Euro Truck Simulator 2 News

Just like that, the Christmas Grand Giving event has ended, where did the time go to? With drivers from across the world participating in both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator, we have seen communities unite to deliver gifts and earn stars for cities across the trucking universe.



With brightly-decorated Christmas gift trailers and festive painted trucks, you set out on December 17th to deliver Christmas cargo and hit milestones with the help of our city star tracker in-game and on WorldofTrucks.com. In less than 48 hours, you reached the first milestone of 200 stars (200,000 deliveries) and the first community reward!

It was clear from that time onwards that our #BestCommunityEver was set on working hard over the festive season, earning stars across the map. By December 28th, you had earned 1000 stars (1,000,000 deliveries), reaching a special community reward milestone! We couldn't have been more impressed with the amount of deliveries completed and how drivers came together to help cities with fewer stars reach their maximum potential.



You also flooded our social media channels with many pictures & videos, with hundreds upon hundreds of posts on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #XmasGrandGiving. It was great to see truckers from all around the world participate in this event. Thank you to everyone who shared their delivery progress with us!

To those who went the extra mile to earn stars for cities, your work has not gone unnoticed. Thanks to your dedication, anyone who delivered 13+ deliveries will be given one of the final rewards, The Diamond Star; those who went all-out and doubled their delivery count (24+) will be gifted the Diamond and the final Grand Star!




To every driver who took to the roads and delivered gifts in this event, thank you! It brings a lot of joy to our team to know how much you enjoy these events, and we hope to bring more of them to you in the future. Until next Christmas!

It's the beginning of a new and exciting year for SCS Software. We decided to end 2019 with a bang during our Christmas stream, with our surprise announcement of our next map expansion for both of our trucking titles. We also shared information on what you can expect to see arriving in the next update, which we will briefly recap some of the main points here.



Idaho known for its mountainous landscape, rivers and it's world famous potatoes will be the next U.S state to be released for American Truck Simulator. Be sure to check out the Steam store page, with exclusive images.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209470/American_Truck_Simulator__Idaho/



It's time to head south to warmer climates to the Iberian Peninsula! The next map expansion to arrive for Euro Truck Simulator 2, will feature coastline roads, major cities and beautiful countryside. Don't forget to add it to your Steam Wishlist, it really helps us.

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

Although these two map expansions have been announced sooner than previous DLC's, this does not indicate they will be released at an earlier time. This is because our main focus for the first half of the year will be spent working with the technical side of our truck sims. In our next planned 1.37 update, we will be changing the way you hear, as we introduce a new sound engine, FMOD. This will allow for the inclusion of more realistic environment sounds (such as nature, city traffic and trains), as-well as an improvement to how your truck sounds on different roads.

Thereafter, update 1.38 will bring new graphical updates to our trucking titles. A re-work of lighting, assets and more are being worked on to make sure the beauty of our game can really shine this year. All of these new changes are thanks to the introduction of DirectX 11. You can find a more detailed wrap-up of all the communities hottest questions for what the future holds!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmyMzWRHz-Y

However, these aren't the only projects on our pipeline! Our teams are currently working hard on creating several new trucks that we'd like to release in the future, as well as tuning packs for existing ones. World of Trucks events are also in the planning stages for this year, with lots of exciting ideas on the table, we hope to bring the community together for more exciting scenarios and rewards.

With all of this exciting content to arrive this year, please keep in mind the size of some these projects, which may take longer than one might expect, as our teams work with new tools and technology. Be sure to keep an eye on our blog and social media channels for more news on these exciting updates in the future. We thank you for all your support, and we can't wait to show you more.

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 it's 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 2.8 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)
  

It's better to give than receive. It's a truth best learnt through experience, and it benefits all involved. That’s why this year we are doing something very new and very special for our 2019 Christmas Grand Giving event in Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.



So, we are asking the community to spread the spirit of Christmas giving across all trucking territories! We have trailer loads of big gifts to give and we will be awarding stars to each city, based on the number of deliveries it gives. The more a city gives, the more stars that city gets. A great list of rewards await you.

Let's do the cities of the world justice and prove that they can, one and all, be the grandest of givers during this season of giving! You’ll be able to track the community progress on World of Trucks or directly in the game using the updated External Contracts interface:



To celebrate the beginning of this festive event, we will be broadcasting a special Christmas Grand Giving stream. Along with taking part in the event, delivering jobs and having fun, we’ll also provide the community with more information on our end-of-year #XmasGrandGiving sharing giveaway.

Loads of awesome prizes await, including T-shirts, Steam keys, computer accessories and much more. Be sure to watch our Christmas live-stream on Thursday the 19th of December at 17:00 CET with special guests, festive fun, surprises, prizes and perhaps even a glance into the future. Watch us on either Steam or Twitch, you won't want to miss out!



Grand Giving Event Rules:

Using external contracts with a World of Trucks-connected profile in Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator or both, the community aim is to get as many stars as possible awarded to as many cities as possible across all trucking territories. Every city can achieve up to 5 stars!

For a city to gain one star, the community must make 1000 Gifts deliveries from it, using the provided Christmas Gifts trailer. Each tier of 200 achieved stars will unlock a unique community reward, with a special reward at the 1000 stars mark.

To achieve your Personal goal, complete at least 12 deliveries of Gifts in either Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator.



Rewards:

Personal goal: Your contribution of 12 or more deliveries of Gifts will gain you:
A World of Trucks Achievement
Your very own hanging Christmas Sock accessory, that’s packed with goodies.
A Christmas themed, Metallic Paint job to help you carry out more Gift deliveries during the event.

Community goals:
Each tier of 200 stars will unlock unique community rewards.
At the milestone of 1000 stars the community will receive a further 2 special rewards.

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.

The event will be concluded on Wednesday the 15th of January at 23:59 UTC.

Are you ready to start your engines and travel through three new unique countries in Euro Truck Simulator 2?



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With 20 new major cities and many more towns and rural villages to discover on your journey, Road to the Black Sea has something for everyone. If you prefer a more scenic journey, route your GPS to avoid the highway to travel past coastal views and forested countrysides, or marvel at Europe's largest city, Istanbul.



We look forward to you sharing all your photos and videos across our Social Media channels! Be sure to tag us and use the hashtag #RoadtotheBlackSea and we will share our favourite ones.

Check out the store page for Road to the Black Sea by clicking on the widget below.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1056760/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Road_to_the_Black_Sea/