ClearSkies

ClearSkies

Removes the giant world tree Yggdrasil from the sky to make your sky cleaner and more picturesque.

But why?

Some people don't like the tree in the sky as it's a giant eyesore, and would rather prefer unobstructed sunsets and night skies for their screenshots. This is the rationale behind the "Remove Yggdrasil" mod which already exists.

The rationale behind this particular mod is slightly different: in no-map playthroughs, it's still very easy to orient yourself and navigate around the map by using specific parts of Yggdrasil as reference points. This essentially turns it into a compass piece that points towards the center of the world, while (almost) rendering useless the game's more realistic means of determining cardinal directions like sundials and the four-day star constellation cycle.

What's the difference between ClearSkies and "Remove Yggdrasil"?

"Remove Yggdrasil" consists of three images that replace the textures of the tree with transparent textures, necessitating another texture replacement mod as a dependency. In my personal opinion, this is a nonsensical approach for achieving this goal, and it's prone to break between version releases from rendering code changes (as of today, 3/11/24, it currently is broken.)

This mod is more robust and simple in its approach by selecting and destroying the GameObject containing the tree mesh from the game. The total amount of code needed to achieve this, from setting up the mod to deleting the tree, is just 31 LoC. Since IronGate will almost certainly not tamper with the Yggdrasil game object in the game's main prefab, this mod is very likely not going to break after a new release.