Ash texture and color

[halcyon lynx]

Color:
Currently, the ash color in game ranges from neutral grey to grey blue. While adding some color variation to the radius is great, making the ash so cold in tone doesn't look great especially given that Perchorsk outskirts is already very blue and cold.
Since warm and cold lighting tends to interact more naturally with monochrome tones, shifting the ash toward a more neutral grey would make it more visually appealing.
Neutral tones, such as a grey act as natural reflectors retaining the surrounding atmosphere without muddying it with additional color.
Increasing the range of shades from brighter greys to much darker ones, would also help vary the landscape making it feel more real. Of course you could stick towards just grey but making ash more neutral like a greenish tint or tan tint would probably work just fine.
Consistency: Previous iterations of ash such as ash from itr2.0 show it as more of grey beige mix of colors and more gravel like,
Ash the collectible or "radiallium" is more grey than the ash ground texture itself calling into question if they are related. ash in real life is also more of a pale grey mixed with some black and white. while i don't think this would work in game i do think inspiration should always be drawn from reality, this ash falling through the air is anomalously charged crushed rock and burnt Debre and should resemble it in some form.

Texture: The current texture itself is visually noisy . It resembles a viscous material rather than anomalous Debre which contradicts the previous title. While the swirls are interesting and i believe they could have a place within the ash textures they take over the texture leaving no room for the lighting to breathe. The excessive shininess pushes the texture toward a slime like look, which doesn’t fit the material. I personally think ash should be more dirt or even sand like clumps rather than orbs . The texture also stretches on ash structure geometry giving it a very unpolished feel. I recommend at least for ground textures making the texture itself have deeper normal lighting maps to make it cast much more convincing normal shadows and giving the ground a less flat feel.
Variation: Currently there is 2-3 ash textures but there is only one used consistently. Variety is key especially with ash being such a prevalent part of Into the Radius. Painting more variety's of the ash texture around the environment especially for specific use cases such as atop of objects such as cars, inside buildings, on the ground, and on ash structures would increase immersion no doubt.

example of how blue perchorsk outskirts is

[halcyon lynx]

Variation to the falling ash particles would also be very appreciated

[rare crystal]

very good observation, always felt like it was an eyesore compared to the first game

[pulsar harness]

This is real as frick ngl

[lethal quest]

I could not agree more

[halcyon lynx]