Pro tip #1: Useful things to know about the MediaTracker

If you haven't already, check the official support page for Mediatracker which contains a lot of info already.

Although, it doesn't cover everything.

There are a few things about MediaTracker (MT) that might not be obvious yet are good to know about:

- You can put several blocks in a single track. Use Insert block rather than Add track.
- You can't create cameras across several tracks; they must be created inside the same track.
- The red cursor determines where new blocks will be added.
- If you use text, images and transitions, make sure to edit their depth values so they're sure to appear; elements with lower depth values will appear in front of elements with higher depth values. Transition fade has a depth of 0.5. The vertical ordering of tracks doesn't matter.
- Some effects (FX Colors, Depth of field, FX DirtyLens, BloomHdr etc.) require higher graphic settings in order to display.

- Intros have a maximum length of 20 seconds when driven online.
- If there is a block with Block without end enabled in the intro, then the intro won't stop until the player aborts it (or until 20 seconds have elapsed when online).
- There are standard intro sequences for vanilla start blocks, but if you use a start item then a different intro is used. You don't have to deal with this if you make a custom intro though.

- After driving a validation time, the run will appear as a ghost and shift camera targets and anchors that are set to imported ghosts. In other words, GPSes and outros may look like they're screwed up. Ignore this. Reload the map to remove this effect temporarily.
- If you don't have an outro in your map, in-game MT will be used instead. Entering the outro sequence and deleting any created clips is enough to make an outro with only a standard camera (as a camera race block is automatically added).

- Triggers placed upon platform blocks have a tendency to not always trigger, but they work 100 % if you extend the trigger down into the platform blocks.
- Clips may have overlapping triggers, but only one trigger may be activated at a time.

Pro tip #2: Millisecond precision (and how to avoid it)

Did you know that MediaTracker has support for milliseconds? In fact, if you zoom in enough (and have big enough screen resolution), you can place a lot of stuff within one millisecond (up to 0.0000x seconds, but at this point you can't get exact values). To find out exactly how many milliseconds a key is at, create a text or image block at 0 seconds, make it 10 seconds long, set a value from 0 to 10000, click on the key and then click on said block and it will tell you.

This can be a bit problematic if you aim to make advanced effects where it's important to be precise. Clicking in the Block Start and Block End fields and then pressing Enter or clicking somewhere else is enough to discard any milliseconds and your blocks will be aligned perfectly. For keys, you want to click on Time and then create the key.

With the aforementioned block, you can also double check and make sure that keys are aligned and positioned right at a later point

(or just move the keys to the side and create new keys in place; that's probably faster )

Pro tip #3: Move and allign blocks containing many keys precisely

Moving blocks with tons of keys can be quite a hazzle, and impossible to align precisely when dragging them manually. You can get around this in two ways:

(1) By copying the block:

• Click on Time and specify where you want the block to start
  
• Click on the block you want to move
  
• Press Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V
  

You might have to move the block until there is enough space to insert the new one, but that shouldn't be a problem in most cases.

(2) By using a text block (or a block of any type, really):

• On the same track, insert a text block. To the left if you want to move the block leftward, to the right otherwise.
  
• Specify the start or end time of the text block to where you want to move the block.
  
• Drag the block you want to move so it touches the text block.
  

Sometimes the times are a little bit offset (like 1.99 instead of 2.00 and stuff) so just make sure the resulting keys are precise.

You can also click on Show full time line (the leftmost button in the screenshot below) and drag the block all the way to the left if you want to move it back to start

Pro tip #4: Place keys closer than possible

If you have seen the message "There is already a key here" then you're not alone. Somewhere around 0.05 seconds, the editor starts to quirk and output this message even if other keys are equally far away. Luckily you can work around this (that does not involve manually moving the keys so they're not precise) by utilizing the shortcut that aligns a key to another key.

Step-by-step, it would be like this:

- Create a key (1) somewhere on the block; doesn't matter exactly where as long as there are no keys in the way
- Create a second text block and create a key (2) at the position you want (unless you already have a key at this position)
- Click on the first key (1)
- Hold Shift and click on the second key (2)

The keys can now be as close as you want them to be, down to 0.01 if you wish