On my 2nd day of modding, the problems started happening. First of all I replaced the 3d models of trees with simple PNGs in a Y-formation.

The Modding Problems

In this way I could also easily place . . . a few more trees.

Now a simple disclaimer, I know from the aerial shot that by far not everything around the racetrack is oil palms. However, so far I’ve only placed oil palms. Many of those will have to get replaced at some point. But that’s not too bad. What’s worse is that I did something wrong with the trees. In Assetto Corsa they didn’t quite work.

Another thing I was quite proud to work out was finding out how to transition between textures in blender. It required some node-editor wizardry that I’m now starting to get to grips with. However, that advanced technology either doesn’t translate into FBX or at the least doesn’t translate into Assetto Corsa. RIP.

What DID Work?

I’ve placed a few more areas with dirt or sandy ground. Looks on most shots like red soil to me though. Also, you can see some other things I have placed around the track. The black lines on top are pretty easy to discover. Those are power pylons. As you could see from the aerial shot, 2 different powerlines are going through the area. I still need to tweak those in terms of simplicity.

Also if you wonder where all the trees have gone in that shot, that’s because 2D objects are pretty hard to spot in a third dimension.

In this shot, you can see 2 more things that worked without a problem. First off, the obvious:

The start-finish . . . awning (??). I was able to quite faithfully recreate that from the pictures I’ve found on backups of the raceway’s website. I might replace the TECNO logo with tracc however!

Also, in the background to the left you can see a few canopies. Those I’ve just downloaded for free and put in the pits.

This is my digital recreation of a building you can see off in the background in some photos. I have no idea what the building is for. Anyways, this was one spot where I tried out the texture blending to which I’m going to have to find another solution for now. That will probably mean just making blending textures in GIMP to assign them. RIP the easy way.

I’ve also added brake markers. They seemed like an easy and necessary addition, even though the real track does not have them.

Anyways, thanks for reading today’s update. This modding endeavour is turning out to be quite the work.

If you want to read more about this, here you go!