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Ilmoita käännösongelmasta
Your feedback and reports are truly valuable to our team and we thank you in advance for taking the time to help us out. Now, without further ado, let's take a look at what the 1.54 Open Beta has in store.
In the redefined cargo system, the code automatically merges cargo and trailers based on simplified rules. This means that each cargo will define its own model, loading methodology, and lashing method. This will make the work of our vehicle team much easier as it no longer requires our 3D artists to manually create pre-baked trailer-cargo pairs.
While there may be issues in the first iteration, it's a worthwhile goal to refine the system, as it not only improves efficiency but also saves disk space and memory by eliminating the need to store countless pre-made combinations. This project may also lead to other possibilities for both of our games, especially with dynamic cargo (un)loading and more. You can read about how this project was executed in our recent Under the Hood blog
For keyboard and mouse users, adjustments are now more streamlined with the use of the WASD keys for navigation, along with sliders and buttons for finer tuning. Meanwhile, controller users will find the new system much smoother, with the left stick controlling adjustments, the right stick handling camera movement for mirror positioning, and the D-pad or shoulder buttons navigating the menu.
We hope you enjoy this redesign, and that you find it easy to use and navigate through. If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you. You can share your comments and ideas through our official forum.
Please note: This project is still in its very early stages, and many of the screenshots in this blog post showcase areas of the rework that are still in being worked on and are incomplete. With that said, let's take a closer look at the road ahead!
The decision to overhaul the region was a natural progression following the rework of German cities. Given the age of the existing map and the many changes that have taken place in real life, the decision was made to completely rework the region from scratch.
Drivers will also be able to deliver to and from a variety of reworked depots, as well as some new industries such as a sugar beet factory. Don't forget to be on the lookout for new landmarks too!
We are sure this project will breathe new life into an important part of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 world. Players can look forward to a region filled with new sights, landmarks, routes and a more faithful depiction of one of Europe’s most fascinating regions.
“I am Mark Armstrong, I am from the northeast of England, born and raised. I currently am 34 and I'm a huge driving simulator enthusiast!” 
Before discovering his love for trucking and simulation gaming, Mark was an avid cyclist, riding competitively with his father. His dad wasn’t just a parent, he was a best friend and mentor. They shared a passion for road biking, mountain biking, and trials-riding, always pushing each other to be better. “My dad was more of a friend than a dad, really. He was my riding partner, my motivator. We did everything together, whether it was fixing bikes in the garage or hitting the roads. He was always there.”
However, a severe accident at 20 years old changed Mark’s path, leaving him unable to continue cycling. Looking for a new passion, he turned to gaming, a decision that would shape his future. “I had a severe accident, which caused me to be unable to ride... I was housebound and I actually sat one day on the sofa and made a joke about 'Farming Simulator' and then for Christmas, my wife at the time and my dad actually got me the game, and that's where it all started.”
His love for simulation extended to American Truck Simulator, where he developed a deep appreciation for American trucks, particularly the Peterbilt 389. “I like the big chrome, big shifter, laid-back seating position. That’s what I like. But as soon as I go on ETS2, I want to sit like a Scania driver, so I change everything around.”
Mark’s father became an integral part of his streaming journey, joining in on multiplayer convoys and even taking over the channel occasionally. “He loved it. He went full in, bought himself a full gaming rig, triple monitors, everything. He would take over my streams so I could take a break. He was just as passionate about it as I was.”
Mark’s current setup is a testament to years of dedication from both himself and his father. His simulator consists of a triple 65-inch 4K 120Hz TV setup, a SimMagic Alpha Mini wheelbase, and a collection of truck shifters built by a dedicated community member. For those who have had the pleasure of tuning into Marks stream, you'll know his streams almost look like the real deal! “I stream in kind of a POV style, I have my GoPro camera located behind me, like your sitting on the bunk in the cabin. It gives you that aspect that you’re driving with me.”
While Mark’s simulator setup is already impressive, he always looks for ways to improve. “The simulator side of things is limited, because I want my community to be able to enjoy the view and setup as much as I do. If I were to set it up just for me, I’d make the rig a lot more enclosed and immersive. But I choose to balance it so that everyone can enjoy it”
With over 300,000 followers across YouTube, Twitch
Streaming is more than just a hobby for Mark, it’s his full-time passion and job “I can never drive in real life, so I am literally driving for a living through my channel, which is amazing. If you’re looking for a community to join, we are very, very laid back, and we'd love to have you join us, whether you choose to just watch or drive along with us.”
For those looking to follow Mark’s adventures, you can find him streaming on YouTube and Twitch
From historical landmarks to modern masterpieces, you will find some amazing architectural gems in the northernmost part of Europe. Our asset and map designers have done an incredible job recreating these churches, taking inspiration from their real-world counterparts. Among the older ones, you might recognize the Trinity Church in Vaasa. Can you identify some others?
These sacral buildings often dominate their environment. You don't want to miss out on those beautiful structures when passing by in your truck! The architecture of the more modern ones is quite unique and impressive - take a look at the Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø or the church in the city of Geilo - but there is more to discover!
Whether built centuries ago or in recent decades, these churches are not only a religious place but also an architectural heritage of these northern countries.
As our games continue to expand, the number of cargo types and trailers has grown significantly, making the old system increasingly difficult to manage. To understand why a change was necessary, it helps to look at how the previous system worked.
Smety, our Senior Vehicle Artist explains that this issue has been a growing problem for some time and needed solving. "Things were getting complicated with the arrival of new cargo and a lot of new branded trailers to the game. Each cargo was attached to all trailers of that type, meaning if we had 3 flatbeds, we also needed 3 specific cargo models - and every cargo variant usually has two or three visuals. Plus, we have branded trailers so the combinations were reaching huge numbers. I had the task of reworking the trailers."
Our goal was to simplify the process of connecting new cargo and trailers, eliminating the need to manually manage their combinations, as Simon explains here: "We could achieve this by having the code automatically merge cargo and trailers based on simplified rules, rather than creating separate models for each trailer type. This means that each cargo will define its own model, loading methodology, and lashing method. While this approach may have some initial challenges and might not be perfect at first, it lays the foundation for future expansion and improvement. For example, when loading cargo programmatically - such as a pallet - you will only need to model a single pallet. The code will then determine the correct number of models and position them on the trailer according to the chosen loading methodology."
Karel - Producer
Matěj - 3D Graphic Vehicle Designer
Petr - 3D Graphic Vehicle Designer
Our programmer, Max, played a key role in integrating the new cargo system into the games' economy, among other tasks, as he explains below.
Max - Programmer
Join Oscar, our Director of Global Partnerships, as he takes us behind the scenes to reveal how our team gathers reference material. He also sits down with Max Praz, IVECO Academy Director; Marco Armigliato, Head of Industrial Design; Giuseppe Bruno, Creative Design Manager; and Alessandro Pili, Surface & Virtual Design, to discuss the history of IVECO, the intricate design and creation process, and much more.
Today, we’re going Under the Hood on the process behind Parallax Interiors and exploring the research, development, and implementation that made this feature possible. We spoke with some members of the team behind this project. We will let them introduce themselves! 
“Hi, my name is Sasha, and I work in the asset department of ETS2. My main focus is developing methodologies for solving various visual challenges. I collaborate with other departments on art-related tasks and occasionally take on different roles across various projects. During the development of parallax, I took on a role somewhere between an art lead and a project manager, helping to shape the process and guide the team.”
“Hi there, my name is Jan V. and my work at SCS for the last five years has mainly comprised high-level graphics programming with the occasional venture into internal tools development; more specifically, most of my tasks involve either researching and implementing new graphics features or improving existing ones, be it model materials or post-processing effects.”
“Hi, my name is Yurii H., and I joined the SCS Software team almost 3 years ago. I work as a 3D designer on the ETS Assets team. Over the past year, I've been focusing on specific tasks such as creating new menu scenes, working on the parallax project, and improving the interiors of assets.”
“Hi, I am Martin Č, I’ve been working as a tools programmer at SCS for over 5 years now. During that time, I’ve been mainly focused on supporting our artists by creating specialized tools in Maya and managing our asset pipeline with my colleague and good friend Petr B. One of these specialized tools was our so-called “Interior Window Tool” which allows artists to apply our new parallax interior shader to assets."
“It is commonly said that real-time computer graphics is all smoke and mirrors. Whenever we see an opportunity to improve our visuals on a mass scale without having to necessarily compromise on performance, we deem it especially worth looking into.” Jan V explains, “Seeing as we are far from the only developers out there building a virtual world closely modelled after reality, noticing similar tech being widely adopted with impressive results in other games provided us with the inspiration necessary to decide on adapting it ourselves, perhaps even coming up with new improvements to the technique as a result.”
“Having a straightforward, universal way of both creating and rendering realistic-looking building interiors would hopefully enable us to save time on both the asset authoring front (not having to manually create each and every room behind each and every window) as well as the rendering one - with parallax mapping, many interior instances can essentially be drawn at once using a single piece of specially parametrised geometry, among other things. Considering that we had also been using an extremely simplified version of the effect in our games for many years at this point, upgrading to a more up-to-date look just seemed like the logical thing to do”
“Our goal was to cover as many use cases as possible with the least amount of textures and tools.” Sasha explains “In other words, we needed to design interiors that would look natural and consistent across all countries, cities, and building types, in both ETS2 and ATS, while keeping the implementation as streamlined as possible. This required extensive research. 
“We conducted a detailed study of interior types, their proportional distribution, and their relevance to both of our games. Beyond interiors themselves, our research extended to various types of curtains, blinds, shutters, decals, advertisements, and other related elements. The next step consisted of creating these interiors. Once we had a solid understanding of our needs, we began the process of assembling texture atlases to categorize interiors by type. This allowed us to create variations suited for different types of buildings, such as administrative offices, apartments, restaurants, and shops, while maintaining an efficient and manageable workflow.”
Martin goes on to explain the creation of this specialized tool “First and foremost, I wanted it to be simple to use and understand. Under the hood, it is a tool that helps artists with the process of UV mapping, during which artists determine how textures are mapped to an asset. The resulting tool is therefore very point and click. Artists see an overview of all rooms which can be assigned to a group of faces (polygons - i.e. geometry in the 3D scene).”
“Another interesting challenge was adjusting the tool during its lifetime to various changes made to the interior shader by Jan V, who continuously came up with improvements and optimizations. For example, Jan added an option to disable glass on different windows. Later on, he added an option for the windows to be tilted at any angle. So you can have a roof window or a hole in the ground with a caveat that the room will be tilted along with the window. The tool was not written with these possibilities in mind at first and it involved some rewrites and interesting maths for this to be supported.
As mentioned, Jan was responsible for the shader itself. We spoke with him more about the technical aspect of this project, and how he helped developed it. “The secret ingredient at work here is operating within the boundaries of a tightly-defined problem space.” Jan explains, “most building interiors we see can be geometrically approximated as open boxes - that is to say, if we simply decide that all we need to know about a room in order to render it is its position, dimensions and texture, things suddenly get a lot easier!”
"Before making this effect a stable part of our toolset, we had to define the right technical constraints and artist-driven parameters, balancing performance, visual fidelity, and creative freedom. Getting it production-ready was challenging, requiring multiple revisions of tools and shaders to resolve pre-production roadblocks as artists adapted existing models. Despite the challenges, the final result was worth the effort. My favorite part of developing graphics features is the freedom to experiment, blending artistic vision with solving complex technical problems."
"Our selection criteria were roughly as follows: first, defining atlas types based on interior categories (administrative buildings, restaurants, shops, apartments)." Sasha explains to us "Then, segmenting each category by "price range", for example, deciding how many restaurants should appear high-end versus more affordable and which of these should be more prevalent. Finally, considering the size of each individual interior, and how large each room should be and how that would affect the overall atlas layout."
"Once everything was ready, I created four renders, three for the lighting setups and one for the normal map." Yurii tells us "The time needed to complete an interior depended on its size, which could range from 1 to 4 sections, taking anywhere from 1 to 3 days in total."
"We encountered many interesting challenges." Sasha explains "To start with, we had only a very rough understanding of how to create these interiors in the first place, meaning we had to invent the workflow on the fly. Parallax mapping, while visually impressive, comes with strict limitations. What you see in the game isn’t actual geometry, it’s essentially a render projected onto the inner walls of a cube. Because of this, at certain angles and in specific conditions, the illusion can break, revealing noticeable distortions in furniture, lighting, and other visual artifacts."
"Fortunately, we dedicated plenty of time to pre-production and studied how similar technologies have been used in other games. For me personally, minimizing these distortions as much as possible was a key priority. We wanted to develop a toolset that would stand the test of time, remaining relevant for years both in terms of visual quality for players and ease of use for our artists. Beyond the technical challenges, what truly made this project special for me was the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across different departments. It was inspiring to see the level of effort and enthusiasm everyone put into the parallax project — even knowing that, in the end, it would be just a minor background improvement..."
"Beyond generic atlases, we also have the flexibility to create specialized interiors, for example, for seasonal events." Sasha explains "You might have noticed some changes in this year's Christmas map, where we put together a holiday-themed interior atlas. You may expect more seasonal and event-related updates like this in the future. On top of that, we’ve been discussing expanding the functionality of the parallax shader itself. I’d love to spill the tea on those plans, but... let’s keep it a secret for now. ;)" 
We'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read all about Parallax Interiors, and we hope you learnt quite a bit of the process involved in bringing these into virtual world! We asked the team to share a final message for you all reading.
If you enjoyed this Under the Hood blog, be sure to leave a message for the team, we’re sure they’ll appreciate your comments! We look forward to sharing more Under the Hood topics in the future. If you'd like to read previous articles, you can find them all here. Until next time, keep on truckin'!
The team currently consists of eight people who have been refreshing the Scandinavia DLC
"After completing my education in philosophy and theatre studies, game development was the obvious choice. In 2020, I joined SCS Software as a map designer and now I run the Scandinavia Refresh project as a map lead. It's exciting because apart from reskinning most of the content, we also want to introduce new places for players to explore. And Scandinavia has tons of beautiful, diverse scenery, and we enjoy implementing some of it. I feel a great sense of responsibility in refreshing our best-selling and most popular DLC and I hope that players will be happy with the result. With a team full of skilled and enthusiastic people working on Scandinavia Refresh, we're bringing out the full brilliance of this gem."
"My love for creative games and city-building strategies has led me to this point in my life of being one of the many talented map designers of the Euro Truck Simulator 2 rework team. I have been bestowed the great honour of reworking the magnificent capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen. Over the past few months the city has truly grown on me and I've completely fallen in love with its unique architecture, intricate bike paths and unique landmarks. I have worked on bringing all these elements into the game while respecting the original in-game city. No landmarks have been removed, only improved, and many more have been added for you to explore"
"Scandinavia refresh is the first project I'm working on here at SCS and I am very excited to be a part of this project and learn all that this area has to offer. I can't wait for our players to enjoy it in its new and exciting form. I love working on small details that players can discover and enjoy and I hope I can capture as many details as possible. My current task involves an island leading up to a bridge and I am having an incredible amount of fun working on it and I am already looking forward to many upcoming and equally exciting tasks."
"Hi everyone, it’s me, Lukáš. A few years back I was an aspiring investigative journalist, and although it was fun while it lasted and I enjoyed every aspect of it, I gradually found out I wanted something else from life. And guess what I also like, apart from writing long texts trying to explain things that are sometimes too complex and cumbersome to explain properly? That’s right! Video games! So I decided to make a change. I went from exposing crooked politicians to straightening crooked roads of Scandinavia. All the fun without any of the stress, what more could you possibly want? So far I have managed to refresh a few roads and cities in Sweden, build a few new ones in Denmark, and I may be adding a small Swedish city of K… What, Vojta? Oh, I cannot talk about this one yet? Well, I guess now you’ll never know what we are cooking!"
"When I was younger, my mom always told me: "Go study, video games won’t pay your bills." Well, look at me now. I joined SCS a few months ago and instantly fell in love with my job. I'm excited to be working on the Scandinavia refresh since I get to work with beautiful landscapes and cities. I promise I’ll try to make my parts of the map as pretty as possible to give you the best experience."
"Hey, my name is Lukáš. I am a map designer at SCS Software. I began my working journey here just half a year ago, my first project being the Scandinavia Refresh. I am looking forward to capturing the vast Scandinavian landscapes, for you to enjoy in our game, and making the beautiful cities even more beautiful, so you can re-experience the adventure that Scandinavia is all over again."
We invite you, our #BestCommunityEver, to share the love this season! Whether you’re delivering for a special sweetheart or helping others connect, let’s come together to reach the community goal of 600,000 Valentine’s Presents delivered to loved ones around the globe. Our Valentine-themed event trailers are loaded up and waiting for you to roll out!
Here’s your chance to create a romantic matching paint job for your truck, using the Valentine's Paint Jobs Pack DLC for ETS2 or ATS!
Community: When the community goal of achieving 600,000 deliveries of Valentine Presents cargo from any city is met and if the player has also achieved their personal goal, then they will receive a Cupid's Dice hanging item as a Steam inventory item for their cabin.
Note: In order to qualify for any community reward, you must complete at least your personal goal in Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator or both. Each reward will be a Steam inventory item for both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator. Once completed, claim your reward in the Events page on your World of Trucks profile.
Haul your heart out with the Cupid’s Express Bundle! This heartfelt collection includes American Truck Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator 2, and the Valentine’s Paint Jobs Pack for both games. Whether your heart belongs to the highway or you’re planning a romantic convoy with someone special, don’t let this love-loaded deal pass you by! Check it out on Steam for a limited time only.
Because testing such technology would be nearly impossible and dangerous in a real vehicle, they needed to find a good substitute. "ETS2 was the simplest and the most practical solution because it mirrors real driving conditions. The game allowed us to simulate fatigue safely. We needed a reliable platform to simulate long hours of driving, and the game provided exactly that," Martinka says, explaining why they chose our game to test their technology.
The testing process took about six months while they were constantly improving the technology. Martinka and his team constructed a simulator using a real car seat and steering wheel in a classroom setting. They mimicked real-life driving schedules, sometimes driving from six in the morning until 2 or 3 pm, logging a maximum of seven hours behind the wheel at a time. "We drove continuously, replicating fatigue-inducing conditions until we were genuinely exhausted and wanted to sleep," he said.
Using this setup, the team monitored breathing patterns to pinpoint when a driver enters microsleep - a dangerous state that can lead to accidents. "While modern cars often feature fatigue sensors, they are not always accurate. Our smart T-Shirt, on the other hand, provides a more reliable solution. The sensors in the T-Shirt are nearly invisible, washable, and far more precise in detecting fatigue than standard car systems," Mr. Martinka shared with us.
This innovative research has already garnered international attention. Martinka and his team have been collaborating with other universities in the Czech Republic and Japan. "This year, we'll spend an entire month at a Japanese university testing the T-Shirt with simulators using ETS2 again," he shared.
Their work is not done yet. Mr. Martinka and his team continue to upgrade the T-Shirt's design based on ongoing tests, as they want to make roads safer for drivers everywhere. We are really proud that our game is used for such a noble cause. Don't forget to follow us on our X/Twitter, Facebook
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