TOBJEditor

[Elitesquad Modz]

TOBJEditor V1.0 (13-07-2021)

This tool can be used to edit and create TOBJ (Texture Object) files. .tobj is a mixed file format used by SCS Software to specify texture detail information needed to construct materials. The file format is used in both Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator.

Motivation
I used to spend way too much time editing texture paths for basically all my modding projects. Due to the .tobj files being partially binary, they are cumbersome to work with and had to be edited with Hex-editing tools. There exist a few tools that allow you to directly change the texture path of a single .tobj file. However, none of them enables you to do batch creation and updates in an efficient way. Hence, I decided to create a dedicated tool to easily and concurrently edit .tobj files.

Functionality
TOBJEditor is everything you need when working with .tobj files. It enables you to open and edit existing .tobj files directly and intuitively, without having to convert them into mid-format. You can also (batch) create new .tobj files for various applications in the game. The tool is devided into three subsections on the GUI:

• Create/Edit single TOBJ file
  Here you can open/edit/create a single .tobj file by navigating to the folder or by simply dropping the file on the textbox. When an existing file is opened, the textbox will display the full texture path, which can then easily be modified. To create a new TOBJ file, you specify the type and the texture path and click save.

• Edit texture folder path
  Here you can edit the texture folder path of multiple .tobj files at the same time. Files can be opened by navigating to the folders via the open button or by simply dropping the files on the multi-line spanning textbox. The program will display the texture folder path of the last opened .tobj file in the dedicated textbox. A file with the following texture path

  Code: Select all

  /vehicle/truck/update/paintjob/empty.dds

  will lead to the texture folder

  Code: Select all

  /vehicle/truck/update/paintjob

  being displayed. When clicking the save button, all opened .tobj files will be updated to point to the specified texture folder. Note that the names of the .dds files in the texture paths will remain untouched. Just the folder in which they are expected to be found will change. The reset button will close all opened files.

• Generate TOBJs
  Here you can generate new TOBJ files of a specified type for texture files (.dds) that you select. First, you have to specify the folder that forms the root of your SCS mod project, so that the program is able to retrieve the relative path of the texture files within the SCS archive and create TOBJs pointing to them. Texture files for which you want to generate a TOBJ file can again be opened via the open button or by dropping the files on the textbox. The reset button will close all opened files and emtpy the mod folder field.

Lastly, there are a few export options, related to the resulting TOBJ type:

• Deduce from file; to keep all the parameters the same as in the opened file. (Default if no file is opened)

• Default texture; used for nearly all squared resolution standard texture in the game such as truck paintjobs and model textures.

• Trailer skin; used for (non squared resolution) trailer skins.

• UI Icon; used for textures displayed in the user interface of the game.

I hope that this tool will save you a lot of time so that you can focus more on content creation rather than dealing with files!

Installation/Compatibility
This program is written in C# using the .NET framework and aimed at Windows operating systems.
To use this program, simply download the executable file and save it on a location of your preference.

Contribute to this project
Feel free to open issues here on GitHub when you happen to find any bug, so that I can solve them as soon as possible!

Credits
This tool is created by Matthijs de Goede, a developer of the ProMods team, owner of the MDG Logistics and publisher under the name Elitesquad Modz.

DOWNLOAD
GitHub Repository

[LoaderSaints]

Seems like a neat tool! I'm sure this will be useful to many.

[piva]

Just in time tool! I lost all my textures, templates and tools including TOBJ creator. I don't tested it right now, but seems, this tool I must have.
Thanks.

[room217au]

I've been using Mods Studio's in-built tobj editor for a very long time. It's really good.
But.. Now I hve THIS one.

Did a simple, random tobj test. Made a random change to the path, saved, letting the program 'deduce' what it was. Works perfectly.

This is gold.
Thank you so very much.

I hope desktop icon is coming soon.

[Elitesquad Modz]

I'm glad to hear that the tool is helpful to you

[nguyenanlam]

How to open the program, I still don't know how to open

[Elitesquad Modz]

How to open the program, I still don't know how to open

You can download the executable and just click on it.

[zippppo_polska]

Hi.

Thanks for creating and sharing this program Great job

[jhoelito15]

thank you very much for contribution he was fighting for the tobj in a mod and I was able to solve it with this tool

[ChiliBeef]

I feel that the information in the first post is more catered to those who are already familiar with editing .tobj files and not for those who are absolute beginners, such as myself. I have a learning difficulty due to ADHD and currently I'm finding it all to be confusing and not really going into full specifics. It doesn't actually give good explanations, or examples of "You would use this feature if you're wanting to do [x]", only a "this is what this is for" (and even then that doesn't really seem to be accurate). I don't feel this is beginner friendly, honestly. I'll give examples on what I mean below. I will be using Conbar custom wheel pack as the type of mod I'm working with, with UI icons and having "Deduce from file" as preset.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Create/Edit single TOBJ file
  Here you can open/edit/create a single .tobj file by navigating to the folder or by simply dropping the file on the textbox. When an existing file is opened, the textbox will display the full texture path, which can then easily be modified. To create a new TOBJ file, you specify the type and the texture path and click save.

Why would I want to use this function? What scenarios would this come in handy?

And, I do not see how this "edits" a .tobj file. I click on "Open" and, after navigating to C:\Users\xxxxxxx\Documents\American Truck Simulator\mod\Conbar Wheel Pack\material\ui\accessory, I am presented with a list of .tobj files. I choose bbs_conbar.tobj and /material/ui/accessory/bbs_conbar.dds shows up in the textbox. I click on Save and presented with a window to save it to wherever location and/or with whatever name I choose. Um, okay? I'm confused as to how is that "editing" ? Saving it with whichever name and wherever to put it appears to be the exact same as just copy/pasting the file or manually renaming it. It's still going to contain the exact same path directing to the original .dds file from what I gather. I mean, it's not used for converting things, right? You wouldn't get good results by selecting a .dds and then choosing "trailer skin' when it's originally a UI icon, right?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Edit texture folder path
  Here you can edit the texture folder path of multiple .tobj files at the same time. Files can be opened by navigating to the folders via the open button or by simply dropping the files on the multi-line spanning textbox. The program will display the texture folder path of the last opened .tobj file in the dedicated textbox. When clicking the save button, all opened .tobj files will be updated to point to the specified texture folder. Note that the names of the .dds files in the texture paths will remain untouched. Just the folder in which they are expected to be found will change. The reset button will close all opened files.

Why would I want to edit the texture folder path? What scenarios would this be utilized?

And, what does it mean by "all opened .tobj files" ? The files that are currently showing in the textbox? This was never explained. Or it was, but not in an easy-for-newbs-to-understand way. I read "all opened files" as "Any file that is currently open and you are actually looking at it." I'm not really seeing an actual file in front of my eyes if it's only listing some file names in the textbox.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Generate TOBJs
  Here you can generate new TOBJ files of a specified type for texture files (.dds) that you select. First, you have to specify the folder that forms the root of your SCS mod project, so that the program is able to retrieve the relative path of the texture files within the SCS archive and create TOBJs pointing to them. Texture files for which you want to generate a TOBJ file can again be opened via the open button or by dropping the files on the textbox. The reset button will close all opened files and emtpy the mod folder field.

I'm assuming by "the root of your mod", it means the main folder of my newly created mod's name. For this scenario, I'm just using the Conbar mod folder itself, so the path reads: C:\Users\xxxxxxxxx\Documents\American Truck Simulator\mod\Conbar Wheel Pack\. And, from what I've noticed, there's nothing that changes the path in the .mat file, I would have to go in and edit that myself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a newcomer, I don't see anything that specifically states "you don't need to do all three, you only choose one of the three if you want to do [such-and-such]". I mean, I don't know if I'm supposed to utilize all three, one after the other, or not, for example. So, any clarification (and dumbing down) would be appreciated.