IW900 Decal Guide

Step 1:

We will need to have an image editor, an archive utility such as WinRAR or 7Zip, an image or logo for our decal and the Open Def for our mod.

I will use paint.net for our image editor because it is easy to use and free. Download here and install like any other app or program.

If your on a Windows machine, you can get away with not having to download anything to extract the Open Def, If you plan to repack a mod then I suggest using a 3rd party application. I will be using WinRAR. (link) If you plan to use an archiver regularly or more than a coupe times it is advised to install it rather than use a portable version, with an install you have more control and ease of use with right click menus and the ability to set defaults for one click operations.

Because you are here I assume you have an idea or image for your decal already so we will start with the process of unpacking the Open Def, you can skip the next step and edit a file directly in the archive itself but it is not recommended for many reasons.

Step 2:

If you have unpacked/extracted the open def already you can skip this step and go to the editing section below.

You can visit the open definition setup guide here

We will be extracting the open def (iw900_opendef_vx.x.scs). Rather than unpack it to a folder somewhere to work on then repack it as a mod, we are going to unpack it directly in your ATS mod folder.

By doing this we can save time and eliminate the need to pack the mod up every time we make a change. We can just edit the file and reload a game save to check our work. Just be sure to activate the correct mod in the mod manager….meaning this new folder your making and not the original packed mod. I will refer to this folder I am creating as the IW900 OpenDef folder from now on.

You can check the package name in the mod info to ensure you have the correct mod activated.

Create a new folder inside your American Truck Simulator/mod folder, you can name this anything you like just know that the manifest is responsible for the display name in the mod manager, meaning if you named the folder ‘my_cool_mod’, it will still show in mod manager as IW900 Open Definition.

Open the ‘iw900_opendef_vx.x.scs’ with your archiver of choice and extract or copy all the contents to your new folder you created.

The two main folders we will be focusing on is the ‘decals’ folder and the ‘UV MAPS’ folder. UV maps are just the templates for skinning, and the decals folder is where you will save your finished image.

Go to editing decal section.

Open the ‘UV MAPS’ folder and select the template you would like to skin. I will work with the door decals so I will open that in my image editor.

You can see that the template has info showing the mappings and also that we have 3 separate images we can save to so we can quickly swap our decals in the shop. Even though this image is 2048 x 1024 in size it is best to have the smallest image possible without compromising the image quality.

More info on image sizes here.

We will create a new layer so we do not ruin our template or have the template saved with our image and show on the door. I have named them here to show the layers, you can move them up or down, toggle them on or off, or set many other layer options.

Go ahead and open your logo or image for your decal. I snagged two from google for this, one large, one small and both have color on them. This image is 1024 x 1024px.

On your template use the selection tool and drag an area roughly the size of the spot you would like your logo or image. Note the size of the selected area. In paint.net you can see this value in the lower left corner marked in red on this image.

Bounding rectangle size is the value of your selection. Values are width, height, so in my case… 770px wide by 775px tall. We will use this value in the next step.

Because our logo is larger than our area we selected on the template, I will resize the image to around the same size we noted above. Make sure you have ‘maintain aspect ratio’ selected in paint.net to ensure the image is not distorted. I will set my image to 700px. I also remove the background and make it transparent. You can do this with a plugin, the magic wand tool, or other methods.

Here I copied and pasted the logo I resized on our ‘EDIT’ layer of our template. I positioned it where I want it and make my tweaks. We can go ahead and do the other door as well.

Logos edited and positioned. I will call this ready to save and delete the template layer from our image.

This is our image now that the template layer has been deleted. I will ‘SAVE AS’ this image, not save because you will overwrite your template.

Make sure you set the image save type to dds (DirectDraw Surface), and open the ‘decals’ folder in the new folder you created in your ATS mod folder.

As you can see we have 3 different door decal images to save to. I will select the first one ‘door_decal_0.dds’ and click save. When it asks if you would like to replace the image select yes.

The save settings window will open up before saving. Set the settings as shown in the images.

BC3 (Linear, DXT5)

Generate Mip Maps

Super Sampling

Go ahead and click ‘OK’ when you have the settings correct.

I will create one more decal for the door and save it in the ‘decals’ folder under ‘door_decal_1.dds’ this time so we can see it in testing.

At this point we can go ahead and start the game and enter the Mod Manager.

Replace the original Open Def mod with the one you just edited. You can check the package name in the mod info to make sure you have the right one activated. Open Def goes above the truck base.

Enter the shop and locate the Door Decal accessory node and click it.

Select your decal, and see your work.

First decal selected with white paint.

I saved 2 decals so I will select 2nd one, you have 3 slots to save to so you can change decals in shop quickly.

Decal number 2 white paint.

Reloading Game

NOTE: You do NOT have to shut game down and restart it to reload changes.

You only need to drop to the launchpad screen and reload your profile to see changes made.

If you have the game console and developer mode activated in the config file you can do a few things to reload your changes.

• In the console type ‘exit’ and hit enter, this will drop you to the launch pad almost immediately while saving the state of your game. Then just re enter your profile as normal.
• In the console type ‘game’ and hit enter, this will reload the autosave from the profile your in not saving your current game state.
• Create a game save and in the console type ‘game /home/profiles/YOUR_PROFILE/save/GAMESAVE’ : where YOUR_PROFILE is the profile folder name, and GAMESAVE is the game save filename.

Images must be saved with a power of 2, no oddball sizes allowed. 1024×1024, 1024×512, 256×2048, 4096×2048 are valid power of 2 image sizes.

When saving an image make sure the image has the same aspect ratio or it will look funny in game. Example: if your template is 2048×1024, don’t save it 1024×1024 or 512×512, make sure it is a power of 2 with the same aspect….1024×512, 512×256, 4096×2048 are acceptable. Same with square images, if it is 1024×1024, save with 512×512, 2048×2048 ect.

Quality will be diminished with a smaller image but keeping it as small as you can while retaining quality will benefit performance. If you have a large image with only text, it would make sense to make the image smaller so it loads faster.

Even though the templates have a set size when opened you can scale the image with the same aspect ratio and a power of 2 size without issues.

Example: template = 2048×1024, saved image 1024×512 or 4096×2048

Example: template = 512×512, saved image 2048×2048 or 256×256