<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.
When it comes to the sky, the mapper has traditionally been limited to a single sky box that dictates what the sky will look like. The sky box is an i3d model containing the sky textures. We all know the sky changes depending on the time of day or what it happens to be doing (overcast versus not, sunrise versus midday, etc.). However, the changes are limited. The sky otherwise appears the same day after day.
This mod is designed to provide additional atmospheric environments to the player during farming. In other words, each day there will be a different sky. Some of these skies consist of pre-built sky boxes from previous versions of Farming Simulator. Other skies are randomly put together using parts. All are used with the intent of enhancing the player’s gaming experience by providing more variability of what he sees in-game.
<strong><u>Features</u></strong>
<strong>(1)</strong> Each night at midnight, the game will replace, or ‘swap out,’ the sky so that the player has a different sky to look at the following day.
<strong>(2)</strong> The sky assets for this mod include 9 pre-made sky boxes, and 1 generic sky box that will randomly choose between 5 day textures, 7 night textures, 3 overcast textures, 8 sunrise textures, and 7 sunset textures. This provides for literally thousands of different sky combinations that the player may encounter in-game.
<strong>(3)</strong> The mod occasionally includes moving clouds at varying speeds/direction.
<strong>(4)</strong> The mod is intended to work with any size of a map, up to 16x.
<strong>(5)</strong> The mod can be customized by the player, either by adding additional pre-made sky boxes, or by adding additional day/night/overcast/sunrise/sunset textures. Some modding knowledge is required, but it’s not difficult. Detail instructions are included in the mod in the <em>Instructions.xml</em> file. Also included are instructions on how to activate a debugging/edit mode.
<strong>(6)</strong> The mod is multiplayer compatible. In other words, everyone will see the same sky while in a multiplayer session.
<strong>(7)</strong> The mod is seasons-mod compatible. The seasons mod changes day lengths based on season, and this has an impact on how skies appear in-game.
<strong><u>Companion Mod</u></strong>
The sky swap mod contains just a few textures, primarily those obtained from other modders. Literally hundreds of additional sky textures could be added by the player if wished. In view of this, development of a second mod is underway for a ‘sky pack.’ When complete, the sky pack will have over one hundred additional skies for the player to use in-game. Still more are available on the internet, and links to sky sources have been provided in the sky swap mod’s <em>Instruction.xml</em> file. In order to use the sky pack, when it’s ready, one will also need to have the sky swap mod in the mods folder.
<strong>Version 1.1</strong>
This version fixes an embarrassing error found by a user (thank you bloke!). Hopefully now it won’t kick an error in the log upon first usage and save. :)
