Can be SCS Blender Tools used for creating skins?

[#ruzziaNUCLEARTERRORIST Ivanko1]

Can be SCS Blender Tools used for creating skins? Will it be easyer then with ETS2 Studio?
Where I can find instructions?

[TwinShadow]

I'm not versed in Blender at all, but making skins though still isn't that hard. Just need Paint.NET, GIMP, or Photoshop, plugins to save in the DDS format, and that's about it. Though you can save in PNG, use ETS2 Studio and it'll do most of the work for you.

Myself, I just use ETS2 Studio for the TOBJ editor as I still do things by hand. Far as instructions go, your best bet is just to google on how to texture in Blender or something, that is the best I can offer.

[#ruzziaNUCLEARTERRORIST Ivanko1]

Thank you. I know about ETS2 Studio, but hope Blender can make it easier.
Do you know some manuals how create skins in Paint.net and ETS2 Studio for people who never do it before? I know how to use Paint.net and thats it.

[TwinShadow]

I don't use Paint.NET as I use Photoshop.

The best way I can explain it would be something like this:

1. Make your skin like normal in whatever program you use. Save the image as a PNG for no quality loss. Make sure your image is in a power of two, the best size IMO is 2048x2048.
   
2. Load ETS2 Studio and configure it to the truck you're using. I will use the SCS Mercedes Actros for example. You'd select that, then configure the skin properties to your liking. In this case, the skin type you'd use would be "Airbrush".
   
3. Under the Truck Skin tab, browse to your skin and select it.
   
4. For workshop icon, this image is a specific 256x64.
   
5. Once it all looks good, you would hit the "Export mod" button at the top and that should be it.

That's about the best explanation I can probably give on the process. Its not too hard, just takes a little getting used to sometimes.

[USATrucker379]

Trying to make mods myself also, starting with making skins... I've seen some youtube videos about making skins, looks easy enough!. I only have one question though. What Photoshop package would be advised? I'm saying like Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Express, etc...

[room217au]

Any image editor that supports layers will do the trick. PNG is a fairly common format, so most if not all image editors will save as that format.
If you can, find a truck template that is 4096x4096.
I bought Adobe's CS3 package a number of years ago, so I don't know what different types of Photoshop packages are available, but for best results out of Photoshop, get the nvidia "DDS plugin". This allows to export direct out of photoshop as dds format (which is "native" to ETS2).

[room217au]

Originally posted by Ivanko_The_First_UA:

Can be SCS Blender Tools used for creating skins? Will it be easyer then with ETS2 Studio?

ETS2 Studio was created to 'automate' the process of combining your truck skin and workshop icon together into the correct folders in the mod, as well as writing the required .sii and .tobj files for you. It's an absolute godsend for skinners.

Blender is a 3D modelling application. Most likely you've seen documentaries from car manufacturers where you see a guy in a labcoat with a lump of clay and a scraping tool as he designs and modifies the shape of the car. That's what Blender does. That's not all it does, but that's its main schtick.

Incorporated in the Blender application is facility to nominate what dds or png images are used for a particular object or part. You'll also need the "Blender2SCS" addon in order to both import and export PMG files to and from SCS trucks.
Blender is not easy :)

If you are interested though, you could always check out Zmodeller[www.zmodeler3.com]. That one is popular with the modders too, but it's also payware, when Blender is free.

[room217au]

Skinning Tips:
- Try to use templates that are 4096x4096. This means when the game renders them, the quality of the skin is better.

- When creating your skin in Photoshop (or whatever) always save the artwork as the native format for that image editor, before you save it as a dds.

- After using ETS2 Studio and exporting the mod, navigate to that .scs file and extract it back to its constituent folders. Navigate through the folders to:
'vehicle\truck\upgrade\paintjob' and you'll see your truckskin file. When you're looking at the truck after you've applied the skin in the game, and you want to change a few things (because you will, lol) all you need to do is open your image editor, make the edits to the original artwork, then save it as a dds again but save it directly to the paintjob folder, with the same filename, over-writing the current dds.
Do not change anything else.
Then re-pack your mod to an scs archive. There's no need to use ETS2 Studio every time you make a change to the truck skin. The same applies if you want to change the worskhop icon, but its folder is:
'material\ui\accessory'

- You can safely compress truck skin mods, using 'normal' compression in your favourite archiver.

- Try and use filenames that are 9 characters long. I read this a long time ago and while that limitation may have disappeared with subesquent patches, I continue to follow that naming convention.

[TwinShadow]

If one uses a 4096x4096 image, do be sure your system is powerful enough to handle those. It consistantly crashes Photoshop on my rig.

Unrelated note, nice job to the original person for necro'ing this thread. XD

[room217au]

lol June 24?
the body's still warm ;)

[Tech e Play]

The problem with applications like Mods Studio and ETS2 is that we're limited to the standard templates mapping which most of times are kinda harder for skinning once truck parts are teared apart. We have to crop images and move them to the right places and this, sometimes, are hard to accomplish. Using Blender we can make our own mapping. I find it much easier to make a skin when trucks parts are connected such as world map spread in order for us to view all the countries and oceans. Of course not all parts can be connected but at least the left, right and front parts as well as the right and left deflectors can be connected. There are some skins mapped this way and is way far easier for us to work on them. I myself am not familiar with Blender yet so I'm still using Mods Studio which is really very good but I am trying to find tutorials on how to do the mapping on Blender.

[Wolfgang]

Originally posted by room217au:

lol June 24?
the body's still warm ;)

You were saying?

[Underscore_101_3]

As i replied to your other post Gamer Fã de Lorena e Rafaela, you can't just change a template for SCS models, you'd have to create your own model, tmk.

[room217au]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

Originally posted by room217au:

lol June 24?
the body's still warm ;)

You were saying?

heh
maybe not so warm after 7yrs, granted.