This update is incredible so far and I thought it would be good to add a bit of feedback.
1. Are you going to add walking trails and small paths to the map, such as the trails that weave there way up mountains in the alps or the ones in Yosemite?
2. The snow texture is a bit too bright and overtakes the rock texture a bit too much.
Example: https://imgur.com/a/3nGAL8p
3. Some rivers are a bit too small making them look like streams where they should be a bit wider.
This update is incredible and alot of fun to mess around in. The future of Outerra is bright and I can't wait to see where it goes next
Yes you are right. This version seems like terrain is a bit more burned, and lost some of the contrast had before. This is (for me) the only cons in the update.
Apart from the lack of contrast, which make terrain a bit more monotonous, a problem is having rocks almost totally white. So as you showed in your picture, white rocks and snow mix and you dont know what is what.
A thing i do since long time is modify Snow file in textures (number 15 in terrain textures). I get photoshop dds plugin, open image (save old first with other name) and put image variations, and get the image darker like 3 times and blue like 2-3 times too.
Then you have a less white snow, more blue, more "dirty" for me more natural. And now you can distinguish between white rocks and snow. SO you can see in some mountains a lot of you see white was rocks, and a bit parts was snow.
Its clearly a part which can be improved.
This problem with white rocks i dont know how would can fix. Maybe with a limit in how much light rocks absorb from sun, so neever get at a point to burn and get white. Also maybe changing a bit rock texture to something a bit more brown or darker. But i assume is coveral related with the terrain color.
Normally in top mountains the 500 meters textures get white coz was snow mountains from satelite photos. So rocks take the color of the texture in those points ending in white rocks, and finishing in burn rocks with all the sun absortion. So i dont know how this would be fix, maybe retouch those white points in main 500 meters textures mountains, and make a fix getting darker and adding some variations.
I think can be tricked somwhow. And the next step after all the great aditions in this update would be improve this 500 meters texture and get some more detailed.
Then engine would be something so perfect..
PD: If you make this trick with snow, you will discover 90% of what you see white, was pure rocks.
Snow in this version by default is configured very high altitude.