Wow, Bill, I didn't expect such a quick reply. Thank you. I, like you, love to map and always try to go the extra mile when it comes to realism and authenticity. I think we share many of the same frustrations with the entire process and limitations as I follow your posts with this rendition of the game as well as older ones.
Like I said, I am working on editing the basegame foliages for the oak, elm, and maple trees to avoid the hideously blinding fall foliage. I have edited the diffuse images for them all as well as their distance textures. When I go ingame, some of the foliages on each of the trees look like my edited versions but many still viually appear as the same oversaturated basegame trees both up close and far away. In my head this has to be something that would need to be adjusted in the tree shader if possible. I guess I don't understand how they can still appear like basegame trees if all the image paths point tiward my edited versions. I just want to mute these hideous things for heaven's sake!
My goal is for all my trees to have a varying shade of pale yellow like the area has in real life. I'd love for them to transition from their summer states to this color and eventually drop their leaves without going through the acid trip that is Giants idea of what trees look like in the fall.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with. If it is easier and we could find a time, I do use Discord a bit.
Thanks again,
Tim