Sons Realistic Winter

A winter overhaul for Sons Of The Forest. Snow builds up flake by flake: where a snowflake lands, a tiny grain of snow appears, and more flakes make it deeper, from a dusting to metres. Wind piles drifts behind walls and rocks, open water melts flakes until it freezes, and in warm weather everything melts away again. Built for low-end PCs: every effect has a budget you can turn down.

Status: experimental. See Known limitations below.

What it does

• Grain-by-grain snow. Each flake is a real ray from the sky. Where it lands, snow appears and keeps growing with every further flake in that spot.
• Unlimited depth. There is no built-in ceiling. The Kamchatka preset reaches about 5-6 metres at the peak of a long cold spell, and you can go further.
• Drifts. Wind pushes extra snow behind walls and rocks. Open, windswept ground holds a little less.
• Roofs and shelter. Snow settles on the first surface a flake touches, so roofs get snow and the ground under a roof stays clear.
• Water and ice. A flake that hits open water melts. After enough frost the mod treats the water as frozen and snow settles on it. When it thaws, that snow sinks quickly.
• Melting. Warm spells shrink the snow back down, and deep snow takes longer to go.
• Own weather clock. Cold spell, then thaw, then cold again (or one winter only). It does not read the game's own weather yet.

Where the files go

All paths are inside your game folder (Sons Of The Forest).

Edit the settings file with the game closed. Delete it to get the defaults back.

Keys (in game)

Keys can be changed in the settings file ([6. Grains] DebugForceKey and ClearKey, [5. Probe] Hotkey). If the game does not accept the keys, nothing breaks: the mod just keeps running on its own weather.

Settings

Names below are [section] Key. Defaults in brackets.

Quick start

The depth numbers above were measured on a simulation of the model, not in the game, and they are for a full cold spell.

Performance profiles

Snow is only drawn around the player, that is where the radius comes from. A bigger radius or more patches costs more FPS.

Weather ([1. General])

Snow ([6. Grains])

Water and ice ([6. Grains])

Advanced

Known limitations

• Visual only. The snow has no collision. You still walk on the ground and through the snow.
• Only around the player. Snow is drawn in a radius around you (see the profile table). The rest of the world has no snow, because the mod is not hooked into the game's own snow shader yet.
• Blocky when deep. Deep snow is made of upright columns with flat tops, so you can see small steps where the depth changes. Smooth wave-like drifts and snow hanging over roof edges and balconies are not supported.
• Not tested widely. It has not been checked on many setups, and the FPS cost has not been measured. Start with Profile = Low.
• Water detection is a best guess. If snow shows up on the bottom of a lake, or does not settle on ice, check the Grains stats lines in the log and adjust WaterLayers / WaterKeywords.
• Single player only. Every player would calculate their own snow.

Reporting problems

Please include BepInEx/LogOutput.log (the lines with Sons Realistic Winter and Grains) and, if you can, BepInEx/SotfRealisticWinter_probe.txt made inside a loaded world with F8.