Category: ETS2 Mods

American Truck Simulator – The Review

Published on Thursday, 03 March 2016 17:35

Faelandaea

0 Comments

One thing that has always been a constant in my life is simulation games. I take them very seriously. Simulation games have actually been responsible for real life career moves I have managed to get into. Years ago, flight simulation resulted in my curiosity leading me to take a flight lesson in real life. About 6 years later I was a commercial pilot and working hard in the aviation industry. Now, due to medical issues, I have had to leave the commercial aviation business, although I still fly as a private pilot locally. I have gotten into other simulation games such as Farming Simulator 15, Euro Truck Simulator 2, and Scania Truck Driving Simulator. Most recently, American Truck Driving Simulator has grabbed my attention. Notice a pattern there? It seems I have taken up a love for driving commercial trucks.

American Truck Driving Simulator has grabbed a LOT of controversial reviews from the internet. Whenever SCS posts a blog about something, there are the usual trolls and all-out attention seeking crybabies that thrash around looking for attention on every single post – from Akula being his usual “I supposedly hate this game so much but I am posting here more than even the fan boys do,” to someone else posting for Hungarian paint jobs on literally everything, even if it is not even related to Europe. It’s amusing, to be honest. However, there is a disturbing trend as of late of even loyal SCS fans starting to cry out against American Truck Simulator. What is happening here? Well, let’s take a look.

One of the primary out-cries focuses on the same, outdated game engine being used. For the most part, ATS is being looked upon as just a re-hashed ETS2 map with American textures applied. When I play ATS, I love the American feel. California feels like California, and the scenery feels like America. But, when it comes to prefabs and the game engine, those crying out are actually correct. There are SOME original prefabs used in ATS that were not used in ETS2, but for the most part, over 75% of all the prefabs are just reskinned ETS2 Scandinavia DLC assets. Admittedly, with all of the new engine technologies out there for simulation games, I was surprised SCS stuck to their old engine to create a new software title.

When confronted about this, the stand by SCS is that using the same engine and file structure enables the modding community to easily make mods for both ATS and ETS2. At first I supported this, and was actually very excited about the idea, but once the release came and the game went live, I was quickly plagued by the worst part of this idea ever. The modding site I like to download from – http://atsmods.lt/ – was plagued almost instantly with people slamming piles of European crap all over it. Scanias and other cab overs, European trailers … pretty much everyone went rampant with trying to port over every ETS2 asset they could into this beloved American environment. I had to sift through pages of useless, unrelated Euro models just to find a mod that was actually American. I’m not racist, and I love Europeans. But this was supposed to be an American game, and it took literally over a month before the mods on that site started to match the theme. It was frustrating. Even today people keep trying to upload mods that convert the game to Russian languages, etc. trying to convert it into another ETS2. So I have officially gone from excited over cross-compatibility to being seriously disappointed and regretting my support of the idea.

Another outcry of the community, and this one I am a part of, is the scale of the map. One of the things I hated the most about ETS2 was their map scale and how time flows on that game. I literally refused to move the truck until I opened the console and typed in “warp 0.8” so that I could at least somewhat move the truck without feeling like Mario Andretti. ETS2 was on a 1:19 scale, so it felt like there wasn’t much detail at all there and that getting between cities just took too long. I always felt more like a short-haul package delivery guy than an OTR driver in the game. A lot of people argue that making a simulation like this 1:1 would be far too boring and that “No one does that and succeeds” … for those who say that, I’d have to draw your attention to great flight simulation games that game me HOURS upon HOURS of enjoyment, such as FSX and Prepar3D, among others. Those were 1:1, real-time simulators with great realism involved.

So what was so great about 1:1 simulation games such as the flight simulators I mentioned? More choices. People on the “keep the scale small” side of the debate argue that if the scale is 1:1, they won’t be able to drive any routes and the game will quickly become very boring. However, in 1:1 scale simulation games, we get the chance to make that choice for ourselves. If ATS were 1:1, we could make our own choice: drive a short route, or make progress on an long haul route. One of the most satisfying things I did in flight simulation was to make a flight around the world. I’d spend a few hours per day on a leg of the flight, not only performing all of the procedures of a real world pilot, but taking in scenery that I will probably never have the chance to enjoy in real life. Once I started growing tired of being in the game, I’d land, and the next day or so I’d plan my next leg and continue from there. The very same could be done with ATS.

So do you remember how I stated above that ETS2 was on a 1:19 scale and bugged the heck out of me? Well, get this. If you are not already aware, ATS is on a 1:35 scale. What does that mean? That’s right – time flies … fast. I have to literally struggle to drive the truck any distance at all before nighttime sets in. I never get the satisfaction of doing a long drive because even driving all the way across two entire states takes a total of maybe half an hour. No matter how much I try to immerse myself into the simulation aspect of driving in a game like this, I literally cannot spend more than a couple of hours in ATS due to boredom and frustration over the scale. At this point, even if they reverted to the 1:19 scale they used in ETS2 I’d jump for joy. 1:35 … that’s simply too small. I can understand such a scale in ETS2. But in ATS, we really need the feel of long-haul OTR driving. Even when other states release, trying to get the feel of a long drive isn’t going to happen, because every few minutes the sun is going to set, and even with HDR on I absolutely hate night driving in the SCS game engine. I play ETS2 and ATS to take in scenery while operating big trucks. It is hard to do that when daytime is so short.

This next issue has gotten mixed responses on the forums, but to those of us who actually drive in real life, it is a HUGE issue. The infrastructure in the game is far from realistic for an American environment. Freeways NEVER come to an intersection – ever. You will never come to a stoplight or intersection on an interstate freeway. In order to access a freeway, even out in rural areas, you need to use an exit/overpass. In rural areas, we have small roads called “frontage roads” that go along the side of the highway for local traffic to access farms, businesses, homes, etc. that lie alongside the interstate. For someone there to access the interstate, they need to get on the frontage road and drive until they come to an entrance ramp for the interstate.

Speed limits are also a huge issue, and are actually related to what I mentioned above. On an interstate, in every state in America, the MINIMUM speed limit is 55. On average in populated areas it is more like 65. Then when you get out into rural areas, it becomes more like 70 to 80 miles per hour. This is also tied in with the map scale. Even with a high horsepower engine, on my longest haul I can NEVER get to an actual truck freeway speed limit before having to slam on my brakes due to some ridiculous low speed coming out of nowhere for any number of reasons. There are sections where road construction brings freeway speed limits down to 30 MPH. That never happens in real life. Here in Colorado, unless the road construction is REALLY major, speed limits in a construction zone drop to maybe 55. The lowest I have ever seen it is in the middle of Denver, where the major T-Rex project occasionally had sections that dropped traffic to 45. And that was in the middle of a metro area.

Speaking of intersections and speed – that brings me to two other things which I have found I am not alone on in ATS – signs and wrong signs. I’ll start with the wrong signs. NEVER in my many many years of driving all across America have I seen a stop sign at an intersection that has a traffic light. In game, however, you’d think we had this at literally every intersection in America. All intersections in the game, regardless of if they have a traffic light or not, have a stop sign. Now, I suppose this could be considered a small cosmetic issue and could be ignored, except you have an aspect in the game that does NOT ignore this – the AI traffic. I have had to sit through MANY green lights, not able to move, because the AI traffic in front of me ignores the traffic light and stops at the stop sign, treating the intersection as if it is a 4-way stop. I posted about this on the forums, and out of many people involved in the conversation, I had only one individual reply that stated he has ever seen a sign at a traffic light like that. I did Google searches, and researched as much as I could, and although some light intersections have stop signs NEAR them which sometimes confuse drivers because of frontage roads, etc., there has never been a stop sign actually posted AT an intersection that has a light. It makes no sense, it is confusing, and confusion on a roadway makes driving dangerous. SCS absolutely needs to get rid of these signs or at LEAST program AI to ignore them when a traffic light is there.

The other sign issue is size. In order to not add too much excessive length to this article, I’ll simply refer you to this forum thread I started on the issue: http://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=185&t=202823. Speed limit and other critical signs on freeways are far too small. Based on the models used in the game compared with the scale of trucks, it appears that the developers chose to only use residential signs for everything, and DOT standards in the US clearly make this not a safe issue. Freeway signs are huge compared to residential signs, and when you are going at freeway speeds, regardless of if you are in a truck or a car, you need to be able to see a sign coming up with PLENTY of time to react to that speed change. In ATS, I find myself looking at my Route Advisor almost entirely to get sped information, as I often do not even see the signs on the freeways. I have no problem on the 2-lane roads, but on freeways, SCS really needs to start using a scaled freeway size sign for speeds.

So with all of these apparent drawbacks to the game, you might be asking, “What makes you stay? Would you recommend this game to someone else?” I am going to have to be completely honest with myself here – the only thing keeping me interested in ATS at the moment is the fact that it is a sandbox for my own creativity. I make models in Blender – PRIVATE mods used only for myself in the game. I do not upload any of my mods. I tried that once and almost immediately my work got drug into a major AI traffic mod by an author I actually respect, but received no credit and not so much as an email asking “hey, can I use your stuff?” But, I digress. As far as ATS goes, creating stuff, and then seeing it come to life in a game environment, seems to be the only thing holding me to spending any time in ATS at the moment. Arizona is supposed to release soon, and I suppose I’ll take a break from Blender and drive the roads of it for a few days. But, as with California and Nevada, due to the scale I’ll quickly run out of roads, and get bored again.

Would I recommend ATS for a new customer? Possibly. Even with these drawbacks, there are people out there who might enjoy ATS as a game. We have to remember a VERY important note that just because the word “Simulation” is in a game title does NOT make it a simulation. “Simulator” is now a game genre that simply says, “Okay, this is not an MMO, FPS, racing, TPS or 2D arcade game. The only thing left is “Simulator” for the genre, so let’s put it there.” I have had some people argue with me on that regard, to which they quickly shut up when I link them to the web site for “Goat Simulator.” Anyway, with that in mind, if someone is looking for a casual gameplay experience and simply loves trucks, I might recommend this game for them. If someone wants a more in-depth actual simulator experience, with detail, long hauls and total immersion, then ATS is definitely not the game for you.

Unlike Flight Simulator, this is a game, not a simulator, and should be treated as such. Only when we gain features such as 1:1 scale, system failures resulting from lack of maintenance, varying economy and much better time scale will this game come even close to being considered a simulator. The only realism feature that some folks have asked for that I support SCS on NOT including is visual damage, mainly due to licensing. No truck manufacturer is going to license their truck to see it utterly destroyed all over YouTube, so for the purposes of getting more brands into our game, I completely understand not having visual damage.

In conclusion, I have to say that I am a hardcore SCS fan who desperately wants to support and see the Truck Simulator franchise succeed. However I am disappointed thus far in how ATS has turned out, and hope with all hoping that in the future, SCS listens to serious fans such as myself and brings this franchise up to par.

American Truck Simulator PROS:

American environment
American trucks
New environment with new textures.
Good game for the casual gamer who seeks more quick fun than immersion.
Recognizable landmarks, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Las Vegas Strip, etc.

American Truck Simulator CONS:

Map scale way too small. 1:35 is ridiculous.
Re-hashed engine from an already outdated game.
Simulation speed still unrealistic. Have to use “warp 0.8” to get an accurate feel for driving.
Same game structure is allowing the mod sites to be flooded with unrealistic European stuff from ETS2. Scanias do not belong on American roads, even though in ETS2 I am a Scania fan.
Graphics becoming dated for today’s gaming technologies – again due to the decision o keep the same outdated game engine.
Stop signs at traffic lights making AI mess up any experience of immersion.
Speed limit signs on freeways too small.
Road infrastructure highly unrealistic, with crazy speed limit changes, intersections on freeways and scale making it almost impossible to keep a steady speed before one of these obstacles forces you to slam to a halt.

Track IR 5 with Pro Clip

Published on Thursday, 31 December 2015 09:40

Faelandaea

0 Comments

So in anticipation of getting my Track IR, I watched YouTube videos on setting it up with games I already have. For Farming Simulator, it is literally a bloody nightmare, but I am working on that even as I type this. However, for games like ETS2, it works natively and even has built in profiles to work properly with those games. I hopped into ETS2 … crashed … realized major patches had come out that broke my mods, and started a new profile. Ah the joys of a modded game being updated. But either way, after starting a new profile and hopping into the truck, all i can say is WOW!

Now – a little bit of history here. I had Track IR already once – years and years ago. I think it was version 3 at the time. I’m not sure. But I was pretty much exclusively an armchair pilot who went on to real flying afterwards. But in the simulator – FSX – I was strictly a virtual flight deck pilot. In the virtual flight deck, especially on advanced airliners like the PMDG 737, there were gazillions of knobs and such to click with the mouse to have a smooth flight. At the time, TIR was so sensitive to my head movement, that I ended up actually sending it back for a refund because I could not hold my head still enough at all to click a single knob on the flight deck. It made for a very interesting – and very disastrous – test flight that ended in me closing out the game else I’d eventually crash the plane anyway.

Now, years later and coming into 2016, I have been doing a lot of driving games that do NOT need knobs, etc switched on and off around me. Whatever I do need is hard mapped to buttons on my Logitech G27 setup that I use. Thus, I decided to give TIR another try. I am glad i did, but there are some things I;’d like to post here to help save some people some money:

Do NOT bother with the “Pro Clip” add-on. It;s junk. Not only does it add an extra wire to the side of your headset for the cat to play with, but it just doesn’t work – at all. You will see many YouTubers who got it to work, but they are advanced programmers and geniuses who did scripting or something to get it that way, because I guarantee you they didn’t just slide a few sliders and get this thing to work. No matter what I tried, even positioning the clip just like the ONE YouTube poster who actually posted his clip (straight vertical), it would not read my head properly. I;d turn left – the camera would go UP and left. I look right, camera goes DOWN and right. It kept thinking I was rolling my head somehow. It also was VERY VERY glitch-ridden in the movements, and it was a nightmare.

I had almost given up and once again pondered a second return of the TIR setup when I noticed on my desk the little hat clip I had set aside. The hat clip is a reflector only version of the head piece, and it is the basic item you get if you do not want to use the track clip pro. It;’s passive, where the Pro is active (giving off beams of light instead of just being reflectors). I scrounged around and found a hat, ditched the Track Clip Pro, and restarted the TIR software. BAM! I didn’t even have to configure anything and it worked out beautifully. All i had to do was hit the hotkey to re-center the camera based on ym new clip position and I was in business. It was right after that when I went into ETS2 and had a wonderful set of 2 drives with this thing on.

I’ll have to keep posting and let folks know how it works in FS15. I am following Reef’s awesome advice here: http://fs-uk.com/forum/index.php?topic=169990.msg1195394#msg1195394

Anyway, for those considering TIR, save your money and just get TIR 5. Don’t bother with the Track Clip Pro. I should have researched more, because a Google Search actually found a LOT of people out there who had the same struggle I am having, or different struggles, which all ended the same – with them using the basic hat clip and tossing the Pro Clip back in the box.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Blender2SCS – What is the Right Scale?

Published on Sunday, 02 August 2015 21:43

Faelandaea

0 Comments

A question that boggled me for ages was how to make sure objects are scaled properly for ETS2. I asked and asked and asked on forums and always got the same answer: “Just import a default trailer and use it for reference”. It amazed me that so many people were content with just using a rough draft to approximate things. I want realism, and precise scale is the ONLY way to simulate realism at all. Approximating does not cut it for me.

Finally, one helpful soul on the SCS forums replied that what he does is create a new cube, and that by default the cube is 1 meter long x 1 meter high x 1 meter wide. He also stated that SCS uses this scale to make their models – essentially a 1:1 ratio. So I tried this and frustratingly got the following result:

Yikes! That is huge. Double the size of the default trailer (seen in the image as the smaller object). Wait . . . double the size . . . . that’s it! So I created a new cube and this time paid attention to the grid lines. Each grid line in Blender is 1 meter, but the new cube by default is 2 lines wide! So, at least in my version of Blender which is v 2.74, a new cube is 2 meters in each direction, not 1!

The real life proportions of the Krone Profi Liner are 13.620 mm long, 2.700 mm high (body only, not from ground – from the ground it is 4.00 mm high) and 2.550 mm wide. So, in order to recreate this trailer precisely, I simply take the numbers and divide them by 2:

13.620/2=6.81
2.700/2=1.35
2.550/2=1.275

So now, entering those numbers on the new cube, we get a model that perfectly matches the default SCS Profi Liner. AWESOME! So now we know how to precisely scale an object to ETS2.

Now I will leave you guys with an important note: DO NOT apply location and transformation until you are satisfied that your object is to scale and positioned properly. Once you apply location and rotation, the scale “resets”, so if you find you messed up on the scale after the fact, you would have to create a new cube, sphere, etc. and start over.

I hope this helps others who might be Googling for this same issue. Good luck with your new model!

ETS2 v1.18 Fleet Enhancements

Published on Tuesday, 02 June 2015 05:53

Faelandaea

0 Comments

As a few souls know, I have been working hard to upgrade my entire trailer fleet – both the default replacements and the stand-alone – to even higher standards of visual awesomeness and functionality.

Here is a visual showing off of what I have done so far. I have yet to assemble the rest of the stand-alone fleet – only 1 trailer done so far for that which I finished tonight, pending troubleshooting a very annoying material-call error I keep getting. Once that error goes away I plan to release the trailer to the public.

I have replaced the Aerodynamic Refrigerated with this American trailer. It is a perfect trade-off, making this a very rare trailer as it is American, and also giving something to pull with my T800 whenever I have the chance. I do not plan to do anything else with this trailer as I am happy with it as is.

I did not have to make any changes to this trailer since my last update. My main edit with this skin was to make the explosives trailer more reflective for safety. I forgot to screenshot the brick version, but it hasn’t changed either and is already posted in this blog.

This is a work in progress. I plan to separate/split the vertexes of this trailer into more parts so I can trim the walkways and ladder in chrome. I also want to add more detailed controls on the side.

My favorite hauls are the vans/reefers, but if I have to pull a tank, this is one of my favorites to haul. I cannot remember the author, but it was such a joy to paint this cistern, and make it really beautiful without losing the aspect of just what it hauls – chemicals.

In a future update I plan to modify her current flat grey fenders to chrome, and maybe add chrome to the top rails also.

This 4-Axle Jumbo replaces the default Container Trailer. I have been trying to make a lot of my trailers really pop out in detail and shine, but this is one of those trailers that you just want to keep simple. To me the balance came out perfectly.

I may do come chrome on the ramp later on, but for the most part I like this trailer just the way it is.

This Futura SR2 replaces the Curtain Sider a.k.a. Krone Profi-Liner. Right now she is just a skin, as she already looks good enough that I do not have to manually edit anything on her. I can;t remember, but I do think I replaced the cooling unit, as I have been doing on a lot of trailers. Currently she is sporting the Thermo King SL-X-200. Part of my project is to have a different make/model of cooling unit on each trailer for variety. Also, having different units has been helping me scroll through my jobs list faster when I am in the mod for a particular trailer to pull and want to find it fast.

This is a pride and joy. I know she does not look like much, but she is my first ever attempt at going beyond simple painting and editing for a trailer. The model as it is available on ets2.lt left a LOT to be desired. It was a sort-of convert from ETS1, but the author didn;t bother with flares at all, so the lights didn;t work. I originally intended to just open the pmd and add lights, and before I knew it I had literally deleted everything off the trailer except for the main walls of the body.

I dissected the chassis and split it into chrome, metal, and painted parts. I tossed the braces and brought in new ones off a full size Chereau. I also borrowed labels from the full size Chereau and some accessories as well. Notice the addition of chocks, pull/tow rings, and chrome. I also completely tossed the old lights, as well as their textures, and brought in much higher quality lights and flares (flares that actually worked) for the model.

She may be a short, boring little inter-city trailer, but to me she is my first full all-out 3D editing project that went beyond just adding the occasional cargo or cooling unit. This little guy just sparked a whole new inspiration to do some major overhauls on the rest of my fleet using what I learned here.

This is simply a repaint of the default Flatbed Trailer. Note my skins for the Low-bed also showing on her cargo.

Using what I just learned from the City Trailer project above, I plan to completely overhaul the bumper, lights and fenders of this trailer, making her worth looking at. Flatbeds are hard to work with for visuals, but I know I can do something with this one, now.

I stumbled on this trailer in one of my Jazzy Packs I downloaded. She is a VERY beautiful tanker. Right now she is just a re-skin, but I want to split the hose systems and make them more detailed. I also want to do like I saw on another trailer of mine and add a rail that pops up on the catwalk when the trailer is disconnected. I learned last week about those sorts of animations and was amazed to find out it is as simple as attaching the parts you want to the BRACE_ON group – very nice.

If you thought a Flatbed was simple, try working with this Glass trailer. Her mapping is about as unfriendly as it gets for skinning, and I have yet to learn successfully how to unwrap a model for remapping. Seriously, 3D modeling itself is easier and simpler than unwrapping a UV. So I plan to improvise.

The nose section right now is not mapped, and to me it just doesn;t look right with the white side stripe stopping where it is, so I plan to make it chrome. Also, I plan to replace the side panels with fresh ones so the logo is not “mirrored”, thus enabling me to make a better looking side paint. I am also going to add chrome trim to enhance her visuals a bit.

To me the Glass Trailer is THE ugliest trailer in the game, so this is at the top of my list (starting tonight actually) to work on for editing.

This is another pull-out from the Jazzy packs. I could not, however, find a 30-foot variant, so i am considering tossing my favorite of these – the 20b version (that is the one with two 20-foot containers on board) in its place. Currently a reskin only, and most likely going to stay that way.

This unit replaces the Insulated Trailer a.k.a. Krone Fridge. She is a Schmitz which I simply painted. Later on I plan to do some more work on the side boxes to place some labels.

Moooooooo-ve over, people. Here comes some Cows. This trailer replaces the new Livestock Carrier from the Scandinavia DLC pack. While my skin may make the trailer look solid, there is plenty of ventilation and even fans to keep the cattle comfortable during their journey. This design also keeps them protected from harsh elements during movement.

This is quite simply a re-skin of the default Logging Trailer. Front view only since there’s nothing to see from behind. My next and most likely final step with this trailer is working with the Alphas to make the grill have actual holes where the current black dots are.

Ignore the cargo. This repaint only affects the trailer. I redid the metal plating for some easier to maintain and more durable grids. This is only a re-skin and I do not plan to do anything further with this trailer.

I screwed up and replaced both the Opentop and Tipper trailers with the same trailer. I have another trailer already skinned and ready to go for the Opentop. I just need to make sure she is compliant with v1.17x standards then get her into action. In the meantime, the trailer pictured here will stay on as the Tipper replacement even once the Opentop is put into play.

I am not happy about the ladder and platform on the front. I plan to split those off and give them chrome materials, and try to give the floor a rugged plating look.

Just a re-skin of the default Panel Transporter to not look like it is 100 years old any more. With what I learned from the City trailer project, I plan to completely overhaul the metal handrails into chrome and add a sign somewhere on her for my company.

This trailer replaces the Platform Trailer, a.k.a. Schmitz Universal. Only the paint is mine. The rest of the trailer looks beautiful enough not to touch.

Even though I replaced the Aerodynamic with the USA trailer, I still wanted an Aerodynamic in my fleet, AND I wanted that one to be more common. So this trailer, pulled from the Jazzy Packs, go a makeover from me. I used her to replace the default Reefer.

First I split her body into multiple parts so I could add chrome trim. I also tore out her original cooling unit and added a carrier Vector 1800 MT (NO_FRIDGE variant of the ETS2 model), Thermo King SB-200 (FRIDGE_B Variant) and Thermo King SLXe 300 (FRIDGE_A variant). Depending on the company and cargo, all three are in game just as the original Reefer was. I also noticed that no matter what truck/chassis variant I drove, on turns the rear of my truck would clip right through the braces, so I moved them back. This also made them more “built-in” to the body, giving more of a sleek feel to the Aerodynamic look.

Yes, the caution sign does say “CAUTION: Blinkie thing means turning!”

Refrigerated_Trailer

The Refrigerated Trailer, a.k.a. Krone Coolliner, has been replaced by this BEAUTIFUL Chereau trailer. Currently she is my favorite trailer as far as model detail goes. She is already packed with visual features and eye-candy, so there was absolutely NOTHING to do here except add my fleet colors. Painting her was very easy also, so this mod is definitely a joy to work with.

The food cistern I was using before just seemed . . . off somehow. It was also ugly no matter how I edited it. It seemed a runner up for the Glass trailer for trucking eye-sores. So I brought in this replacement for the Tank Trailer. She was MUCH easier to paint and is much easier on the eyes. This is the trailer that has the rail that pops up when in the BRACE_ON configuration. I plan to adapt this rail onto the Fuel Tanker as well. This trailer is finished and will receive no further edits from me, except maybe to give some detail and texture variation on the hose sleeves.

Well, that’s it! I hope you like what you see here. Now . . . off to do some heavy haul editing on that bloody Glass Trailer . . .

ETS2 – Replace Default Trailer

Published on Saturday, 30 May 2015 10:18

Faelandaea

0 Comments

Greetings!

So this will be my first all-out detailed tutorial for ETS2 modding. Before I go into the article, I want to make a disclaimer that I do NOT consider myself an expert in the area of modding. Like you, I am merely a beginner, and learning all of this process myself. I practice in the areas of 3D modelling, texturing, and some definition file tinkering for tweaking the simulation environment. As such, I always welcome feedback, as long as it is constructive, so feel free to let me know if you have any comments or suggestions on the following article.

As usual with the majority of simulation enthusiasts in the world, it does not take me long to tire of the boring default vehicles available in Euro Truck Simulator 2. Even re-skinning them only kept me appeased for so long. I wanted some beautiful trailers, and I wanted a fleet for my virtual company. I am also a heavy user of the famous Jazzy packs which add a WONDERFUL array of AI traffic and trailers to the game. So I thought to myself, "With all of these wonderful Jazzy packs, do I really want to sit around coding DEF files for standalone trailers? Or shall I just replace the default trailers with my own fleet?"

I had to weight a couple of options. The Jazzy fleets obviously repaint the default trailers as well, so I could just make my own standalone fleet in addition to the already available real-world trailer choices. However, if I replace the default trailers with my own customized fleet, then all I have to do whenever an expansion comes out is make sure the trailers are still up to par as far as wheel definitions go. I do not have to worry about changes in definition standards across the board – something I encountered when 1.14 released. So for my current profile for ETS2 I decided to go with the replace-the-default-fleet route.

PREPARATION: FINDING A TRAILER

For this project, I take a third party trailer and re-skin it to my fleet colours. This tutorial is not a painting tutorial, so we’ll start with a trailer that is already skinned to my satisfaction – in this case the wonderful Chereau.

You may easily follow this tutorial using ANY trailer of your liking. If you are at a loss for a trailer, or simply want to follow the tutorial with the same trailer I use, then here is how to get hold of the Chereau.

http://ets2.lt/en/chereau-trailers-pack-v-1-0/

Now we need the software to prepare for modding. Again, this is NOT a paint tutorial, so I will not go into software for skinning the trailers. For this project we will assume you have already downloaded the above mentioned trailer, and painted it.

PREPARATION: THE GAME FILES

In order for us to mod anything at all for ETS2, we always need to have all of the game files available. Fortunately, the way modding works for ETS2, we extract the files separately and work with them separately, so we can work with the core files WITHOUT messing up our game! As such, the current game engine set-up should never require a reinstall due to a mod going bad. Any time a game mod goes bad, simply deactivating the mod will usually fix the issue. Obviously, some advanced mods that affect maps or core game files may mess up a profile, but they will never mess up a game so badly that it forces a reinstall. The worst case scenario is you might have to start a new profile.

SCS Extractor can be downloaded here:

http://download.eurotrucksimulator2.com/scs_extractor.zip

There is no install for this program. It is simply an exe file named "scs_extractor.exe". You simply extract the tool and use it. I will tell you how to use it in a few moments.

Your next step is to decide where you will work with your game files. It is very important to note that you need, at the time of this writing based on file sizes, at least 1.6 GB of disk space to safely work with your modding. At this time, there was 1.51 GB involved in the needed files (don;t worry we’re getting to those in a moment), and obviously modding will take up more room, and I figured 10 GB would be sufficient for this project. I do a LOT of modding and also download and install a ton of mods and currently have only used 3 GB of this space, so you should be well okay as long as you have 1.6 GB to work with in disk space.

What I did was create a directory called "ETS2 Core Files" and placed a copy of "scs_extractor.exe" in this directory.

Now is where it gets tricky, because different launcher users will have different directories for ETS2. Thus, the information I am about to give WILL be different if you are not a Steam user. I use Steam, and this makes accessing the game directory pretty much easy and brainless. In your Steam library, simply right-click Euro Truck Simulator 2 and select "Properties".

In the window that pops up, select the "LOCAL FILES" tab at the top. Now select "BROWSE LOCAL FILES…" This will open your ETS2 directory. In my case it was C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Euro Truck Simulator 2, but it may vary depending on the options you chose when installing Steam and installing Games.

Now we are going to select 2 files to copy over to our work directory: "base" and "def". If you wish to mod with any of the Scandinavia DLC, you’ll also want to snag "dlc_north" as well, but for now lets just stick with the basics:

Now take and COPY (not move – you don’t want to accidentally remove them from your game directory) and paste them into your work directory. It should now look something like this:

Now we need to extract these files. To do this, simply DRAG each file (one at a time) onto the "scs_extractor.exe" tool and wait. A black CMD (DOS for those of us old school folks) window will pop up letting you know it is processing the work. My advice is do the def file first, then the base file. The base file will take anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes to extract, maybe even longer depending on your computer’s processing speed. But if you are running a PC meant for gaming, it should never take more than 2 – 3 minutes tops to extract the base files. The def directory should always take only a few seconds, as it is only a bunch of text files. That is why I do it first, then go grab a quick drink while base is extracting.

Once done, your work folder should now look something like this:

The game files are now prepared for working with. Leave them for now and lets move on.

PREPARATION: EDITING SOFTWARE

Next we’ll need the best compressed file handling tool (in my opinion, of course) – WinRAR:

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

I am currently running WinRAR x64 (64 Bit) 5.21. It’s an installer so you should have no problem installing it. There is a paid version of WinRAR but do not worry about this. To access SCS files and work with them, we only need the free tools. The paid version is really just for advanced features and tech support.

Now for Blender. We will need this, as well as a plug-in used for editing SCS files. I had originally had this as part of this tutorial, but in my typing, the instructions for setting up Blender became so long, that I snipped it and turned it into it’s own article. Before you can proceed with this tutorial, you will need to have Blender and Blender2SCS installed and configured. You may follow the link to go through that process, then come back here to continue. Honestly, I think setting up Blender took longer than the entire conversion process of this tutorial alone, so set asi=de some time before you dive into the setup process.

http://faelandaea.com/setting-up-blender-for-ets2-modding/

MULTITASKING – USING MULTIPLE WINDOWS

I have multiple monitors on my PC. This is not only awesome for gaming, but VERY VERY handy for modding as well. However I understand that a lot of people still use a single monitor for editing. We will be using 2 instances of Blender for this project, so what I suggest is not having them maximized. Instead, open both instances of Blender so that they are side by side, each taking up half of your screen. Our reason for this is, in order to properly replace a default trailer without errors, we will have to duplicate a lot of information from the default trailer onto our new trailer.

So go ahead and open Blender TWICE, and resize them so they are side by side, and then lets continue on.

IMPORTING THE DEFAULT TRAILER

For the sake of this tutorial, I will be replacing the Krone Coolliner with a Chereau trailer. However you can use any trailer combination you like.

In Blender, import the Krone Coolliner. If you are unfamiliar with how to import, you may want to refer to the above tutorial on setting up Blender. Importing is covered there. Don;t forget to set your Mod path and SCS base path BOTH to your base files root directory for this import!!! Then navigate to \vehicle\trailer_eu\krone\cool_liner\ and open cool_liner.pmd

Once it is imported, you should see something like this (note I have the cool_liner tree highlighted and the "Object" tab selected in the properties window on the right).

This model we are only using for reference, so let’s move on to our custom model. I presume that you have already followed the earlier links and downloaded the Chereau trailer. Or, if you are using another trailer, you have it downloaded. Again, the steps I take are for the Chereau but the concepts will all be the same.

Go to the folder where you downloaded the Chereau, which should be "Pack Chereau V1 by Vaay1999". Extract the files in that folder. You should now have "zzzzzzzzzzPack Chereau.scs". If this is your first time messing about with an scs file, most likely it is just a generic white icon with no program associated with it. This is normal.

A little bit about scs files and their format. An scs file is, quite simply, a zip file that was given a different extension which is used by ETS2 to see it as a mod file. So, when you double click to open this file, it should bring up a dialogue window to have you assign which program opens it. Choose WinRAR to open the file, and make sure you select "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file". You may have to navigate to the program manually. By default WinRAR is installed to "C:\Program Files\WinRAR". Just navigate there and select the WinRAR application.

A little bit about mod security. Some modders do not want the community to be able to customize a mod to their own enjoyment (a pointless idiocy, but that’s a debate for an entirely different article). The point here is, sometimes you may open a mod and notice the folders inside it have an asterisk symbol (*) next to it. This means that the mod is locked and cannot be extracted . . . easily . . . there is a program to still open these types of mods, but again I’ll cover that in another article.

Fortunately, the Chereau trailer is open for editing and can be easily re-skinned. So, with the scs file open in WinRAR, simply drag the folders out into your work folder. Once this is done, you can access the textures, etc. to repaint them as needed. For now, I am going to assume you are either using the skins that came with the Chereau, or that you have already painted the trailer with your desired fleet color. Now, the Krone Coolliner has literally 30 different looks. Therefore you can do one of three things:

Use different skins downloaded from different Chereau trailer downloads to apply to this project (given that the skins are the same UV mapping as the one this trailer uses).
Create your own skins, making each a different variation for each look – a lot of modders doing a single company fleet will make a simple change like the trailer’s serial number markings, etc to give an in-game look of a whole fleet of trailers for one company.
Use the same texture on all looks to give a universal look for your fleet of trailers, essentially turning the Cool-liner into a single trailer.

For the sake of this tutorial, we will make things REALLY simple and use option 3, using the same texture on the entire fleet. I happened to paint a skin I will be using for the Chereau, and will use it for this tutorial.

EDITING THE NEW TRAILER

Now let’s bring in the new trailer. We will use the second instance of Blender to do this. Now is where we get to use ‘Set as Mod Path" individually. You still want to "Set As SCS Base Path" to your original game files where you extracted them using scs_extractor. However, now your mod path should point to where you just extracted the Chereau core files.

Now navigate to the model file. For some reason, instead of one model with multiple looks, the author of this mod decided to make multiple copies of the trailer, one for each skin. This makes no sense, especially since you can VERY easily create multiple looks for a trailer and not have a mod grow to an insane file size due to unnecessary use of copies of the same pmd. This tutorial will show you how to do that also. For now, we’ll just bring in the pmd from frigo1 – cool_liner.pmd

Originally, this trailer was originally intended to already replace the cool-liner, but it is imperative that you know and understand that the name of the pmd is ALWAYS the name of the top tier of your directory tree. Let’s take a look. See how in the screen-shot here your trailer is named "cool_liner"?

Say we want this trailer to NOT replace a default trailer in the game. We simple name this to something else, such as my_trailer. If we change that name to "my_trailer", then the model will export automatically as my_trailer.pmd, my_trailer.pmg and my_trailer.pmc respectively.

For now, though, let’s leave well enough alone and move on.

Our first step is to assure that the variants of both trailers match precisely. In the default Krone trailer, we have two variants, "DEFAULT" and "KRONE". Our new trailer only has "DEFAULT". Let’s make a KRONE variant. Look down to where you see "SCS Variant Look/Tools" on the right side of Blender. You see a Variant List that already has "A: DEFAULT" listed. Click "ADD NEW VARIANT", then replace "NEW_NAME" with "KRONE". Click OK.

Now, in your Outliner, click DEFAULTPART to highlight it. On the right side, "SCS Section/Collision Visibility Tools" should now list your new Variant, but with it unchecked. Check this.

Now for the time consuming part. Looks. ETS2 has 30 different looks for the Krone Cool Liner alone. The list goes up to "29", but that is because the first look is labeled as "0", so 30 looks are there total.

Click and highlight cool_liner again, so that you can see the looks list. As you can see, we only have one look, titled "1". Now look at the "SCS Variant Look/Tools" section and click "EDIT" next to "0: 1" in the looks list. Change this name to DEFAULT. Click OK. Now, keep looking at the same list on the default trailer, and keep clicking "ADD NEW LOOK" to add the looks from the default fleet. SPELLING IS CRUCIAL HERE!!! Use copy/paste if you need to. What I did was on the default trailer, selected the look I was copying, clicked "EDIT", coped the text, then pasted it to a new look on my Chereau. Once done, the lists looked the same for both trailers.

Now it is time to apply your skin to the trailer. You may have done this already manually by painting over the original paint in the original texture file, but I like to always keep files clean in case I decide to go back for whatever reason. So I painted my own file and named it something unique so as to not overwrite existing files. So what I did here was click on the Materials tab at the top, and on the "Quick Look Toggler" I selected DEFAULT.

Then I clicked the TEXTURE tab at the top, selected "default", then on the "image" section below, I clicked the folder icon to navigate to my custom texture.

Now I should be seeing my desired skin on the trailer. Awesome!!! Or maybe now. The skin may not look right, some elements might need moved, etc. The COOL part is you can use Blender to apply a skin like this and then make corrections to your paint in your editor of choice, then all you have to do is hit REFRESH (see screen-shot below) every time you save the texture to preview the changes instantly in Blender!!! No more starting ETS2 50,000 times to correct 3 pixels of movement somewhere!!!

Oh but I bet you are seeing a bunch of odd grey or black covering your texture, right? Right. Those are shadow textures rendered solid here but the game sees them as mostly transparent. We can get those out of the way. Simply click the OBJECT tab, then select SHADOWS VISIBILITY OFF. now you should be able to see the skin without issues. The black lines you see are collision boxes in front of the skin. If those bother you, just expand the "collisions" part of the trailer in your Outliner tree and click all the eyeballs until they are greyed out. No more boxes. You can also hide collisions by highlighting your root model name, click "INCLUDE COLLISIONS" so it reads "OFF, and then reset the variant toggle, then reselect DEFAULT. Now you see the trailer with nothing but flares and physical parts. You can hide the flares too, but I have never bothered with this as those have to be clicked individually and trailers like the Chereau have a LOT of flares. besides, they never get in the way anyway.

So . . . now we have a skin applied, and most likely you stopped there to make a few corrections on the skin, with a smile on your face that you just saved a lot of skin editing time, and now you are ready to export this beauty and get into game with it. Well, we still have some work to do. Don’t hate me. I’m just the messenger.

Do you remember earlier when we assigned a bunch of "Looks" to the trailer? Mainly they were abbreviations for all of the fictional companies in the game. These are essentially call-codes. Even if you have a third-party mod that changes company logos and graphics to real-world companies, ETS2 still refers to the default names in various files to properly call upon and assign assets to those companies. Have you ever wondered how the game knows to put Eurogoodies trailers at, say, Eurogoodies? Well, now you know. ETS2 communicates with these codes you just assigned to the model, and then calls upon the assigned texture to that look to display the proper paint at the proper location in the game.

We created the codes, but guess what – each of those codes needs it’s own material assigned so that each can have a texture. Lets expand "cool_liner" in the outliner window, then expand "DEFAULTPART". Now click to highlight "Model2.0", and click the "Materials" tab of the properties window. Blender2SCS is telling us this is an issue, and tells how how many materials we need to have – in this trailer’s case – in order to have a proper export. If we do not get these materials assigned, Blender will not even complete the export and we’ll have nothing to put into a mod.

For the most part, with the exception of the part of the trailer that uses your custom skin, fixing this will be VERY easy. In the case of the currently highlighted part, for me "Model2.0" is the Thermal King refrigerator. Having this as an independant unit is cool, because if I wanted to, I could create new textures for the original white variant of the fridge and have them randomly tossed in here so I have trailers with both colors available in the game. I did this for the Reefer, actually. But for the purpose of this tutorial I’ll stick to one texture.

Double click to be able to edit the name of the material. Dont change the name unless you really want to. Just copy the text (CTRL+C for Windows users).

Now, look just below that list. You should see a number which indicates the number of materials that already exist. In my case it’s 14. I need 30, so 30-14=16. I need 16 more materials assigned to this part. Now here is where it gets a bit annoying. At this current time, Blender does NOT give the ability to copy/paste an entire material from scratch. Duplicate material I think would be what they’d call it if such a feature existed. So we have to one-by-one create each material ourselves and one-by-one assign the current material to each one.

Creating the materials is the easy part. Since we need 16 more materials, I simpy click the "+" to add a new material 16 times. IMPORTANT: There are two "+" signs. The one we want is the one circled in the following screenshot.

Fortunately, if you accidentally hit the "+" too many times, it will not hurt the export. All it will do is simply ignore any materials that go beyond the needed looks. If you do hit the "+" too many times, Blender2SCS will advise you of this:

If you are a neat freak like me, you can simply hit the "-" to delete that material slot so the error goes away.

Now for the annoying part. Remember how we copied tking? Now we get to start pasting it … a lot. 16 times to be precise. Click one of the materials we just created. Now click the little selection box to the left of the "New" button. See the screenshot for where I am talking about:

While this menu is up, simply hit CTRL+V to paste tking into the search box …

You may notice in my screens hot that I have three results which hopefully you do NOT have. Remember above when I said NOT to click the wrong "+"? This is because I have no clue what this does, but it seems to create some additional copy of my material and adds a .001 to it. I imagine this is so you can essentially rename such a material and use it for other textures or something, looks maybe. But once you get these duplicates, they can never go away. You cannot delete them, so while it doesn’t HURT anything to put them there by mistake, to a neat freak like me they are annoying. Try to avoid it. Regardless, just click on tking and then notice that the material and all of the properties of that material are added to your new blank slot. Now for the fun part . . . REPEAT a LOT. Repeat this process 15 more bloody times until you are done. once you are done, the warning triangles should disappear. if they do not disappear, you may have missed a material in the list or need to add another. Make sure all materials are accounted for until the warnings disappear.

Are you annoyed yet? Guess what. That was just ONE part of the trailer.

Once you get to a model for your custom livery, in my case "Model2.2", 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 and the BRACE parts, you will notice that instead of a bunch of the same material being applied, you now have a material for each company. THIS is where you can assign a different paint for each company, and THIS is how the game sees and assigns a particular trailer to that company. Since we are creating a SINGLE livery for the entire fleet, you can essentially copy/paste "default" to all of the other slots, overwriting the current companies and filling in the 16 new ones you need to create. I’d go into how to create new materials and start assigning them all the details needed to apply a texture, but that process is long enough to need another entire tutorial for. I’ll try to cover that bit this summer for everyone.

Ah, yes, and remember how we selected "Shadows Visibility: OFF" earlier? We can;t add/edit materials when something is hidden to us, so we need to click the little eyeball to make these layers visible at least while we do the edits. Once done, we can always click them back off again so we can see our paint fully.

By now you have probably repeated this process on all of the "Model" parts under DEFAULTPART. The good news is ONLY parts named "MODELx.x" (where x.x is the model part number) need to have materials assigned. All other parts are effects only and need no textures. So, now that we have applied our materials to all Models under DEFAULTPART, we are ready to . . . . do it some more. Don’t kill me, though. We’re almost done!!!!

Here’s some cool trivia. have you seen any of those third party mods that have animations when you hook up/unhook your trailer? Some trailers have cones that appear, some have rear doors opening. One I have seen even has a forklift appear next to it looking ready to lift something off the bed! These are all the result of a set of codes that ETS2 sees almost like a light switch. These are called "BRACE_OFF and BRACE_ON.

BRACE_OFF is when your trailer is hooked to a truck. The jacks are raised. BRACE_ON is when the trailer is not hooked to a truck. Braces are down and the trailer is stationary. By default these two sections contain the model for the jacks/braces on all trailers. Creative modders that want to include other neat things like traffic cones, etc. when the trailer is unhooked can place them and assign them accordingly to the "BRACE_ON" section. But alas I digressed yet again to bring you some cool trivia about how things work in the game. Lets get back on track.

You have to repeat the process as with above to make sure materials are assigned to all Model parts in BRACE_OFF and BRACE_ON. Go ahead and do this, and then relish in the fact that you are about to complete this entire project!

Okay, done? Cussing yet? I know I was by this point. Anyway, you did it. The editing portion of this project is now done and it is time to prepare for the exciting export. Before we export, let’s run a recap of what we have done so far:

We imported a trailer that we want to replace a default trailer with in the game.
We changed the root name of the model to the same name as the trailer we are replacing (in this case cool_liner).
We matched Variants and Looks to the trailer we are replacing.
We assigned materials to all of the looks we created.

EXPORTING THE TRAILER

Before we export, I want to toggle a window that I love to have up at all times: The system console.

Toggle this on to have a separate window, which looks like a CMD window, appear.

This is something you have to be careful with, though, because you should ONLY use the main menu to toggle this on and off. On PLENTY of occasions I have half-heartedly clicked the red X on the system console and closed it. Guess what? This also closes Blender – without even asking you if you want to save any of your work. Talk about obnoxious! But when exporting I like to monitor for any errors, so it truly is best to have this window open at this time. It should look like this:

Now for the cool, fun part. The export! Breathe! I am sure you did just fine! Select File–>Export–>SCSoft Model (.pmd)

You should now have a screen like this:

Our first step is very important. otherwise the model will not work properly in ETS2. On the left side look for the window that has, by default, "/model/blender_export". Change this to match the root directory of your trailer. In all trailer cases this will ALWAYS start with "/vehicle/trailer_eu/". In this case we are doing the Krone Cool Liner. In ETS2 Krone and Schmitz are unique in that they have their own directories within the "trailer_eu" folder. All other trailers are simply located individually within this folder. So for the "Export origin directory", to replace the Cool Liner, we need this path: "/vehicle/trailer_eu/krone/cool_liner/".

now, below this box is "PMG Version". By default it says "until v1.3.1". This is a baaaad thing, and should always be changed to the other choice: v1.4x. This will bring the model to the standards that were set after the patch 1.4 of ETS2, which brought about major changes to the modelling structure of objects in the game. once done you should see something like this:

Now, you need to navigate to a folder for export. You can create directories from within this window by simply navigating to the directory you want the folder in, then typing your desired folder name after the directory. If you choose to do this, it will look like this:

Note this has the odd behaviour of other spots with a context menu. If you move your mouse off this choice, it will erase the folder name you just tried to create, and you will have to retype it again and just press ENTER to make sure it sticks, without bumping the mouse.

Oh . . . see below that directory where it says "untitled.pmd"? Ignore that. Or not. It doesn;t matter. You can type anything you want into that field and it will be ignored. Be default Blender2SCS will force your file name to be the name of your model that we gave it from within the Outliner. So no matter what you type here resulting file will still be cool_liner.pmd, pmg and pmc. Three files will be created. The pmd is your model. pmg is data ETS2 uses. And pmc is the collisions.

This is it. Drum roll . . . . or whatever sound turns your engine crank for anticipation!

Click it . . . you know the button . . . ‘Export SCS model" (it is to the right of the directory field at the top).

Depending on the speed of your PC, mainly in the area of processing power, the export could take a bit. For me most trailers take about 10 – 15 seconds to export if they are as high quality as the Chereau. Default trailers take 1 – 2 seconds to export. So it really depends on the quality of the model, processing power of the PC, and other factors such as hard drive speed, etc.

Select your System Console we toggled on a bit ago to monitor the progress. Once completed, the result should look like this:

Again, do NOT close this box via the red X. This is a bad thing – ESPECIALLY if we had errors or need to somehow revise our work!

P.S. – if you are a save often type of person like I am, you CAn save your work periodically as a .blend file. Simple go to File–>Save As and name your file whatever you want!

Now let’s check the export directory to make sure our files exported correctly. There SHOULD be 3 models and two folders – once for materials and one for textures. If it looks like this, we are in business!

SO! Are we DONE???????????????????????????????????????????????

No.

Oh come ON! Don’t look at me like that. We still have the LOD models to do. Remember earlier how I stated that the game uses LOD models to render at various distances? In the game, the cool_liner.pmd is also shadowed by existing LOD models. SO! We have two choices! If your third party trailer has an already existing LOD model, we can import it, and repeat this ENTIRE painful process over again OR . . . if you have a good PC like mine that cane handle high detail in games . . . let’s cheat . . .

Go back to the Blender instance where we had the DEFAULT trailer. Go to File–>Import–>SCSoft model again. Don;t click anything else. Just look at this list for reference! Specifically we are looking at the list of models in the folder:

Do you see how there are 3 LOD models? Now go back to your custom trailer Blender and select "cool_liner" in the Outliner window. Double click to be able to rename this part. All of the models start with "cool_liner", so we do not have to delete this. just add "_lod_01" to the name so it appears as "cool_liner_lod_01". Once it is typed correctly, hit ENTEr to apply the change. Now, lets export again! Since we are still using the same instance of Blender, our prior information should still be filled in for "Export Origin Directory", "PMG version", and root directory. So simply verify this and again hit "Export SCS model"

ahain, verify the export was error free, and check the directory. Notice something? Yep! It created three new files, all named for our LOD model!

Now, repeat the process just like this for "cool_liner_lod_02" and "03" respectively. Will using such a high detail model as LOD models effect performance? Yes – it will. it will also yield an odd effect of sometimes as you approach from far away it looks like there are no tires on the trailer, then they appear as you get closer. It is not ideal, but it is a choice of either this, or having the DEFAULT cool liner appear until you get really close, so you would not even know this is YOUR trailer until you were close enough to almost touch it! This is even less ideal. Fortunately, using a high detail LOD model is good as a place-holder until you can either create or find a sufficient LOD model of the same trailer.

So, what about ui_shadow.pmd? Ignore it. The Chereau and the Cool Liner are the same size and orientation, so they can realistically share the shadow file. Leave it be and the trailer will use the default shadow and you won’t see a difference.

PACKING THE MOD

Now, for the final part of this lesson, I will teach you how to package these files into a mod using WinRAR. From the directory where you extracted your models, go UP until you are in your root directory. This is where you will simply see a folder named "vehicle". Selecte it, then RIGHT click and select "Add to Archive".

You should now have a window like this pop up:

in this order, make the following changes:

Change RAR to ZIP
Change Compression Method from "Normal" to "Store"
Change the extension of the Archive Name from .".zip" to ".scs"

The end result should look like this:

If it looks like that, exactly, then click "OK"

Now in your directory, your mod should be created. Under type it should say "SCS File". I can now rename this file anything I like, and "vehicle" is so vague, so I’ll name it "ZZZ – DT – DNS Fleet". As I add other trailers, I can include them in this same mod – adding them the same way you’d add any file to a RAR or ZIp folder. The "ZZZ" places it at the bottom of my mods list, assuring that this mod overrides any other mods that replace or edit the default trailers. I also use a coding system in my mod directory, using 2 or 3 letter codes to tell me what type of mod it is. In this case, "DT" means this is a mod that effects Default Trailers. This is not necessary, but if you are like me and have dozens of mods in your mod folder, some organization is really good to have.

Now we have our mod created and ready to go. Only one thing left to do! Copy it into your mod folder for ETS2, activate it in game, and select Freight Market. Your new trailer should immediately appear. Since we REPLACED an EXISTING trailer, we do NOT have to "sleep" or fast forward game time to see if the new trailer shows up. If it does not appear immediately, and you still see the default Krone with the default paints, then something went wrong somewhere, and you’ll have to backtrack and find out what went wrong. In this case, most likely a filename or directory name typo that does not match the default trailer file names or root directories.

Now, why are you still reading this? Get into ETS2 and enjoy your new trailer!