British Columbia Technical Interview: Building Canada in ATS

Today, the team at SCS Software takes a closer look behind the scenes of Building Canada. The focus is on the creation of British Columbia. The team spoke with Patrix, our Map Technical Lead for ATS. He shared his perspective on how this ambitious new region is being brought to life. He also explained how the new road networks are being made.

British Columbia Technical Interview: Meet Patrix

“Hi, my name is Patrik (also known as Patrix). Over the past 15 exciting years at SCS Software, a mix of good fortune and personal dedication has taken me on quite a journey. I started as a junior map designer on Euro Truck Simulator 2 just months before its release. Now I work as a Technical Lead on American Truck Simulator.”

“It is a pleasure and a big responsibility to be trusted by the company in terms of technical knowledge and pipeline correctness. In my early years, I recall breaking a lot of technical rules to achieve any sort of visual that was considered nice. Doing that, I was many times instructed by experienced senior colleagues about how the game engine works. They taught me why I should be careful about overloading hardware with random details or items in map scenes.”

“As years flew by, I became more responsible. I became rational about the complexity of the map. I shaped a pretty exact vision of where the limits are and how the map should be done. The goal is to make it work smoothly on any computer. It also needs to be accessible for maintenance. That is critical for projects that live on for more than 10 years, just like ATS recently proved to be able to.”

Setting Technical Consistency

“Right now, my responsibility is to set and maintain a certain technical consistency. This applies to how our map is being done across the entire ATS. That means syncing the attitude towards map creation across several projects and across different map teams.”

The Challenge of British Columbia

“When our CEO, Pavel Šebor, approached us initially with the idea of going north to British Columbia, we immediately knew it would be a challenge. With its significance for the future of ATS, British Columbia reminds me of the times when we worked on Texas. Both were bigger than regular DLCs. Both needed to carry a lot of specific new content.”

“Logically, as we are going to another country in ATS for the very first time, we had to prepare a new set of road signage, both vertical and horizontal. Vertical signage are road-side signs. Those in Canada are very similar to the ones in the United States.”

Small Details That Matter

“Small things like font differences, dimensions, or rules for placement are exactly those little details we are looking for. We follow them so that our community of experienced drivers will immediately recognize that they are in Canada. This applies even from unspecified random screenshots.”

The Challenge of Road Lines

“Just like we did for the US, we read lots of Canadian documentation to get things right. One of the more complicated decisions was to pick the correct width of road lines. If documentation gives you a variety, what would you pick? The middle, one of the edge cases, or the most common? Also, how would we know from Prague what the most common roadline width is in Canada?”

“When we found answers to these initial questions, even bigger issues appeared with implementation. For our Prism3D engine, different roadlines mean lots of new data that we had to create. Our in-game roads are made from templates of roads and more complex baked segments that we call prefabs. If we wanted a slightly different yellow and a little wider or narrower lines, it meant making hundreds of road templates and prefabs to bring this detail into British Columbia.”

City Layouts and Scale Challenges

“Another part of my role as technical leader is to check all city layouts. I compare their ambitions to the rest of the map. This helps us stay consistent in the way we shape the game world.”

“Now, British Columbia is actually pretty huge. Like many other cases, it is disproportionally balanced in terms of city spacing. The area around Vancouver is surrounded by a huge agglomeration of suburbs. Even cities across the water, like Victoria, were challenging in terms of where to put them on our map scale. Obviously, we had to sacrifice some bridges or interesting road pieces near Vancouver. On the other hand, we will bring both border crossings from the US to Canada below Vancouver. The one at Interstate 5 is now relevant since we know our car-driving module, Road Trip, is on the way.”

A Message to the Community

“I hope that players will truly enjoy exploring British Columbia. I hope they come to appreciate the sheer scale and ambition behind the project. While bringing a brand-new map like this to life comes with its fair share of challenges, it has also been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience for the team. We are excited to share it with the community.”

Add British Columbia to Your Wishlist

We hope you enjoyed this peek behind the curtains of this upcoming expansion. Don’t forget to add the British Columbia DLC to your Steam wishlist. For more on British Columbia, check out our previous interview with Davido and South Dakota DLC cities overview.

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