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Step 0: Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Blender

To create a 3D model of your truck you can use such 3D modelling packages as:

All of these 3D modelling packages support exporting to FBX (.fbx) files. These FBX files can be used as source files for models in Expeditions and SnowRunner.

For our process we will use Blender. It is a free tool, available at no cost. However, FBX files generated by Blender by default does not match well with the FBX structure that we need.

"Better Fbx Importer & Exporter" add-on

To obtain the necessary FBX structure in the most simple way, we will use the Better Fbx Importer & Exporter add-on for Blender, which is available at https://blendermarket.com/products/better-fbx-importer--exporter.

XML Editor

To edit XML files of the mod, you may use any XML editor of your choice.

WinRAR

To work with files from the initial.pak archive you will need some file archiver that works correctly with .pak files. For example, WinRAR.

However, for simply extracting files, without modifying the archive, you can use other archivers too.

WARNING: Incorrect modifying of the initial.pak archive may lead to a crash of the game or the game not working. Always make the backup of it.

Mod Folder

To be found by the game, source files of a truck mod need to be located within the mod folder.

For truck mods in Expeditions, this mod folder should be a subfolder of the Documents\My Games\Expeditions\Media\Mods folder.

You need to create a folder there, named in snake_case, using only Latin characters and digits, without spaces and using undescore (_) characters as delimiters.

I.e., the full path to the mod folder will be similar to something like:
C:\Users\<name_of_user>\Documents\My Games\Expeditions\Media\Mods\<name_of_your_mod>

In this mod folder, when passing this tutorial, you will create necessary subfolders:

  • classes\trucks – where the XML file of the class of your mod will be located
  • meshes\trucks – where the XML file of the mesh of your mod and the FBX file of the mod's model will be located
  • textures\trucks – where the textures of the model of your mod will be located.
  • ui\textures – where the images of the truck for the UI will be stored.

NOTE: The location of the source Blender file of the truck model is up to you.

So, let's start with the first step – the creation of a 3D model.