Blender Tools 2.0

Since we started game development, we knew that having an enthusiastic modding community is a real blessing in this industry. With that in mind, years ago we decided to bring to our community the ultimate toolchain for anyone willing to create content for our in-game worlds and to create mods for our titles. Blender Tools supports the complete creation pipeline of any type of in-game items such as trucks, AI vehicles, models, prefabs (including support for all possible locators including AI traffic lines) and many other game assets found in both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.

During all those years not only has Blender Tools evolved, but Blender did too. The Blender 2.8 project was started several years ago and since its release last year, it has delivered massive changes all around. Including a big UI overhaul, new EEVEE render engine and a lot of underlying data structure changes also. Thus we were put up to a big overwrite of our tools and today we are proud to announce that Blender Tools 2.0 has arrived, supporting all new Blender 2.81 features. We have rewritten our whole material setup code to work with new render engine, which brings you even more in-game like result within Blender itself.

Thanks to the more efficient rendering of our 3D elements (locators, AI traffic lines) and rewritten several internal handlers, start-up, file saving and the overall experience should be smoother than it was ever before. As a cherry on the top of the cake, we would like to mention the new SCS Tools main menu, which enables you easy access to all Blender Tools functions and properties in one place.

These pictures show the new version in use with the truck pipeline, animations, prefab visualisation and the new SCS Main menu, in which you can find everything our Blender Tools offers.

The limits are bound only by you and your creativity! If you want to join the more creative part of the community, download Blender 2.81 here and Blender Tools here (additional info might be found on our modding wiki).

We will constantly update this toolchain, making improvements based on the feedback from our community to make it easier for them to continue doing what they do best. Or we should say a legendary 50keda will, as he's the one doing all the work there!

Do join the Blender Tools general discussion and report the bugs you'll find, please - it's helping a lot!

Changelog:

Ported to Blender 2.81 (this is THE big step, as half of tools had to be rewritten for version 2.8)

• Complete rewrite of viewport rendering based on EEVEE renderer
• Complete rewrite of custom 3D elements drawing (up to 16x times faster!)
• Complete rewrite of callbacks routines (should be less CPU consuming now)
• UI redesign to Blender 2.8 (sub-panels, icon themes, panels moved to more appropriate tabs)

Other changes:

• New SCS Tools main menu
• New caching system for libraries for the instant start-up of Blender
• New "Merge SCS Materials" operator
• New "Relocate Roots" operator
• Simplified lighting setup using reference lighting by default, without extra climate profile
• Improved blender file save speeds, should be instant now
• Added compatibility code to load old blend files (saved with SCS Blender Tools v1.12)
• Numerous other new features & improvements (see full changelog)

Blender Tools Update

It always makes us feel both proud and humbled when we see that there are so many brave souls out there creating mods for our games. We may not be able to monitor everything that is happening in the modding community, but we have seen a lot of incredible mods over the years.

Most mods require tons of time and hard work to create, and after that, yet more attention and patience is needed to maintain them so that they are compatible with new updates of our games. We keep trying to improve the tools available to modders, and today's topic is about another step in this direction. A new improved version of SCS Blender Tool has just been released. (If you are wondering what this is all about, here is an earlier post about how it all started.)

We've created a short video overview showing some of the changes and new additions in this update:

We've also prepared a more extensive change-log for those who appreciate more detailed knowledge of the changes:

• Added support for one-click setup of environment lighting loaded from sun profiles SII file (eg. /def/climate/default/nice.sii). This enables the best possible preview of a model in game like environment.
• Asynchronous paths initialization on startup, resulting in faster Blender startup and faster blend files opening
• User option to load all libraries and resources from sibling "base" directories also (by default off)
• Ability to reload library on the fly beside the setting where it is used (eg. Hookup Lib can be reloaded in Model Locator Settings)
• Improved material flavors behavior, with implementation of filter for non existing effects combinations (prevents user to create non existing effect)
• Added support for creation of SCS Locators and SCS Root via standard Blender add menu (menu accessible via Shift+A in 3D viewport)
• Normal maps properly visualized in 3D view even if active UV layer on object is not the one used for normal maps calculation.
• Reloading shader presets only when cache is out-dated (again speed-up of opening blend files)
• Updated Prefab Locators flags:
   - added Map Point split lanes setups,
   - added Weight Station CAT Spawn Point type,
   - added Traffic Semaphores types: Traffic Light (virtual), Barrier - Automatic.
• Improvements & Fixes:
    - fixed unpropper UI snapping of TOBJ settings,
    - ensuring same order of bone channels in PIA export (useful when working with VCS),
    - negative add ambient material values supported in export and also visualized in Blender 3D
       viewport (more info here),
    - properly reported python error on screen and in BT log while importing/exporting
    - rejecting wrongly named SCS Root Object on export (more info here),
    - reporting missing UV layer used for normal maps on export,
    - reporting multiple animations with same name overwriting each other on export,
    - properly handling none existing UV mappings aliases on import (most properly produced with ConverterPIX),
    - fixed Blender crash if rapidly enabling/disabling SCS Blender Tools add-on,
    - fixed error on import if no 3D viewport is found or active object is on currently hidden layer      in scene.

SCS Blender Tools - Full Set!

Today we would like to announce the release of SCS Blender Tools version 1.0.

After some two years of hard work, the alternate toolchain for modders now comes with pretty much the same power and flexibility as our internal Maya-based set of tools. It now supports complete creation of any type of items: trucks, ambient AI vehicles, models, prefabs with support of all possible locators including AI traffic lines, you name it.

Up until now, modders were able to pull off some incredible things, thanks to reverse-engineering our formats and creating powerful tools on their own. It is always exciting for us to see so many great mods that have been released, and yet more are still appearing. Admittedly, we are coming quite late to the party now; three years after ETS2 was released. So why did we even bother?

First of all, we really believe that our Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator games have a lot of longevity in them. We definitely plan to improve and enhance them for many years, and with the World of Trucks connecting them eventually under one umbrella, there are still huge opportunities for new exciting mods to appear.

However, even more importantly, we would like to explore new opportunities with User-Generated Content. It is a great inspiration for many game developers to see what Valve is doing with their games like Counter Strike: GO, Team Fortress 2 or Dota 2. Their ability to cooperate with fan community and to integrate UGC is fabulous.

With upcoming support through Steam Workshop - yes, here is a little pre-annoucement right here! ;) - we would love to find a way to invite the best mod content creators to offer their creations through an official channel, or possibly even to pursue a business model that would allow for it to become a part of the standard game content. But to even start thinking about it, we need to make sure that such user content is authored and maintained through a standard tool, a tool which we have under control, which we can update whenever needed, a tool we ourselves are comfortable using. Modders know that our game formats are sometimes changing when we need to make room for a new feature, requiring re-touching and re-exporting of older models. Waiting until (and if) a 3rd party tool support catches up with our changed formats is simply out of question for content that should be working immediately after we update our game. So just to open the gate for officially supported mods, we do need a set of official and well-supported tools.

Enter SCS Blender Tools version 1.0.

Since the previous release of Blender Tools which included Full Truck creation pipeline, the following items had been added:

• Extensive shader preset library covering all player needs
• Complete support for Prefab Locators including import/export
• Material Aliasing implementation
• Material Flavor system implementation (less shader presets, bigger shader repository)
• New system for printing warnings and errors in 3D viewport (no need to check console result for warnings)
• Shaders color management overhaul giving quite same result in Blender as in game
• Vertex color alpha support as additional vertex color layer
• Custom normals import
• Proper handling for meshes with back faces on import
• Proper handling of initially scaled bones
• Preview of textures when user is selecting them in file browser

To Get You Started

GitHub Wiki

Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki

Forum

We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159

ETS2 web, mod page

In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

SCS Blender Tools - Full Truck creation pipeline!

Today is a bit of a milestone for SCS Blender Tools feature scope. With this update, the tools are finally supporting creation and export pipeline of fully fledged trucks - with equivalent power to tools used internally at SCS Software.

It took us a while to organize full truck creation, as the range of things that needed addressing is quite extensive. There is the vehicle model itself, but there is also the rest of the structure and data - the upgrades and locators ("pins"), and full animation support.

Speaking of animation, SCS Blender Tools now support animations not only for the vehicle parts, but also for any 'movers' in our game: world animated objects, animals, and people.

With the latest update, we are now about two thirds of the way towards having SCS Blender Tools support the full range of asset creation for our truck games - the one last major area remaining are the "prefabs" for elements like roads and intersections. This will become our next focus.

The vision for SCS Blender Tools is to eventually have it become a common standard out there for how Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator mods are created and shared. The hot "buzzword" or "buzz term" in the games industry these days is User Generated Content, stuff that communities of game fans can produce on their own to improve the games they love, and we would definitely like to help our already very active fan community produce higher quality, easier-to-share content for our games. We have Steam Workshop in our sights as the likely platform for wide-scale mod exchange, and for that we need rock solid asset creation and export pipeline. If we achieve 100% technical compatibility between SCS-created content and user-generated content, the holy grail would be very close cooperation with the creators - possibly even integration of the best mods into core game content or official DLCs.

Here is full list of changes in the latest version of SCS Blender Tools:

• Animation system implementation
• Shader presets can now be searched by name, as list is getting longer
• New truck sample base including all the definitions to create complete truck
• Updated sample base with added wind powerplant and human character with animations

Other improvements:

• Vertex color statistics tool
• New versioning system
• Unified relative paths with forward slash for all platforms
• Import speed in case of big amount of materials

New shaders:

• "eut2.dif.lum"
• "eut2.mlaaweight"
• "eut2.truckpaint"
• "eut2.reflective"
• "eut2.unlit.vcol.tex"
• A lot of new extensions for existing shaders

Just in case you haven't seen the two previous posts about SCS Blender Tools releases:

To Get You Started

GitHub Wiki

Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki

Forum

We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159

ETS2 web, mod page

In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

SCS Blender Tools - Trailer Export Supported

Today we'd like to announce release of the second iteration of SCS Blender Tools.

The highlight of today's release is the support for exporting semi-trailer models from Blender to Euro Truck simulator 2. This new functionality should add to the growing roster of already supported models.

Here's is the full list of changes in the new version of SCS Blender Tools:

• New and better visualization of SCS materials based on Blender nodes system
• "Look" system implementation (The "look" is our internal name for what people usually call "skins")
• Lamp Tools - lamp material preview and helper tool for positioning UV mappings
• Wrap Tool - vertex colors wrapping
• Collision Locators support

Other improvements like:

• SCS Project Base path can be changed in import screen too
• SCS Root Object is better visualized to make it clearly visible how it is positioned and which axis points where
• Vertex Colors range adopted to pipeline (0.5 is neutral; what is more will be brighter in game; what is less will be darker in game)
• Added export success info if there are no errors or warnings during export

SCS Blender Tools are still undergoing focused development, as new features are going to be added, and we hope that the package will find increasing adoption in the mod making community.

To help you get up to speed easier, we are releasing a new SCS Blender Tools tutorial in three parts. It is the beginning of a planned future series on SCS Blender Tools. The voice you will hear in the videos is SCS Software's SCS Blender Tools guru and an avid mod maker 50keda.

This tutorial's goal is to lead you through the full export pipeline using SCS Blender Tools. As a case  study, we used fairly sophisticated model of truck wheels as an example. We hope that you will enjoy it, and please let us know which kind of topics you would like us to cover in future tutorials.




You can download the latest version of SCS Blender Tools on its GitHub download page and try to get further help using the following links:

To Get You Started

GitHub Wiki

Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki

Forum

We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159

ETS2 web, mod page

In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

SCS Blender Tools - First Step

It was already quite a long time ago when we first mentioned our goal to empower the mod community with tools matching in power of our internal asset creation pipeline. The road to get there has proved to be somewhat bumpier than we anticipated, but we are happy to report very good progress at last.

Today we are releasing the first version of SCS Blender Tools. There is still a lot of work left to be done on polishing and on proper support of the most complex types of 3D assets, but already we are in good enough shape to invite you to try things out.

Please keep in mind that what you are getting is a beta, with no express guarantees that it will work perfectly or work at all in your desired context. You are getting a dump of up-to-date SCS Blender Tools codebase, we are not holding back any part of it. There is code in there which at least partially covers all of the wide spectrum of different 3D model types in our games, but as of now we only bring out to your attention specific aspects of SCS Blender Tools we consider ready. More advanced stuff still needs time to mature.

At this point in time, it is only the types of assets listed below which we suggest you to experiment with. We do not have the capacity to provide extensive support on our forums, but we'll keep an eye on them to see if we can chip in where the community needs guidance. But there is a little point trying to get us to respond to questions concerning areas of the tools considered unfinished.

With that said, the current version of SCS Blender Tools brings you the creation and export pipeline of static geometry. 

We included several sample models that generally illustrate the possibilities of asset types that you can perfectly accomplish today. Those models should guide you in creating well optimized models, just the way we make them.

Let's inspect sample models in closer detail:

Detailed building model

This is a model of a detailed building. We use such models up close to the player, therefore the texture, the mesh resolution and level of detail are quite large. Once you import it you can see it uses little more material than simpler models to best accommodate its up-close placement.

Far distance buildings

This is a model sample we place at far distance from the player. The mesh is considerably simpler and the texture is much smaller. Because it is placed at large distance from the camera in the game, lack of resolution is never noticeable. As you can see its uses important optimization - multiple buildings are combined into one single mesh, using exact same material and texture. This allows graphics cards to process such models much faster (as just one piece of geometry, not multiple pieces).

Truck bullbar upgrade model

Here's a sample of a truck upgrade part - Scania bullbar. We intentionally included slightly more sophisticated upgrade model. This way you can see usage of materials and alpha channel on that bull-bar netting. Pretty much all truck upgrades (roof grills, low grills, side-skirts...) were built this way.

Front truck wheel

Rear truck wheel

And last two samples of even more specialized geometry - truck wheels. They use their own set of materials, we recommend that you explore the structure. Check out the usage of textures and mesh complexity. These models also show you an example of 'Parts' usage, and the way how special 'shadow-caster mesh' with its 'shadow-caster material' is used to make your own truck wheels correctly. [Note that there is a plan to eventually split the tyres and the wheel disks into separate upgrade parts in some future update of ETS2/ATS.]

To Get You Started

GitHub Wiki

Wiki is probably the most important place for SCS Blender Tools knowledge base. There you will find the steps you need to take to begin using the tools. You can also find the download links for SCS Blender Tools. And there is even all the source code of the tools, right in the open, which could be quite interesting for the coders out there:

https://github.com/SCSSoftware/BlenderTools/wiki

Forum

We have created a special forum branch, dedicated exclusively to the SCS Blender Tools. If you feel you found a bug in the tools, or want to ask something about them, or share your knowledge with the other people just getting started - this is the place to be. We will be monitoring the forums and hopefully providing some guidance, but again, we do not expect to be able to respond to everybody and to every cry for help.

http://forum.scssoft.com/viewforum.php?f=159

ETS2 web, mod page

In case you forget all the links above you can always start with the modding section of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 web page. The links there should guide you not just to SCS Blender Tools but also to all modding guidelines paramount for successful mod creation.

http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/mod_tools.php

We encourage you to import and check all the models on your own. Now all you need to start is a bit of knowledge of Blender!

SCS Blender Tools

While looking at the amazing stuff that our fan community is producing, we cannot help but admire the passion for our games. But of course the tools are the key for creation of the best results. We are aware that despite valiant efforts to reverse-engineer our formats, the current tools in the hands of the modding community aren't ideal yet.

Today we would like to announce that we are working on SCS Blender Tools, which we will make available for everybody with creative passion for our games.

As you may have already guessed we will use Blender to base our SCS Blender Tools on. Blender is fast, flexible, with good documentation and most importantly Free, without need to worry for having expensive licenses for commercial packages like Maya or 3d Studio Max.

SCS Blender Tools we are building are going to be 100% "developer grade". The package will be using exactly the same approaches and workflows we use for creating our games, in fact some people on SCS team plan to start using them on a daily basis, replacing current tool pipeline. With SCS Blender Tools, it will be possible to comfortably create models, texture them, assign and tweak correct materials, and export everything to the engine.

The plan is that with SCS Blender Tools it will cover everything - from the simplest models of buildings to fully fledged trucks, just as us developers are doing it. With provided documentation we hope to see even higher quality creations from our modding community. With community-created assets in source form compatible with SCS Software's internal processes, and with the map editor a native part of the game itself, this may open up huge opportunities for the future.

Here are few screenshots of ongoing Blender integration: