Material blending canceled out by headlights

[R Soul]

I use material blending to soften the edge between my track and the grass. During the day it looks fine:

At night, with headlights on, the blending disappears:

The dirt on the track is a part of the diffuse texture. No blending there.

Perhaps someone could shed some light on this (pun intended). I like that blending, and I've tried remapping a diffuse texture with a dirt-blend effect but there were some odd issues.

 

[redapg]

I've seen a similar problem before but i can't exactly remember anymore how i've solved it.
But 1 of these possibilities should work:
1. Is the car using an own/modified headlight texture? If yes, try an original one and see if the problem still exists.
2. Do the blending in Photoshop, or whatever Painting-software you are using, directly at the Textures, so that there is no visible "border-line" when you put them side by side. And don't use blending in the material-options of the affected trackparts.

 

[R Soul]

I know nothing about headlights. The screenshot above was taken with the Historic GT mod. I tried with a default car (Kodi ZR) and that car's headlights also canceled out the blending. I've begun using a transition texture option, and I seem to have worked around a couple of problems with my usual method (I use 3dsimed and Blender, and the DAE export/import system seems to work quite well). However it'll take a while to go all the way round my track so anyone can feel free to post any other suggestions in the mean time.

 

[redapg]

Did you try my suggested option #2?

I don't know Blender, but to try it out should not need too much time.

 

[R Soul]

I did try that option, which is what I meant by " I've begun using a transition texture option". I can export from 3dsimed with the DAE format, edit in Blender, and export in the DAE format. This preserves the UV coordinates for all four possible texture channels. So far so good great. The only problem is when I export from 3dSimed, some XYZ precision is lost. 6dp becomes 3 or 4. Something similar happens when I export from Blender. This can cause tiny gaps where the edited object meets the old ones. I don't know how noticeable it would be in game but I can see it in scene viewer.

 

[redapg]

I did try that option, which is what I meant by " I've begun using a transition texture option".....

Sorry, didn't get that. English is not my native language, so...

I can export from 3dsimed with the DAE format, edit in Blender, and export in the DAE format. This preserves the UV coordinates for all four possible texture channels. So far so good great. The only problem is when I export from 3dSimed, some XYZ precision is lost. 6dp becomes 3 or 4. Something similar happens when I export from Blender. This can cause tiny gaps where the edited object meets the old ones. I don't know how noticeable it would be in game but I can see it in scene viewer.

I've sometimes had something similar, when i edited some parts with 3DSMax (using gmt importer and ISI exporter) and re-imported them into 3DSimEd.
The movement always was very small, just 0.001, if i remember right. So when re-importing, i had to move them with XYZ=-0.001,-0.001,-0.001 to get them at the same place as they were before.
Maybe you can solve it the same way.

Are you sure that some movement happens when you export them from 3DSimEd?

I ask because i've never had any problems when exporting from 3DSimEd. Maybe it's the same like i had and the movement only happens in Blender.

 

[R Soul]

I am sure. I checked one of the vertex's coordinates in 3DSimed, then opened up the .dae file and could not find the same value. I could find a value that was very close, but not exactly the same. However I've decided it doesn't matter. I usually use Scene Viewer to look at my track, and for some reason the gaps look worse in that than they do in rFactor.

Here is a screenshot with the original blending on the left and my new transition texture on the right:

 

[redapg]

Looks good for me and as long as the gaps between the objects don't have bad influence in the game....

 

[R Soul]

I haven't had any problems driving over the edited objects, but if the gaps do prove to be a problem I can use the original terrain objects as invisible collision models with the new ones being visible only.