Skin Guide [1.48]

How to skin trucks in Euro Truck Simulator 2? That's what you'll learn in this guide! Have fun please leave a like and share it with your friends!

Programs You Need

Here is a list of all the programs you will need to start making your own truck skin for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

• Paintnet[www.getpaint.net]
  
• Mods Studio 2[www.mods.studio]
  
• WinRAR[www.rarlab.com]
  
• Templates (All SCS Templates)[forum.scssoft.com]

You don't necessarily need Paintnet, you can also use another image editing program. Keep in mind that the program you use can save both in JPG extensions and PNG extensions!

Basics Of Your Skin

1. Decide what truck you want, this can be multiple trucks.
   
2. Decide how they should look
   
3. If you can't comply with the sentence above you might want to search for inspiration, you can do so on the Internet or here on Steam in the Steam Workshop

Truck Skin

Where to start?

First of all extract the Templates from Carsmaniac, if you forgot to download them no worries here[forum.scssoft.com] they are.

Skinning

Choose any truck of your choice and then load the template into your Image editor, I will use paintnet[getpaint.net]. Once done don't forget to save your skin, save it as a PNG or DDS file.

Creating the Mod 

Basic
Once you're done creating the skin open Mods Studio 2[www.mods.studio] Follow these steps to start making the mod:

1. Click on "File" in the top left corner.
   
2. Now select "New Project" in the bar at the left
   
3. Then select "ETS2 Mod Project"
   
4. Click on "Add Template"
   
5. Select "Advanced Truck Skin"

Mod Manifest

Now it's time to create the mod manifest, this file holds all the basic information such as Mod Author, Mod Version, Preview Image.

Follow these steps to make the mod manifest:

1. Mod Name, this is the name that will show up in the Euro Truck Simulator 2 mod manager.
   
2. Mod Author, this is the name of the author.
   
3. Mod Version, this is the version of the mod not the version of the game!
   
4. Mod Category, here you can select the category of your mod, multiple categories are allowed.
   
5. DLC Dependencies, here you can select if the user needs specific DLC's to use the mod.
   
6. Compatible Versions, here you can put the version of ETS2 your mod is compatible with.

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Icon 

Now we will create an icon (preview image) for our mod, again open your preferred image editor and create a JPG file with the exact size of 276x162 or it won't work!

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Text 

Now we will create a mod description for our mod, fill in your desired text in the box. You can use the red, green, blue, white, orange tags to make text colored.

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Advanced Truck Skin

Now click on "Advanced Truck Skin" in the bar on the left side of your screen, this is where we will create the mod.

Truck

Here you have to select what truck your skin is for, if you want multiple trucks you have to add other templates, you can doing this by repeating the steps above.

My skin is made for the Next Gen Scania S, so I've selected that truck. You'll be able to select the cabin types in another tab.

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Basic

Here you have to specify things such as the name and the price.

1. Skin Internal name, you won't see this name unless you will open the .SCS file. But make sure to give it an easy to recognize name!
   
2. Skin Name, the name of your skin which will be shown in-game.
   
3. Skin Price, this is how much the skin will cost.
   
4. Unlock at level, here you can insert the level that the player will need to be to buy the skin.
   
5. Alternative UV set, you can leave this off.
   
6. Base Color, if you want the color selector in-game to show a specific color you can put the HEX-code here, if you want to know how to do that follow the steps below:
   
   • Click on the select button.
     
   • Select a random color using the slider.
     
   • A box has appeared with a HEX-code inside

     #FFFF0000

     for example.
     
   • Now paste your own HEX-code inside this box.
     
   • Press OK.

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Icon

Here you will select the icon that shows up when you buy the skin, you can also make a rectangle out of this but I think this looks a bit cleaner because it will blend in with the rest of the skins.

If some things are unclear click the question mark to the left of the box or line you're editing.

Example, click to make it larger

Skins

Click on Add image select the right cabin size. Then click Browse and select your skin.

Example, click to make it larger

Accessories

In the accessories section we will apply skins to accessories of the truck. As en example the Migthy Griffin Tuning DLC adds a lot of painted parts for the Scania.

For this example skin I've used the sidepanels and luxury sunvisor to showcase that you can paint these parts very easy too with the templates from Carsmaniac.

Example, click to make it larger


If you have an accessory that should be one solid color here's a little trick. Make a new file in your image editor which is 4x4 pixels. Make it the color you want and save it as colorname.png colorname should be the name of your color ofcourse!

I've done this for all the parts which I didn't want any text or multi-colored paint.

Example, click to make it larger

Extracting

Export Your Mod

That was your adventure, now you're done you only have to export your mod!
You can do this by following these steps:

1. Click "File" in the top left corner of your screen.
   
2. Click "Export Mod"
   
3. Click on the big "Export" button on the bottom-center of your screen.
   
4. A file explorer window pops up, select the location you want to save it to and also give your file an appropriate name
   
5. Press "Save"

If you've extracted your mod to Documents/Euro Truck Simulator 2/mod you're fine and done, if not just copy your extracted mod to Documents/Euro Truck Simulator 2/mod and you're done.

Now you can open the game go to Mod Manager double click your mod to activate it and you can now use it in-game.

Troubleshooting

Known Errors

• Help! My mod won't export! No worries, just download and install the latest version of Microsoft.NET Core 3 Runtime[dotnet.microsoft.com] if it still doesn't work try downloading the SDK version[dotnet.microsoft.com].
  
  I don't know any more issues using this program, if you come across and error please join the developers Discord[discordapp.com].

Epilogue

I hope you found this guide helpful, if so pleas like and favorite my guide, you help me a lot with this!

[charliemyatt2010]

the template (all scs template) download isnt working? what do i do?

[Chill-Freeze]

Hi, great guide.

I have a Strange problem, and hope some Can help me out.

I use paint.net and mod studio 2

If i use a png template and convert it to Dds in paint.net with the settings most uses in YouTube guides, then its not placed right. But if i use a dds template and save it as dds it works. By that i mean when it gets through mod studio and is exported. I have tried the UV setting with no luck. There is somthing going wrong, when i convert the png to dds i quess.

Thanks

[JellAy]

@KIMBLE That's what I mean with the "Accessories" tab. You should make a white picture (64x64 pixels with just a white color) as a PNG file.

If you take a look at my guide again in the Chapter 'Truck Skin' subchapter 'Accessories' you should upload your white PNG file. Then select all the parts that you want to show white. The parts where the image is you SHOULDN'T select.

I hope this helps!

[KIMBLE]

@JellAy I have not activated any other mods. But I don't quite understand that. Here I have 2 screenshots

https://abload.de/img/screenshot2023-05-211ikf03.png

https://abload.de/img/screenshot2023-05-211z6cjm.png

[JellAy]

@KIMBLE You have to select only the part where you want the logo. All the other parts should be another template if you get what I mean. If you only upload the template and don't use the accessory tab It won't work.

Also it could be caused by mods if you have any enabled.

[KIMBLE]

I created a logo on the truck. And now he's everywhere. back, up on the side everywhere. What is this error. I placed 1 logo and now I have 7 pieces on the truck. Where is the mistake

[TheBuildBench YT]

yeah thanks man, i figured it out, i wasnt unticking the template layer before i was saving, so it was saving all the lines aswell

[JellAy]

@Jay I don't know what program you use but make sure your saving options are good. I like to make one layer for the template and delete that layer when I'm done. Hope this helps :)

THIS GUIDE WILL BE REWRITTEN SOON!

[TheBuildBench YT]

ive done everything in the tutorial, but when i upload the skin into ets2 it still has all the geometric lines from the templates

[JellAy]

@Cracky.JNR if you join this Discord server https://discord.gg/sTSyfZ7pXM you will find a channel called #ets2-xml-trucks find a .xml file for your truck (I know for sure the RJL is in there since I've used it myself) and place this inside the the Mods Studio 2 folder /Data/ModData/SCS/Vehicles now restart mods studio 2 and the Scania RJL should show up