The base version (the far one) is white. When we are close enough - they change appearance to snowless.
It is also zoom-level dependent. This run is the First Greenbriar Turn part 2 (Journey). Weather settings look like winter + no snow (custom). default engine.ini settings, no mods, PC
The problem is that the 2D trees are white, but the 3d are not. The problem behind that is that the 2D trees are white (they shouldn't be).
You are right. This looks like temporary distant placeholders. A question: can it be eliminated somehow (via engine.ini)? Until we get a patch, which I believe, will happen. It looks ugly PS Probably the temperature is set so unfortunate as to cause melting of the snow, but the trees are white models still. Greenbriar's Journey has more of these anomalies (because of such initial settings).
I suspect the issue is that the weather has gone a bit wrong. In the first episode of this journey its winter and the yard is under snow, yet minutes later when we set off its suddenly green leaf trees with touches of ice hear and there.
I have seen some odd tree behavior on Clinchfield as well. Distant tress would be waving back and forth widely, then they would pop to stationary as I got closer. Also they would switch from green to orange since this was in fall.
However, this effect occurs at any time of the year, and only in winter, it is more noticeable, because there is greater contrast between the distant models and those presented up close (when they change).
I use the Winter/Spring No Leaf mod. Best thing ever, and I'm pretty sure it eliminates this problem. I personally use the Winter only version, and you can download the mod here - https://mods.trainsimcommunity.com/mods/c3-train-sim-world-2/c19-patches/i764-winter-spring-leaf-fix