Hmmm, good job - this brighter version. But -
1.I don´t use 2048 pixels. I talked with DT and they said - this is road to hell, because basic il-engin isn´t made for it.
2.I used more contrastic parts textures (or darker) with trees and villages, because when you have so bright white in textures, you can see very well terrible il-effect with step-viewing of objects (I think you know what I mean). I did many experiments with it. But - if you saw some flying video from winter - you could see very dark woods and trees...., couldn´t you?
Sorry for this late reply, just saw it.
1. Scale of the textures has nothing to do with game's engine. Has more to do with graphic card memory and its rendering on the screen. Even in default unmoded IL2 you can have BumpH textures in the scale up to 4096px.
2. Brightens of the color textures is not so important, it is more important how you make BumpH textures for them. Because BumpH textures gives them detailing and shadowing/contrast. You can even have color (rgb) texture in only one flat dull color in size lets say 32x32px and it can look great if you have properly made BumpH texture for it. What is more important that brightens, just for the example, is to have all of your color textures set at the same color tone, so that there is no big difference among them.
On the end if you are not satisfied with the colors and brightens you can fine tune them in LandLight.mat file, which you can set just for your particular map.
Like this:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,12508.0.htmlWhat DT said could be applicable if you are playing IL2 in the mode which is less then "Perfect" ("excellent" or below), but who plays it like that nowadays . . . Also DT is obliged to make content with the respect to the original IL2 engine, its specifications and rules. The problem is that those rules and specifications are now unfortunately some 12 years old, and we now know that those are obsolete and that IL2 engine can go beyond them.
Great map BTW
Wish you all the best, New years, Christmas . . . all of that