must say - I wonder why there are so few posts.

It largely depends on the type of track I'm making. At this point of my trackmaking career (8½ years, 160+ tracks) I rarely take inspiration from other people's work, or then it's very subtle, more on the attitude side than techniques. With so many released tracks I don't want to keep repeating myself, and combined with the fact that there are so many cool circuits by other people, it's why there's been a gradual shift in my trackmaking style and the type of tracks I've been making over the years. The fact that I don't want to repeat myself is also the reason for quite long gaps between my releases nowadays.

I can't really say what's the source of my inspiration, it just comes somewhere. If I get an inspiration, I usually work quite fast. I pretty much always finish the lmap and hmap first before adding any objects, meaning that the track is drivable at a relatively early stage. The AI lines are always the last thing to add. At that point I may have to edit the object placement a bit. These days I don't want to touch the hmap anymore (earlier I may have smoothened the hmap a bit for the AI) so I just keep on struggling with the AI lines instead. During the last few years I've moved more towards making trackpacks instead of individual tracks, and with these I always make the AI lines all at once meaning that all the tracks are otherwise finished before I start adding AI lines to the first track.

If I don't really have an idea but feel like playing around with trackmaking, I start by a random lmap/hmap combination. I must have dozens of started tracks like these that didn't get very far. However, it's not that inspiring anymore since it often feels just repeating what I've done before. Another option is that I take a look at my WIP collection and see whether I get a new perspective to some track to finish it. Often I don't, and this is why many tracks take me years to finish, and I'm sure many more won't get finished ever.

When I look back at my tracks, I see that I've gone through several phases and I can actually pinpoint the tracks where I have entered another phase. It's not a conscious thing, I always notice the change of phase only afterwards. Naturally the things I've learned in the past follow to the new phases but there's still something fundamental that changes between the phases in my eyes. I'm currently in phase 6 of my trackmaking career, even though I can't be 100% sure that it's phase 6 instead of phase 7 until some time has passed.

While trackmaking, one source of inspiration is music - I often listen to music that fits to my current mood, but it really doesn't affect the tracks themselves, I think. I just prefer to make tracks with music on instead of silence.

Trackmaking is still the most fun part of GR for me, that's why I don't see myself quitting it altogether in a long time. The change towards trackpacks has meant that I don't release stuff as often as before but no matter what year we're talking about, I've always released at least 10 tracks. Now with the abstract trackpack I feel refreshed, as if I've reinvented myself again - believe me, it's a great feeling after all these years - and I look forward to seeing what I'll come up with next.

[nielske]

Nowadays, and I suppose it has been this way for the past 3 or 4 years, I generally try to build my tracks around a certain element or idea, whether it's a building constructed of several different objects, a certain height map style, something I saw outside, a feeling, or just a type of challenge I've set for myself (like trying to construct a track around a given height map).

In the first few years I just drew a layout and saw if it was any good to drive. I'd go from there.

My main aim has always been for my tracks to be fun to drive (especially alone, or head-to-head).