Virginia International (VIR) track skin 3.1

Been holding on to this one for awhile because i'm not sure how it will go over. The look is now a lot greener and more saturated and I wasn't sure if people would like it. You can always roll back by downloading the last version. All the color and lighting choices are based on my personal ppfilter so I can't say how this will look on your system. It would be best to delete the previous skins and files from the extension folder before extracting.

-- Color adjustments to all tree and grass textures to try and get more realistic colors. Everything should look a little greener and more saturated, especially the grass.
-- Adjustments to the materials lighting.
-- New seasonal adjustment setup.
-- New grassfx look.
-- A few new tree textures that I think are better looking.
-- Added the kerb dirt addon from BoBaHK's excellent Virginia International Raceway facelift extension mod. It's worth giving it a try. You might like it better.

NOTES:
The two new skins (Green and Dry) are identical except for the grass look. The one named Dry is not really dry looking. It just has a hint of more yellow in the grass. Couldn't decide which I liked better.

First draft of my latest attempt to fix the dark trees. IMO, it's much better than before. It no longer has the wild exposure issues under certain cloudy conditions. It no longer requires different versions for Pure and Sol. Those two things alone make it better than before.

It does have it's own set of small issues though. The biggest being the monotonous look. I'm trying very hard to find different Pine tree textures to use that fit to break up the monotonous look. For now i'm doing it with differences in color and tone. Not perfect, but it's a good first start.

Make sure to delete all of the old skins and extension folder from past versions before extracting. It still contains the alternative ext_config file from the last update if you liked that version better.
I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for improvement.

Optional update. You don't need it if you are happy with the past version.

-- Corrected poorly colored tree trunks that caused colored trunks in the fall.
-- Optional new ext_config file. I played around with a different way to handle the season changes. These provide a bit more vibrant green grass and overall give a warmer ambient feel. I like it if I had never seen the original, but I think I still like the original better. You can decide for yourself. One suggestion though. If you try the new ext_config, use the UpdatedFull2 skin. It has more blue in the textures and cuts some of the warmth a bit. Just rename the current ext_config file to something else and rename the ext_config_alt file to ext_config.

!!! THIS UPDATE IS ONLY FOR USERS OF PURE !!!

I discovered this morning that my dark tree fix doesn't play well with the new lighting Peter implemented in Pure. They render too dark so I had to create a separate .kn5 file for Pure users. It's a quick fix and wasn't tested under all conditions so I don't know how it will work under varying weather conditions.

You will need to rename one file to get this to work right with Pure. In the extension folder, rename (don't delete in case you want to go back to Sol) ext_config.ini to something else. I use ext_config_sol.ini. Then rename ext_config_pure.ini to ext_config.ini. There is no need to rename the .kn5 files. If\when you want to return to Sol, just reverse the process.

The Pure .kn5 file will actually work with Sol so you may not have to rename the ext_config file to return to Sol. It actually looks better in the daytime, but gets a bit nuclear under certain weather conditions and lighting. Try it out and see which you prefer. You may find you like the pure .kn5 file better with Sol.

One final (please God let it be the last one) update. Three minor adjustments.

-- Adjusted the ksAmbient and ksDiffuse values for the dark tree replacements. I found that they looked fine under most situations, but at dawn\dusk or certain cloud lighting conditions, they got a bit nuclear in spots. The updated ones are a bit of a compromise. They are a little darker during the day, but not as bright under those certain conditions. If you prefer the older version with the lighter daytime appearance, simply download the last version and extract the cutout_lolloby_fix.kn5 file to the extension folder.
-- For the ext_config file, I made the same adjustments to springtime as I did to late summer and fall in the last update. It is now a little less contrasty\saturated in April and May as well. You can make the same self tweaks following the instructions I posted a few days ago by making small changes to anything in the 0.30= and 0.40= range.
-- For the skins, I adjusted the terrain texture to remove the excessive amount of red that was in the last update. This will make the grass a little greener. I'm not sure about this one so keep a copy of the old skin handy so you can restore it if you prefer the older red\brown ambient feel. There is also a second skin folder that has some added blue to the highlights of all of the textures. Couldn't decide which one I preferred so I included both and will let you decide which you prefer.

One last small update before I put this to bed for awhile. I did some work on the main tree textures and small edits to the ext_config file. For the tree textures I removed a little bit of the red and blue from some of the textures. You will notice that everything is a bit more colorful now. If you prefer the more blue toned textures, just download the last update and extract the skin folder again.

For the ext_config, I reduced the dried out look in the summer time and increased it a bit in the early fall months. What this does is make early fall a bit less contrasty\saturated. If you want to do a bit of self tweaking to get things just where you like them for summer and fall, here's what to do.

Open the config_ext.ini file in a notepad editor. In the five season entries at the top, find anything listed in the 0.6= and 0.7= range and make small incremental decreases to reduce the faded\dried out look and visa versa to increase it. And when I say small, I mean go in steps of 0.01 changes. I.E., 0.05 will become 0.06 or 0.04 depending on which way you are trying to adjust the look.

I promise this will be the last update for the foreseeable future because I'm really happy with how the track looks now and want to move to something else.

Best I can do with my limited knowledge. I did manage to get a better color match of the dark tress with everything else, but the winter look is still bad. Sorry about that one. Maybe someday I will figure it out.

Hope you like it. It was hard work, but fun to do because I love to learn how to do new things. Please let me know of any problems or suggestions for improvement. I'm open to any thoughts both good or bad.

Kind of excited about this one. I finally found a way to get rid of the dark trees. This is only a beta version of it because it still needs work, but at least I have something I can work with.

Right away I can see that I need to get the trees to fit in better with the other trees. They are much better looking actually so I will probably end up trying to get the older washed out looking textures to match the new tree texture.

I also need to do a better job of matching the lighting changes on these new trees during the transition from light to dark and visa versa. And you probably need to avoid driving in the winter for the time being. These don't transition to being snow covered real well at the moment.

In the end I decided to release this now. Despite the problems, it's still better than looking at those dark trees. Plus I need to hear if anyone runs into any kind of performance issues or problems so I can fix them for future updates. If you want to get rid of the dark tree fix, just open up the ext_config.ini file in any notepad editor and remove the very last section labeled MODEL_REPLCEMENT.

Before:

After:

Small update to correct the bad alpha layer on a few textures to remove the small lines that appeared in the sky. Thanks to Zombie Boy for pointing it out. If you still see the lines anywhere, please let me know so I can fix them as well.

BTW, while I like how this mod makes VIR look, there is a much better mod recently released by BoBaHK that has better enhancements to VIR than mine. He obviously knows more than I do and was able to get rid of the ugly dark tree textures I can't get rid of and basically changed all of the trees. It's worth having a look if you haven't tried it already.

Virginia International Raceway facelift extension

Managed to replace the horrible blurry tree wall texture. The only thing left to figure out is the really dark pine trees. I know what to fix, but at the moment I lack the knowledge on how to fix them. It's not as simple as just changing a texture.

Before:

After:

Sorry for the quick turnaround. I realized I forgot 3 Material entries in the ext_config file that caused the lighting and colors on three trees to change incorrectly in different seasons.

If you decide to roll back to the older textures from version 1, don't extract the extension folder from the old package because it doesn't include the missing Material entries in the ext_config file.

Took another crack at the Pines. Let me know if they are now too dark and\or too saturated. Easy to adjust and reupload or just roll back to the old version.