We are all living in the world of video, and American Truck Simulator is not an exception for sure. Behold our take at an emotional game launch trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu32OisFgWI

You can expect a ton of fan footage from American Truck Simulator on the Internet in no time after the release of course to help you decide if the game is worth buying. Actually videos and streams will start appearing as of this weekend already - we have begun providing press keys to games media (here is our presskit link). Between the official games industry media coverage and the fan-created stuff, there should be many previews, reviews and honest opinions available to you by mid next week. Here is one already on Rock Paper Shotgun.

Quite a lot of famous Internet personalities on YouTube and twitch scene are also getting press keys from us, so we will see what happens. We are definitely looking forward to learning what the old-guard guys think about our game - the people who have been coming back to Euro Truck Simulator 2 for years, like Keralis, Squirrel or Wujek Bohun, people with genuine interest in and knowledge of driving sims, people with strong credit and integrity respected by their fans who cannot be suspected of being our secret marketing shills.

One particular event is worth pointing out - after streaming ATS for three days starting this Friday already on his Twitch channel, Paul a.k.a. Squirrel will be doing a Q&A session with SCS Software's CEO Pavel Šebor as part of his Sunday Night Trucking stream, starting at 7 pm UK Time, January 31.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

We are all living in the world of video, and American Truck Simulator is not an exception for sure. Behold our take at an emotional game launch trailer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu32OisFgWI

You can expect a ton of fan footage from American Truck Simulator on the Internet in no time after the release of course to help you decide if the game is worth buying. Actually videos and streams will start appearing as of this weekend already - we have begun providing press keys to games media (here is our presskit link). Between the official games industry media coverage and the fan-created stuff, there should be many previews, reviews and honest opinions available to you by mid next week. Here is one already on Rock Paper Shotgun.

Quite a lot of famous Internet personalities on YouTube and twitch scene are also getting press keys from us, so we will see what happens. We are definitely looking forward to learning what the old-guard guys think about our game - the people who have been coming back to Euro Truck Simulator 2 for years, like Keralis, Squirrel or Wujek Bohun, people with genuine interest in and knowledge of driving sims, people with strong credit and integrity respected by their fans who cannot be suspected of being our secret marketing shills.

One particular event is worth pointing out - after streaming ATS for three days starting this Friday already on his Twitch channel, Paul a.k.a. Squirrel will be doing a Q&A session with SCS Software's CEO Pavel Šebor as part of his Sunday Night Trucking stream, starting at 7 pm UK Time, January 31.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

We still owe you clarification on the initial set of trucks shipping as part of the first release of American Truck Simulator. We have been postponing this post until the last minute, as the situation could - and still can - always change (and for the better only now), but we need to be clear at last on where we are.

For Euro Truck Simulator 2 related news, keep reading!

Over the past year, we have been publishing quite a lot of screenshots and videos showing several in-development truck models. Our fans have quite sharp eyes and take note of all the details, so people are naturally speculating on what's coming based on those shots.

Until recently, we were planning to include at least four trucks at launch, and our screenshots shown over time reflected this optimism. Unfortunately, finalizing the licensing talks and getting all the vehicles past the approval clearance is taking longer than anticipated, and you may have noticed some of those trucks no longer showing in the most recent batches of pictures from the game.

The result is that out of the gate, the game will ship with just two trucks.

Thanks to kind support of PACCAR group, we are happy to confirm the presence of Kenworth T 680 and Peterbilt 579 as part of the launch line-up.


Kenworth T 680 licensed courtesy of PACCAR


Peterbilt 579 licensed courtesy of PACCAR

After the game is released and gets into media spotlight, we will have a very important tool in our licensing talks arsenal - a successful game (fingers crossed) aimed at the relevant market. Licensing talks are often resembling the "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" problem. To obtain a license in a highly specialized field, you just don't walk into a store and get it over the counter. Unlike car manufacturers who have extensive experience with being featured in racing games, for most truck manufacturers this is all unexplored territory. We always need to find a way inside the company to reach the decision makers at marketing/licensing department, and getting our voice noticed is not easy. Just getting the chance to get out point across is often all it takes, and with American Truck Simulator out in playable form and in the hands of customers, it gives us a crucial talking point.

When the game is out on the market already at last, when we can prove its impact on trucking fans at large, we hope for more of the truck manufacturers to pay attention, to realize that it's beneficial for them to participate, and perhaps even push us to hurry so that they are not left behind the pack. We have been through this experience with the launch of Euro Truck Simulator 2, when vocal support of our fans managed to bring the game to the attention to European truck manufacturers missing in the initial version of the game.

We have progressed very well on several additional vehicles, and in the weeks after release, we are confident that will get the clearance to start adding them to the game. We will be adding them for free of course as part of regular game updates, just as is the case with the ETS2.


Kenworth W900 will appear in ATS soon courtesy of PACCAR


Peterbilt 389 will appear in ATS soon courtesy of PACCAR

Now comes the time for an explicit disclaimer - any vehicles and truck brands you will see pictured below this point in text are here only for illustrative purposes, and do not constitute any guarantee that they will be appearing in the game in any particular timeframe. We have implemented them as an experiment when trying to get the door opened. As you can see some of them are already in advanced enough stage to be technically prepared for integration into the game world, yet more are semi-finished and not yet ready for integration with the game engine.


A beautiful truck spotted somewhere north of Los Angeles


A valiant truck driven across a landmark Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco


A Maya render of another cool but only semi-finished truck

Meanwhile, we are still hard at work improving Euro Truck Simulator 2. As we are showing a ton of North American vehicles today, we did not want our European fans to feel betrayed. So we thought that a teaser image of a new truck being readied for introduction to ETS2 will cheer them up today.


Renault Range T spotted somewhere in south of France

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

We still owe you clarification on the initial set of trucks shipping as part of the first release of American Truck Simulator. We have been postponing this post until the last minute, as the situation could - and still can - always change (and for the better only now), but we need to be clear at last on where we are.

For Euro Truck Simulator 2 related news, keep reading!

Over the past year, we have been publishing quite a lot of screenshots and videos showing several in-development truck models. Our fans have quite sharp eyes and take note of all the details, so people are naturally speculating on what's coming based on those shots.

Until recently, we were planning to include at least four trucks at launch, and our screenshots shown over time reflected this optimism. Unfortunately, finalizing the licensing talks and getting all the vehicles past the approval clearance is taking longer than anticipated, and you may have noticed some of those trucks no longer showing in the most recent batches of pictures from the game.

The result is that out of the gate, the game will ship with just two trucks.

Thanks to kind support of PACCAR group, we are happy to confirm the presence of Kenworth T 680 and Peterbilt 579 as part of the launch line-up.


Kenworth T 680 licensed courtesy of PACCAR


Peterbilt 579 licensed courtesy of PACCAR

After the game is released and gets into media spotlight, we will have a very important tool in our licensing talks arsenal - a successful game (fingers crossed) aimed at the relevant market. Licensing talks are often resembling the "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" problem. To obtain a license in a highly specialized field, you just don't walk into a store and get it over the counter. Unlike car manufacturers who have extensive experience with being featured in racing games, for most truck manufacturers this is all unexplored territory. We always need to find a way inside the company to reach the decision makers at marketing/licensing department, and getting our voice noticed is not easy. Just getting the chance to get out point across is often all it takes, and with American Truck Simulator out in playable form and in the hands of customers, it gives us a crucial talking point.

When the game is out on the market already at last, when we can prove its impact on trucking fans at large, we hope for more of the truck manufacturers to pay attention, to realize that it's beneficial for them to participate, and perhaps even push us to hurry so that they are not left behind the pack. We have been through this experience with the launch of Euro Truck Simulator 2, when vocal support of our fans managed to bring the game to the attention to European truck manufacturers missing in the initial version of the game.

We have progressed very well on several additional vehicles, and in the weeks after release, we are confident that will get the clearance to start adding them to the game. We will be adding them for free of course as part of regular game updates, just as is the case with the ETS2.


Kenworth W900 will appear in ATS soon courtesy of PACCAR


Peterbilt 389 will appear in ATS soon courtesy of PACCAR

Now comes the time for an explicit disclaimer - any vehicles and truck brands you will see pictured below this point in text are here only for illustrative purposes, and do not constitute any guarantee that they will be appearing in the game in any particular timeframe. We have implemented them as an experiment when trying to get the door opened. As you can see some of them are already in advanced enough stage to be technically prepared for integration into the game world, yet more are semi-finished and not yet ready for integration with the game engine.


A beautiful truck spotted somewhere north of Los Angeles


A valiant truck driven across a landmark Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco


A Maya render of another cool but only semi-finished truck

Meanwhile, we are still hard at work improving Euro Truck Simulator 2. As we are showing a ton of North American vehicles today, we did not want our European fans to feel betrayed. So we thought that a teaser image of a new truck being readied for introduction to ETS2 will cheer them up today.


Renault Range T spotted somewhere in south of France

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

American Truck Simulator is well on its way to the February 3rd release, and we thought that it is time to discuss the plans for its integration with the World of Trucks universe.



On release day, we are going enable the support for uploading screenshots and setting custom license plates of your truck. We expect that shortly after release we will see a huge amount of great shots uploaded to the service from the game. The editorial team is constantly overwhelmed by the volume of great shots appearing every day, so it is very likely that they will have a hard time picking a few of the best to use for the Image Spotlight feature in ATS loading screens.

But we ALL expect more from World of Trucks eventually than just a glorified facebook for game screenshots, and there is definitely more on the way. Since the release of Contracts feature for ETS2, over 4.8 million tons of cargo had been transported. Contracts are coming to ATS as well, however first we need to verify that the networking infrastructure is ready and will work under load, so it will be rolled out in an update soon after release.

We are currently improving Contracts by adding an ability to list and take Contract jobs directly from inside the game, not having to take a detour via the World of Truck website. It should add to convenience and usability. Even if some features may over time migrate into the game client, it is important to keep them exposed through the website interface, and it will also be the case here. We are going to build further superstructure on top of Contracts while implementing Virtual Trucking Companies (VTC) support.



There is one more little announcement we need to make: We are about to say good bye to an existing World of Trucks achievement - “Refined Identity”. One of the reasons is that we are soon going to introduce more fine-grained privacy settings for users of the website, but actually the main pressure for its removal is technical. As our server infrastructure is growing and we are migrating most of the services to cloud-based back end, the related database queries are getting difficult to perform cheaply and effectively.

As a result, this particular achievement will become a “Legacy Achievement” and it will no longer be possible to earn it. The plan is that as of February 1, we will switch off the detection code for this achievement, so it will no longer be possible to get it. But if you have earned it already or will be able to grab it in time before Feb 1, it will stay in your profile. If you are a bit on the compulsive hoarding extreme collector side of the spectrum and need to have it all, you only have a few days left, so grab it while you still can!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

American Truck Simulator is well on its way to the February 3rd release, and we thought that it is time to discuss the plans for its integration with the World of Trucks universe.



On release day, we are going enable the support for uploading screenshots and setting custom license plates of your truck. We expect that shortly after release we will see a huge amount of great shots uploaded to the service from the game. The editorial team is constantly overwhelmed by the volume of great shots appearing every day, so it is very likely that they will have a hard time picking a few of the best to use for the Image Spotlight feature in ATS loading screens.

But we ALL expect more from World of Trucks eventually than just a glorified facebook for game screenshots, and there is definitely more on the way. Since the release of Contracts feature for ETS2, over 4.8 million tons of cargo had been transported. Contracts are coming to ATS as well, however first we need to verify that the networking infrastructure is ready and will work under load, so it will be rolled out in an update soon after release.

We are currently improving Contracts by adding an ability to list and take Contract jobs directly from inside the game, not having to take a detour via the World of Truck website. It should add to convenience and usability. Even if some features may over time migrate into the game client, it is important to keep them exposed through the website interface, and it will also be the case here. We are going to build further superstructure on top of Contracts while implementing Virtual Trucking Companies (VTC) support.



There is one more little announcement we need to make: We are about to say good bye to an existing World of Trucks achievement - “Refined Identity”. One of the reasons is that we are soon going to introduce more fine-grained privacy settings for users of the website, but actually the main pressure for its removal is technical. As our server infrastructure is growing and we are migrating most of the services to cloud-based back end, the related database queries are getting difficult to perform cheaply and effectively.

As a result, this particular achievement will become a “Legacy Achievement” and it will no longer be possible to earn it. The plan is that as of February 1, we will switch off the detection code for this achievement, so it will no longer be possible to get it. But if you have earned it already or will be able to grab it in time before Feb 1, it will stay in your profile. If you are a bit on the compulsive hoarding extreme collector side of the spectrum and need to have it all, you only have a few days left, so grab it while you still can!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/270880

American Truck Simulator will be released simultaneously in retail and digital channels on February 3, 2016. But that's not "news" any more - hopefully you have the date marked in your calendar already!

To make as big a splash as possible during the release week - to place high in the best-selling chart and to make an impression on games industry press this way - we would like to create a sales spike just after the game starts selling. We will depend on our fan community to achieve this; when we were thinking on how to catalyze things, we came up with an idea of a little bonus.

Here is the deal: Go to the American Truck Simulator Steam page and choose "Follow" to make sure you get all the important announcements through Steam's Friend Activity feed during the period leading to the game's release.



By getting as many people into our dragnet as possible, we hope for a bit of snowball effect in raising the awareness of the game's impending release - not just among the hard-core fans, but also in general gamer population.

In exchange for the "follow," we are ready to give you an exclusive gift: a set of unique Steampunk-themed truck paintjobs. It's perfectly OK if you buy the game in a retail box or any alternate digital channel - so long as you follow the game's official Steam community announcements and activate your game on Steam during the week after its release, you are eligible for this bonus.

Here is a couple images to whet your appetite:

American Truck Simulator will be released simultaneously in retail and digital channels on February 3, 2016. But that's not "news" any more - hopefully you have the date marked in your calendar already!

To make as big a splash as possible during the release week - to place high in the best-selling chart and to make an impression on games industry press this way - we would like to create a sales spike just after the game starts selling. We will depend on our fan community to achieve this; when we were thinking on how to catalyze things, we came up with an idea of a little bonus.

Here is the deal: Go to the American Truck Simulator Steam page and choose "Follow" to make sure you get all the important announcements through Steam's Friend Activity feed during the period leading to the game's release.



By getting as many people into our dragnet as possible, we hope for a bit of snowball effect in raising the awareness of the game's impending release - not just among the hard-core fans, but also in general gamer population.

In exchange for the "follow," we are ready to give you an exclusive gift: a set of unique Steampunk-themed truck paintjobs. It's perfectly OK if you buy the game in a retail box or any alternate digital channel - so long as you follow the game's official Steam community announcements and activate your game on Steam during the week after its release, you are eligible for this bonus.

Here is a couple images to whet your appetite:

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

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!