V3.5 - Working on the back roads

I'm becoming quite pleased with the headlights on normal roads and highways. But, for those twisty, hilly, gravel roads that lead back to a logging or mining site, or for those tight, twisty roads that are cut through a mountain with rocky walls on both sides, I'm not happy at all. In both cases, we see almost total darkness surrounding us. This update aims to fix those situations without hurting how the headlights look on a normal highway. I managed to achieve it by creating some residual light that reflects off the main headlight beams in the form of a faint halo that starts part way down the beam and progresses forward over the end of the beam. In normal driving, you can't see this halo of light. But in the above scenarios, it will cast a faint amount of light to help make the surrounding area in front of us light up just a small amount. You can see this halo if you pull up behind another truck or as you pass by any large object if you are close enough. It's not very bright, so it is not disturbing. The idea is not to shine a lot of light on the surrounding area, but only to remove the feeling of darkness.

I also spent some more time working on the ATS/ETS2 lighting differences.

Added one new truck:

RJL Scania T & T 4-series by RJL/Fordsonmies and LoaderSaints

V3.4 - Focusing on the road ahead

Overall blending and smoothing of the headlight beams
Cleaned up and smoothed the outer edges of the headlight beams
Adjusted the color temperatures for Halogen and LED lights.
More light shines on the pavement during the transition periods as the sun comes up and goes down.

Added the mp_mod_optional flag

V3.3.1

Slight improvement to the headlight beams

Added one new truck:

Volvo FH2022 by S A N A X

V3.3 - Aiming for perfection, getting closer and closer.

I always start a new update by doing all the development and testing using the International Lonestar
in ATS. Once I am happy with the results, I then test all the other trucks in ATS. After that, I copy the updated code to ETS2 and test all the trucks there. But, this time is different. Previous versions have all been on the strong side as far as light output goes. The lights were a little more powerful than they needed to be and the same code worked well with both games. But, I always thought that maybe the lights weren't quite as bright in ETS2 as they are in ATS. With this update, I've toned down the light output and it works very well for ATS. But, in ETS2, an exact copy of all the code no longer works. I've discovered that the game code in ETS2 doesn't output the same amount of light for the headlights as it does in ATS. My headlights in ETS2 became way too weak because of this. So, for the first time, I've had to change how much light is allowed to pass through the light mask as well as adjusting the color temperatures. The idea is to keep the headlights looking as similar as possible between the two games. Now on to the rest of the changes:

Every update so far has been a "starting over from scratch" affair. However, this update is a continuation of the previous update. The previous update provided a good foundation to work with. So, with a little trimming, fine tuning, various modifications, and a lot of testing, we have V3.3

The high beams were a little too aggressive and they projected too much light, too far. So, I fixed this by making them fade quicker. They still project just as far, but the light gets much dimmer the farther out they go. The low beams weren't as bad, but I still did the same with them, but not as drastic. This makes them look much more realistic. And they still provide light to the sides near the front of the truck. There are quite a few good headlights in real life that are designed to do this, so this feature does not make them unrealistic.
I also narrowed up the high beams a little bit further down the road, but left enough width so that when driving down a dark highway, they will still provide some light to the inside of a curve.

And then, about 50-75 feet out in front of the truck and on both sides, I have always battled an issue with having a dark area there. I'm always fighting the game code on this one. For some strange reason, the game code tears the light beams outward and then curls them. I have to design my code to combat this and always end up with a dark area on both sides. I've finally come up with a way to beat this and now the outer edges of the beams are much straighter. Having light in this area makes it easier to see your upcoming turn as you approach a dark intersection or dark entryway.

The headlight brightness was increased a little bit for trucks that use LED or Xenon lights.

V3.2 - Still working on achieving the most natural look

Experimenting with new custom light masks that are 25 percent the size of the
stock SCS light masks. With 75 percent fewer pixels to process, this should mean
that the headlights have less of a chance at hurting the frame rate.

With the new masks, the headlight beams have yet another change in appearance.
Each release is an attempt at making them look better and perform better.

V3.1 - More realism while maintaining good visibility

- Better light distribution down the road ahead. There is more light output in
front of the truck with a nice gradual fade.
- Adapts well to various types of road surfaces. Projects nearly equal amounts
of light no matter what color the pavement is.
- Most all of the light is focused on the road and the immediate sides. Hardly any
light is reflected off into the countryside.
- It is less disturbing when driving next to white guard rails or white concrete
retaining walls.

Added one new truck:

Freightliner Argosy by Harven, Lucasi

Added 3 more trucks:

RAM 3500 by Jon Ruda

RJL Scania G, R, R 4-series & Streamline by LoaderSaints and Fordsonmies

Scania PGR-Series 2004-2018 by USeeTV

V3.0 - Initial public release