<strong><u>Background</u></strong>
The ‘map’ is where each of us farm within Farming Simulator. It has the fields in which we work, and many other objects that attempt to help us suspend reality, if only for a few moments, to enable us to feel as if we are farming in a ‘real world’ some place. Mod maps are particularly adept at doing this. And yet, arguably one half of the playing environment is not the map itself, but rather the atmosphere, or the sky. And while the map has plenty of variability with all the stuff we can do on it, the sky, with just a few variations, is basically the same all the time.
The ‘Sky Swap mod’ (FS17_SkySwap) was created to provide additional atmospheric environments to the player during farming. Each day the player can see a new and different sky. This mod, the ‘Sky Pack mod’ (FS17_SkyPack) is basically a repository of additional sky textures. Taken alone, this mod will not do anything. <strong>In order for it to work, you must also have the Sky Swap mod in the mods folder.</strong> The Sky Swap mod’s script will detect the presence of the Sky Pack mod and pull textures from it to use in-game.
Some textures come with the mod itself, but the intent is that a player can add additional textures if desired. Additional background information is included in the Sky Swap mod documentation, and in the <em>Instructions.xml</em> file included with the Sky Pack mod.
<strong><u>Features</u></strong>
<strong>(1)</strong> Gathered from a variety of free online sources, the mod includes the following additional sky textures:
– 99 Sunrise Textures
– 82 Sunset Textures
– 79 Day Textures
– 37 Night Textures
– 13 Overcast Textures
<strong>(2)</strong> The player may mod the Sky Pack further if desired, either adding or removing textures. See information contained in the Sky Pack mod’s <em>Instructions.xml</em> file.
<strong>(3)</strong> The mod is multiplayer compatible.
<strong><u>The Sky Textures</u></strong>
A word on the sky textures. We are indebted to the fine work of many photographers who have made their work freely available on the internet. The user of this mod is strongly encouraged to review the <em>Credits.xml</em> file included with the mod, so as to know the source and attribution of the sky textures used. He is also encouraged to visit the sites of the creators of these textures to learn more about the work of each.
A word on texture quality. This pack contains textures of varying quality. Some textures adapted for this mod were of supreme quality. Many are what would be considered ‘8K’ textures, and are in the dimensions of 2,048 x 8,192 pixels. Other textures are of lesser quality. Many times the free version of textures located for this mod were of lesser quality, and if one wished to have the same texture at higher quality, it would require payment. Some of these were barely ‘2K’ textures, and these were expanded to the dimension of 1,024 x 4,096 pixels. It is expected that the quality difference will be noticed in-game. The player can choose which textures he wishes to use (see the <em>Instructions.xml</em> file included with the mod). Finally, there are some textures that do not appear to be photographs, but other artistic renderings. Most of these have been commented out from use in the mod, but the player can always activate them if he wishes.
One final note — I’ve done my best to adapt these textures for use with this mod in-game, but I am not a texture artist. Source links for all textures used have been provided in the credits. The user is invited to visit the source if he wishes to update or correct any texture work done.
Thank you for considering this mod, and hopefully it enriches your playing experience just a little.
