So you might ask, What's a Locator?

As you know (or not...), Trackmania relies on a Peer-to-Peer system to download custom content. This often causes stress and poor connetivity during gameplay; especially on high content servers. This is where Locators come in to play.

A locator is a single .loc file that contains a direct URL to the content you're using. It is used in Trackmania games to transfer content from a direct download server to you or another player. Content being shared can be many different things. Files such as Cars, Avatars, Skins, Horns, and even billboards are one of many things you'll be sharing.

Yeah, that sounds cool and all, but why should I use one?

You should use one because it saves the bandwidth and time for other players, including you! The profit of using a Locator applies to a lot of the content you see in Trackmania.

That sounds awesome, what do I need to make a locator?

You only need three things:

• A text editor (Notepad is acceptable!)
  
• A file host
  
• 10~ Minutes

Here are a list of file hosts that allow direct linking. (Leave a comment of one that you know, and I'll add them!)

Dropbox[dropbox.com]

FileDEN RIP FileDEN, now known as CX.com.[www.cx.com] Keep in mind that you're going to have to pay to use this service!

File to Link[www.filetolink.com]
Kiwi6[kiwi6.com]
Google Drive[drive.google.com]
Sky Drive[skydrive.com]


I'm not sure when Dropbox added this, but copying your public file now (possibly from the web interface) includes a new link process that has the characters 'dl=0' at the end of the url. Change 'dl=0' to 'dl=1' to make it a direct download!

Thanks to Lucien Dark for leaving a comment about it!

Before you continue on, I suggest you let yourself look at known File Extensions.

On Windows 7 / Vista, open the explorer, and go to Organize -> Folder and search options -> View -> Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types. (I don't have a screenshot for this because I don't have 7 or Vista...I use Windows 8.)

On Windows 8, open the explorer, and go to View -> Options -> View -> Uncheck extensions for known file types. It's really the same as 7 and vista, but just with the ribbon.



For XP Users, not too sure what to say right now. it's 2013...

Now that you have that done, it's time to make the locator. Say for example, we have a GBX file for your custom skin for the Canyon car. You can find this in
Browse the folder(s) for the custom content you want to be attached to a locator, right click -> New -> Text document. Name it the exact same way the custom content is named, and add .loc to the end of it. Here's an example:



The file I am using is CanyonCar_Bleach_Ichigo.Skin.Pack.Gbx, so I'll name the .loc file CanyonCar_Bleach_Ichigo.Skin.Pack.Gbx.loc

The locator NEEDS to have the same exact filename as the content, and it MUST be located in the same folder as the content.

So, now that you have that done, lets upload the custom content on our favorite file host!

Here's how it is on dropbox...

you can see some of muh files, hehehehehehe

Now that you have the public link, you can now add the link inside of your .loc file.

Simply open your .loc file in Notepad (or anything else), paste, and save.

You can use this for anything in Trackmania Canyon! Here's a Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites chiptune horn I made.


even zip files will work.