With the recent release of Iberia for Euro Truck Simulator 2, our social media channels have been filled to the brim with photos & videos from your first journeys through this enormous peninsula. We love looking through them during the workday and we even share them with each other across our internal channels. It really does bring a lot of positivity among our colleagues as we love seeing drivers getting creative with video content and sharing some really cool snaps! 

We'd love to share a selection of content created by you, our #BestCommunityEver! What you see here is really just the tip of the iceberg; you can watch a lot more or find your favorite creators here. You can also continue to send us your screenshots and videos from Iberia on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #CruisingIberia.














Our #BestCommunityEver have also been busy in our #CruisingIberia event! In just 8 days, you completely smashed the community goal of 250,000,000 km! WOW! Looks like we are going to have to check your logbooks to make sure you have been taking regular driving breaks, as even we weren't expecting you to reach this goal so quickly!  

So what does this mean for the event? This means everybody who has completed their personal goal will receive a Plush Iberian Lynx toy and an Iberian Mask Bobblehead ornament as Steam inventory items via the World of Trucks site. If you haven't already completed your personal goal, don't worry! You still have plenty of time participate and we urge you take things slow, as you continue #CruisingIberia. Find all the details on how you can take part at our dedicated blogpost.

We have also received a large amount of reviews on our Iberia Steam Page. To everyone who takes the time to write reviews and give constructive criticism about Iberia, thank you! If you have enjoyed your travels through Iberia thus far, it would support us a lot if you could leave us a Steam review.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209460/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Iberia/

The BIG day is here! Preparations to release Iberia for Euro Truck Simulator 2 are in top gear! So what time will Iberia be releasing? 



So what exactly does our Iberia DLC have to offer for truckers? These are just a few of the things we think you will love! 

• Travel through the Tabernas Desert, often nicknamed 'mainland Europe's only desert'
• Take a rest at truck stops and gas stations crafted to match their real-life counterparts as closely as possible
• See landmarks of all shapes and sizes, from medieval castles to statues of historical figures
• Enjoy the spectacular view of the coast and even the famous 'The Rock of Gibraltar' located on the other side of the bay from the coastal city of Algeciras
• Immerse yourself in new ambient sound, from the subtle sound of wind through the valleys to the tweeting of birds
• Explore mountainous areas with a wide range of colorful rocks
• Visit landmarks like the Guadiana International Bridge and get a bird's-eye view on it with the viewpoint feature
• And much more!

And that shouldn't be the only reason to explore Iberia for yourself! As an added bonus will also have a World of Trucks event for all new visitors to Spain and Portugal with unique rewards to be earned as you visit each city and deliver jobs. Learn more about the rules in yesterday's blog post and take part in #CruisingIberia at http://WorldofTrucks.com. We'd love to see your photos across our Social Media channels using the hashtag!



So let's go #CruisingIberia while contributing to its impressively large industry! We've only scratched the surface of what this latest DLC brings to Euro Truck Simulator 2. As always, we cannot wait to hear your thoughts about this vast, beautiful, colorful, varied, culturally rich, and historic peninsula.




We will also be hosting a special Iberia release live-stream across our official YouTube & Twitch & Steam channels starting at 17:00 CEST. Don't miss out on this broadcast as we talk with members of the developers involved in the creation of Iberia and a special guest appearance from Pavel Šebor CEO of SCS Software! We will be answering questions from the community, talking in-depth about the DLC, and of course, releasing the Iberia DLC LIVE on stream!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209460/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Iberia/

Please join us as we celebrate our new Iberia DLC releasing tomorrow, April 8th, by participating in our latest World of Trucks event - Cruising Iberia! Experience this vast, beautiful and historic peninsula, while on the job. Originating from the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία (Ibēríā), used by Greek geographers, the Iberian Peninsula is over 580,000 km² in size, so it's our largest DLC yet, with 49 cities available to choose from, each offering a wide array of cargoes.



We are inviting you all, our #BestCommunityEver, to take up the challenging community goal of driving 250,000,000 km while delivering cargoes to or from any city in Iberia. While you are #CruisingIberia, we encourage you to visit the many beautiful coastal cities on the north, east, and southern coasts. Iberia's two largest industrial powerhouses are Portugal and Spain. Their combined exports include, but are not limited to, textiles and apparel, food and beverages, metals, chemicals, wood products, oil refining, fish canning, rubber and plastic products, electronics and telecommunications, rail transportation and aerospace equipment, ship construction, and of course tourism.



Drivers will also have the opportunity to transport and deliver a variety of equipment and produce within the important fresh fruit and vegetable industry sector across Spain and Portugal. Newly created prefabs represent a wide variety of different farms that can be found in Iberia including large commercial farms and vineyards.



Of the 49 cities, we really want you to see at least 20 of them. So, we're offering a special reward for completing your personal goal, which will require you to deliver cargo to or from your chosen 20 cities. All jobs for the event need to be 200 km or more, so please be sure to read the rules.

And, of course, you can use your own trailer during all of this in the external market!

Iberia also features viewpoints! For the very time in Europe, you can enjoy handcrafted cinematic views, highlighting the many attractions that can be found. A sample of them are:

• Visit the ancient port of Santander, the capital of the autonomous and historical region of Cantabria.
• Drive over the impressive Guadiana International Bridge, the southernmost land crossing on the Portugal–Spain border.
• View the striking Solar Power Tower of Andalusia, the world's first commercial concentrating solar power tower that took four years to build.
• Cruise through the Port of Valencia to smell the fresh sea air in the busiest port in the Mediterranean and the fifth busiest in Europe.
• Experience the beautiful City of Barcelona, the capital and largest city of Catalonia, known for its art and architecture.

Let's go cruising Iberia while contributing to its impressively large industry! Get ready for the journey of a lifetime, because we've only scratched the surface of what this latest DLC brings to Euro Truck Simulator 2. As always, we can not wait to hear your thoughts about this vast, beautiful, colorful, varied, culturally rich, and historic peninsula.




Using External Contracts or External Market, with a World of Trucks-connected profile in Euro Truck Simulator 2, the community goal is to drive 250,000,000 km while delivering cargoes to or from any city in Iberia.

When a player completes delivery to or from any 20 unique Iberian cities, they will achieve their personal goal.

All jobs for the event need to be at least 200 km or more.

You can check if your recent deliveries met these conditions using your Log Book in your World of Trucks profile.



Players that deliver cargo to or from 20 unique Iberian cities will gain a personal World of Trucks Achievement and an impressive, Iberian Lynx-themed, ETS2 truck paint job Steam inventory item.




When the community goal of driving 250,000,000 km during deliveries to or from any Iberian city is met, and if the player has also achieved their personal goal, then they will receive a Plush Iberian Lynx toy and an Iberian Mask Bobblehead ornament as Steam inventory items.



Note: In order to qualify for the community rewards, you must complete at least your personal goal in Euro Truck Simulator 2. Each reward will be a Steam inventory item for Euro Truck Simulator 2. Once completed, claim your reward on the Events page on your World of Trucks profile.

The event will be concluded on Tuesday the 11th of May Sunday the 11th of July at 23:59 UTC.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/227300/view/3064114295988920901

We can't wait to see you all out there exploring Iberia, there's so much to see, and we're really looking forward to seeing your photos as you cruise through this brand new map area! Share your screenshots and videos with us using the hashtag #CruisingIberia on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles and we will share our favourite ones (we may even feature some of them in an upcoming blog post!).

Last week, we started a short "hype-building" social media campaign by adding the new Renault Trucks model under a red cover in front of a few Renault Trucks dealerships in Euro Truck Simulator 2. We called for our community to share their screenshots of it under the #RenaultTrucksEvolutionIsComing hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. As always - you guys and girls did not disappoint! In these few days, there were more than 2500 tweets and 700 Instagram posts. A few lucky winners have already been selected and rewarded by the Renault Trucks team with some really cool items from their merchandise shop! Congratulations!



Now it's time to imaginarily pull off the red sheet! Lights on! Cameras are rolling, and the paparazzi have their quick fingers on their camera shutters. Are we all ready to welcome the Renault Trucks T Evolution and Renault Trucks T-High Evolution to the game, in a trucking industry first-of-its-kind through a video game before the real event? Let's do this! We are happy to announce that it is now available for everyone in ETS2 on Steam!


It is a very remarkable milestone for us, and we are honoured and proud that our track record, alongside the importance of our #BestCommunityEver, have helped create so strong a position for us in the automotive industry that we are able to work on a cooperation like this. We believe that our fanbase will love the new design and that many of you will head straight to the closest Renault Trucks dealership in the game to buy a new model, or three.



But the addition of this new evolution of Renault Trucks is not where it all ends! After some deep discussions with our friends over at Renault Trucks, we devised a novel idea to recognize and memorialize this awesome cooperation and connection between the automotive industry and our virtual trucking community.

Yes! You the fans of Euro Truck Simulator 2 will have the incredible opportunity to create and vote for your favorite community-created design for the new Renault Trucks T High Evolution. A design that will be created and showcased across both realms - in the real world and in our game!



Starting from tomorrow, the 7th of April, and lasting until the end of the 25th of April, 2021, everyone can get creative and participate in our very special Renault Trucks Evolution Design Contest! You can wrap your design on a truck in ETS2, like a modder, or download images of the Renault Trucks T High Evolution and use your favorite software to paint/draw/compose on it. You can even print these images, draw on them and scan them/send the final images of your application!

Everything you need to know is on this special landing page developed especially for this contest! We highly suggest you to read the regulations, and terms and conditions very carefully!

After the 25th of April, 2021, a jury team comprising of people from Renault Trucks & SCS Software will browse all valid entries and pick the 5 best and most suitable designs. These designs will then be voted on by our community to decide the ultimate winner from the 30th of April to the 2nd of May, 2021 on a special website created by Renault Trucks. 

Now a few words about the rewards, shall we? All of the 5 finalists will receive very cool rewards kindly provided by the exclusive sponsor of this campaign, Thrustmaster. Winners will receive their amazing T150 steering wheel!



And what about the ultimate winner, the one and only design that will win the community's final vote? Well for that person we have prepared something very special. Their design will actually be recreated by the team at Renault Trucks on one of their production trucks and revealed in a special event around Summer 2021 at Renault Trucks headquarters in Lyon, France. The creator of this design will get an expenses-paid VIP invitation to this special celebration, to be the star of the night, to see the truck, to test-drive it, and to enjoy a good time with people from SCS Software and Renault Trucks.*

The real truck in the winning design will thereafter be displayed as prominently at the Renault Trucks dealership in Lyon, France, as a monument to this amazing cross-over between virtual truckers and the automotive/trucking industry! Plus, we will bring this design into the game as an exclusive paint job as well! 

We have probably just put a lot of pressure on everyone wanting to participate in this contest, right? This is definitely something worth taking part in, as the winner will literally become a legend of the ETS2 virtual world!

Would you like to ask some questions about the truck, or get to know more details about the design contest? We've got you covered! Join us today from 18:00 CEST time on Twitch, YouTube, or Steam as we will do a very special stream on this topic. And we won't be alone because we will have a very special and VIP guest joining us directly from France - Mr. Paul Daintree, Director of Design at Renault Trucks! We can't wait to introduce him to our amazing fans!



*The planned reward of an expenses-paid trip to the launch event in Lyon might be subject to change, as neither SCS Software nor Renault Trucks can guarantee that future COVID-19 travel and safety restrictions will allow such an event to take place.

With the final touches being made to the Iberia DLC, we are excited to announce a release date for this highly anticipated addition to Euro Truck Simulator 2. 

Iberia will be released on April 8th, 2021 at 7pm CEST

And if that announcement date hasn't got you excited enough, then we are sure that this video trailer showcasing the Iberian Peninsula will! 



That is not all however,  prior to Iberia's release, we will be hosting a very special release live-stream on April 8th, starting at around 16:50 CET. This stream will feature a variety of special guests involved in the creation of this DLC along with the possibility of a few extra surprises too. You can watch along live on the day on our official Twitch channel, YouTube channel, or on Steam, so don't miss out! 



We will also be bringing a special World of Trucks in-game event with the release of Iberia. Be sure to keep an eye out in the near future for more information on how you can take part and how you can earn unique in-game rewards!



If you are ready to visit Iberia, then make sure to add it to your Steam Wishlist! Even this close to its release it still really supports the development and release of our upcoming content. We thank you for your patience and continued support for the release of this highly anticipated addition to Euro Truck Simulator 2! 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209460/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Iberia/

In the past few days the internet, and especially the automotive side, has received some very interesting and cool news bringing together Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Renault Trucks. Those with sharp eyes and attentive ears probably already heard and read about what the CEO of Renault Trucks, Bruno Blin, has announced at a very special press conference.



Today we can also confirm that this is not just a dream, but it's really happening. The latest, and as of now still officially unrevealed Renault Trucks T and T-High facelifted models, will arrive in the Euro Truck Simulator 2 universe on the 6th of April, 2021 in a free update. 



This is going to be the very first time in the automotive industry that a new truck model is revealed exclusively through a videogame before any real-life event. We are honoured and proud that thanks to our excellent relationship with Renault Trucks and their recognition of the importance of our #BestCommunityEver, this amazing milestone will actually be achieved!



But before we put this evolution into ETS2, let's first play a small game with you, shall we? You may have noticed that ETS2 has just received a very small update on Steam; what was in it? Well, hop into your current Renault Trucks vehicle, drive to the closest major Renault Trucks dealership and find out! The new T-High is parked there! 



Yes, it's currently hidden under a red cover, but that will change very soon. Let's show our friends over at Renault Trucks how excited we all are. Just take a screenshot of the new vehicle under the red cover and post it on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with the hashtag #RenaultTrucksEvolutionIsComing. Plus don't forget to tag both SCS' and Renault Trucks' profiles so we won't miss it. Later on, we will randomly pick 5 lucky winners who'll receive a special gift selected from the Renault Trucks merchandise range!

The Iberian hype train is reaching its maximum speed and we are not sure if its engine can continue building pressure. Yet, we still are going to work it a little bit harder with today's blog post.



We are in very close touch these days with the teams working on the final tasks for Iberia DLC, and with each passing day, we are getting increasingly confident statements from their side. Some time back, we dared to announce that this upcoming, and by far the biggest map expansion to-date for Euro Truck Simulator 2, will be released in April 2021. 



If everything goes at the same pace and in the same positive direction, we think we'll be ready to announce the exact release date next week. And it might even be sooner than you think. Plus we also think that the first waves of early-access Iberia keys for our most loyal and trusted influencers may depart our mailboxes next week as well! Be sure to keep an eye on your inbox, if you're a creator or gaming media representative, as you might receive an invitation soon. 



With the actual release of the Iberia DLC, we are also preparing a few special things for you. First, you can look forward to (and we hope that you'll accompany us for) the special Iberia release live stream full of developer Q&A, some cool behind-the-scenes info of this map expansion, and also featuring Pavel Sebor who will hit the release button at the end of the stream with us! 

For those who'll be in the mood to cruise in Iberia, we will have a treat! But no more spoilers on that now!



Through the development of Iberia, we asked you many times to add this DLC to your Steam wishlist. You might not see this as an important thing, but it really helps us a lot with the development of any of our bigger projects. So far more than 576 000 Steam users have added Iberia to their wishlist! That's amazing! Thank you for your support!

Now we think it's a good time to reward you for that. Post an image of your Steam wishlist with the Iberia expansion in it under the #ReadyForIberia hashtag on Twitter or Instagram, and tag us in. In the following days, we'll randomly pick 5 lucky winners who'll receive a free Iberia Steam key 3 hours before its release!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209460/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Iberia/

Hot on the heels of yesterday's ATS update, we are excited to announce the highly-anticipated arrival of update 1.40 for Euro Truck Simulator 2 as well!



We'd like to thank all those who took part in the 1.40 Open Beta, made bug reports, and provided general feedback on this new version. We hope you can now begin to fully enjoy the various new features which are included within this update. So, what can you expect to find in the 1.40 update for ETS2?


Let us give you a quick recap of the most significant changes.

New Visual Lighting System

One of the biggest changes you'll notice when you first hop into your truck cab is the implementation of our new visual lighting system.


To prepare for this new lighting system, our teams had to make a lot of changes not only to our graphic renderer, its code, and other functionalities, but also to existing in-game world objects; including a majority of the in-game assets, textures, and materials to better work with the new physical model of the new lighting system. Want to get an in-depth look into what we had to revisit to make this major graphical change happen? Read more about it here.



We are very excited for you to be able to experience and immerse yourself in driving in the new light. The result is the culmination of a ton of hours by our programmers and visual effect artists and many other teams involved in the creation process of this new system. And even after this tremendous amount of work already spent in this area we are still not completely done. You can expect further changes and improvements to be done in the future. So while the open beta is done, we are still open and more than happy to get your feedback and opinions about this new graphics upgrade for our games.

Revisiting Germany

1.40 also brings the final phase of our Revisiting Germany project which a small team of mappers has been working on.



For those who are new to our game, the Revisiting Germany project consists of a small dedicated map team, who has been working hard to update one of the oldest map sections of the base game with a more realistic and up-to-date look.



The biggest change that comes with this update is a complete reskin and rework of all the highways and roads in this part of our in-game world, which was not retouched in previous updates.



Additionally, the areas around Dortmund, Köln, Dusseldorf, and Duisburg have not only benefitted from a complete road network redesign but a few new intersections and roads as well! The southern part of the Bundesautobahn 7 is now available in this update.



Vive La France ! New Cities

With the upcoming release of the Iberia expansion for Euro Truck Simulator 2, we know that many drivers will be excited to progressively make their way down Europe to cross into the peninsula for the first time. With France being mainland Europe's gateway to Spain and Portugal, our team has developed 2 new French locations which are a part of a free update to the Vive La France ! DLC coming with 1.40. 



The first of these is the city of Bayonne, located in the southwest of France; it is the capital of the French Basque Country and an important connection for drivers heading to Spain as it is located close to the border.

The second location is the smaller commune of Lacq, which is located in the Arrondissement of Pau. While this small village is going to be just a scenic drive-through for most, Lacq is home to the largest refinery in France. 



Both of these areas plus two new connecting junctions in Toulouse and Bordeaux come as a free update to the Vive La France ! DLC for Euro Truck Simulator 2, which we originally announced would arrive with the release of Iberia. However, with them being ready now, we thought it would be a nice surprise to include them early in this update. 

Super Stripes Paint Jobs Pack Update

Our latest ETS2 DLC is also about to get an update - two of the amazing designs in the Super Stripes Paint Jobs Pack have been expanded and are now applicable on owned trailers! And believe it or not, there was a small social media experiment behind the choice of the two paint jobs that were picked for this upgrade.



Back in November 2020, we wrote several short and seemingly insignificant posts on our Euro Truck Simulator 2 and SCS Software Facebook pages, where we called upon our community to cast votes on which DLC designs you liked the most. Today we are happy to share with you that the two most popular designs are getting an upgrade so that everyone can match these designs on both trucks and trailers! 



Your engagement and activity on our social media channels really do matter! We can't wait to see all the beautiful matching combinations on your vehicles. This may be a good opportunity for some VTCs to redesign their virtual corporate identity!

Changelog

Visual

• New Visual Lighting System

Map

• Germany Reskin
  
• New French Cities (Vive La France ! DLC)

Vehicle

• Two new paint jobs (from the Super Stripes Paint Jobs Pack) for owned trailers
  
• UI
  
• Full-text city/company search in the job selection screen
  
• Improved vehicle adjustment menu (F4)

With the upcoming release of Iberia for Euro Truck Simulator 2, we know that many drivers will be appropriately customizing their trucks in celebration. With that in mind, we couldn't think of a more suitable time to bring new content to the Spanish and Portuguese Paint Jobs Packs; which will arrive as an update upon Iberia's release!




Portuguese Paint Jobs Pack

The Portuguese Paint Jobs Pack will receive a new truck paint design inspired by famous Azulejo tin-glazed ceramic tilework art!



You will also be able to decorate the interior of your truck cabin with new cabin accessories, the Barcelos Rooster. More commonly known as the Portuguese Rooster, it is said to be the embodiment of the Portuguese love of life and the unofficial symbol of Portugal. Today you can find the Rooster's image used across Portugal, from restaurants to gift shops. 



Spanish Paint Jobs Pack

The Spanish Paint Jobs Pack will also receive a new truck paint job, one which depicts prehistoric paintings of bison and human handprints, discovered by cave explorers in Altamira, Northern Spain around the 1800s. These extraordinary cave paintings are thought to be over 20,000 years old and serve as an important reminder of the history of the region!



This pack will also receive a new cabin accessory, a miniature version of iconic Consuegra windmills, which were thought to be built around the 16th century and are located in the region of Castilla-La Mancha. Today, they continue to be a popular landmark and attraction for visitors from all around the world. 




We hope this free update to both the Spanish and Portuguese Paint Jobs Packs upon Iberia's release will bring a piece of the peninsula's history and culture to your truck cabin! Fancy seeing them in-game early? Join us on Thursday the 18th of March as we live-stream with these new accessories and paint jobs on our official Twitch and YouTube channels.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209460/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Iberia/

The changes that we are introducing with the 1.40 update for both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2 have been visible to the public for some time now, in the currently still ongoing Open Beta builds. By far the most visible change is the new lighting system, which has turned out to be the largest graphical rework for us in years. In today's blog post we would like to reveal more about what we have been through to make this change happen; let's take a look under the hood once again.




Our 3D engine's approach to representing light and color in scenes - and in the rendering buffers that end up being displayed on-screen - has been established over a decade ago. It was an era when the state of the art was to represent all RGB values in the 0-255 numerical range, to fit inside a byte of information. That's how all values were defined, whether in a texel of a texture map (the "skin" of a 3D object, a tree, vehicle, or skybox), or in the encoding of a light source's intensity (from a vehicle's tail lights to street lamps, all the way to the sun intensity), and combining all these in the rendering stage into a pixel; it was again the representation in the display buffer to be shown on the screen, with only 256 shades of each base color.

In recent years, the explosion of available memory in 3D accelerators, the progress in computational power, and flexibility in shading languages for programming 3D cards' operations on fragments have opened the way to store and compute color and light values at much higher precision and range - with floating-point numbers. Instead of just layering color filter operations, which was, essentially, all the tricks that we had available in the 8-bits per color component era, the switch to using real numbers is quite a revolution in how a game engine can truly represent light sources in realistic ranges and ratios. In the real world, the difference between a light bulb's intensity and the sunlight is many orders of magnitude. If we are able to store the intensity values of light sources properly, and more importantly to perform all the light vs. surface operations at their proper ranges of values, without a major loss of precision, we can do true high dynamic range (HDR) light in the graphics pipeline. When we started experimenting with the new technique some 18 months ago and saw the first results, there was no way back for us, we knew we wanted this in the engine. 

We had to start with the light sources (and for a while, we were hopeful that this will suffice). Each and every light source is now defined with a realistic value gleaned from real-world measurements (we have done a ton of sampling with a light meter over various daylight and weather settings) and reference tables. In reality as well as in the game world now, tens of thousands of lux units now brighten day scenes, while at night the ambient brightness approaches just a few lux units. Basing all light source values on reality gives us way more confidence as opposed to the old days when a new light would just fit into the system. It's no longer a question of should it be a 150 or 170 with no actual meaning to the values. Now we know and have tables to pick for a street lamp or a neon light at a gas station. In light computation formulas, we can now go with proper quadratic drop attenuation, to have lights behave in a physically-correct manner. With the higher precision, we can even go as far as introducing a small random variation in light intensity to otherwise identical light sources, to simulate a street's night feeling better, without having unnaturally-identical lamps.

When all the internal light computations are done, we have to adjust the resulting values for the screen by emulating camera exposure. Much like a modern camera in your mobile phone, we need to take all the rich values and variety of incoming light - sun or shade, early morning, high noon, dusk, or deep night - and "squish" or "expand" the values into the range appropriate for the screen. Our exposure emulation system has a critical impact on the final look and feel of the game - it's partly physics, but also partly about a subjective artistic feeling too. It has to be adjusted dynamically not just based on incoming light from the game world, but it also has to take into account the difference between the light inside and outside of a vehicle's cabin, to allow dashboard instruments to be legible. The human eye is an incredible creation, able to adjust and adapt to a vast range of light intensities as focus switches between objects. We had to use a lot of smart math when analyzing the light histogram for each frame and between frames to fit all these values into the screen's inevitably limited dynamic range and color gamut, in order to make everything that's portrayed both believable and discernible. Some improvements were a cherry on top, like the fact that with the internal range of floating-point buffers of cube maps, we can have much shinier reflections off of glossy surfaces, such as water bodies, glass, or car paint. We have followed this development path in a small team happily until the realization that while the intermedia results were promising, we won't be able to pull this off without re-balancing ALL the existing materials/textures on all game objects. When a ray of light is cast on the surface of any object, what is reflected or refracted depends not just on the properties of the incoming light, but largely on the properties of the object's surface. Over the many years of development, we have accumulated tens of thousands of textures, some from photographic sources at various settings, some painted by hand, some through the process of procedural generation in various smart tools. As the years went by, the authoring of these sources has been subject to various schools of thought, or different creation pipelines, but the "old light" system was held together by the proverbial duct tape and was in any case imprecise enough to reveal certain imbalances that were present. The new exposure emulation system is way more sensitive and simply requires physically correct brightness albedo values. Our concrete surface can no longer be some sort of grey, and a tree cannot just be nice and green. And that was when a vast majority of our art team had to be involved for a major overhaul.

Once our small pioneering cross-discipline team implemented all of the necessary code and GPU shader changes, which took many months of experimentation, we had to involve a lot more people. First, we had to readjust all the light sources in the world and any vehicle lights to the new logic. In some cases, it was a relatively trivial numeric conversion somewhere in a table. In others, it may have required a map designer to revisit a particular location to make the manual adjustment. In many cases, it meant that a game object like a whole factory or delivery yard with pre-defined light sources had to be re-opened, adjusted, and re-exported again in a 3D tool like Maya. We are talking thousands and thousands of such retouches, in some cases involving not just a few dozen "numbers" defining lights, but also major changes to lightmaps of the objects, where fake shadows and light effects were "baked in" for a better look in the old light system. Finally, for some weeks, the majority of all our teams had to stop working on anything else related to our future projects, and go over all the game objects, vegetation, vehicles, and effects; re-balancing things, again and again, to sync them on a shared agreed-upon albedo reference table. We had to revisit the fundamentals of many sub-systems, very notably the vehicle lights and bulbs taking many iterations and fine-tuning to make them look good at various daylight settings. We have a new set of skyboxes at a higher resolution, and a slightly richer variety of weather, too. Ultimately, no stone was left unturned, as we had to evaluate and adjust every single element of the games.

The new light system and the start of our new physical light model is a critical step towards a complete and better physical model of the whole world in our games. We are not quite there yet with true physically based rendering, but the 1.40 update represents a major step in the right direction. Cleaning up the old art and basing all light intensities and operations on fundamental physics make future systemic work in this area finally possible. As with many things in long-term development, while this step is a minor revolution, it is at the same time only a milestone towards a bigger vision. 

From the graphics artists' point of view (but this applies to mod authors, too!), we are introducing a new concept of creating and keeping all game art "in check" and in balance with the rest of the art. Materials based on photos, frequently used as sources of in-game art, now have to go through a calibration process before they are applicable, otherwise one may end up with a surface that is either too dark or too bright, affecting the exposure and the perception of the general scene. Often, it's worth exploring alternate material creation methods, like the high-resolution procedural generation in tools like Substance Designer. More trust is placed into the engine's rendering system now; rather than faking and baking subtle shadows and light effects into models. Between new light and SSAO, our shader code now plays a greater part in creating the final look; this results in a bit less responsibility, control, and possibly work from the artist. This may be both good and bad depending on what one is trying to achieve in each particular case.

As with each major change, there were a ton of teething problems, a lot of dead-ends to reverse from, and the amount of effort we have been through far exceeded the expectations we had a year ago. We still have a bit of Open Beta ahead of us to iron out the last few wrinkles. But even now, we are very confident that the changes are worth all the hard work. Just wait until you drive your truck in the early morning hours along with the coast of Italy, or on a nice late afternoon in Sweden, in a drizzle in Washington state, during scorching noon in Spain, or pulling into a well-lit truck stop deep into the night. Through all the process of changes, we tried our best not to cause any major increase in the load on the CPU or GPU. A few of the new effects have a slightly higher performance cost, but overall we believe the changes are very well balanced, or allow for sensible trade-offs in game options, to keep the performance acceptable. We definitely do not want to lose players and fans that play our games without the newest hardware by pushing too hard on graphical effects. We are looking forward to bringing you further improvements and new features, so hold on to your steering wheels!

More of a fan of changelogs? Let's look at:

The major internal changes

• The scene is lit using real-life intensities (illumination: tens of thousands of lux for the daytime, tens of lux at night)
  
• To get light ratios into play - the rising sun overpowering street lamp lights and truck headlights, etc. This means we had to adjust all light sources and also readjust every emissive material in the game.
  
• We have a new display mapping function for better artistic control (exposure, contrast, toe, shoulder)
  
• We needed to get those real-life intensities onto the computer screen in a similar way as a camera's exposure works.
  
• Improved and more sensitive histogram for exposure selection
  
• This is due to the actual exposure being selected differently in every scene, and this varies also with differing light levels and the current weather type.
  
• Light source (street lamps, vehicle lights) changes.
  
• We have switched light sources to a more physical attenuation ('inverse square falloff').
  
• We are in the process of switching to a physical-unit-based configuration to reduce guesswork.
  
  But also many smaller visual tweaks
  
• Relightable reflection
  
• Reflections in shop windows and smooth surfaces better matches the time of day and weather
  
• Improved reflection behavior
  
• On truck paint, shop windows, and glass in general
  
• Sun horizon shadow
  
• Visible when the sun rises or sets
  
• And a zillion other small tweaks, fixes, and changes.

As you can imagine by now - all this has been a tremendous amount of work for our team. The initial bright spark (pun intended) that made this all possible came from a small team of programmers and a visual effects artist (pictured below). They have kept hacking, iterating, and laying out plans until the whole team had it "easy", and all that was left to do was just to throw in many years of additional man-hours to adjust everything to the new logic. 

The new light system, just as the implementation of FMOD support for the SFX part of our games, is still under further development, polishing, and tuning. And there is still a lot of work ahead of us. At this juncture, we feel that it's already more or less in a presentable shape, and you may experience it too if you decide to give it a try in an open beta build right now on Steam.

So please, if you'd like to help us - put on your favorite sunglasses and help us catch the perfect sunrise! We're looking forward to reading your thoughts and opinions on the new light system. Thank you very much!