Texture blending idea

Supposing I got that correctly, 3DGS currently renders each group of a model in a seperate pass. That said, I thought probably you could make A6 render the geometrical edges of a group with decreasing opacity (from in- to outside), giving it a smooth-edge effect? This would allow for automated texture blending since two groups with different textures and the suggested "fadeout" effect on their edges would then more or less blend into each other.
As you might have noticed, I don't really know much about those D3D internals, but nevertheless I thought I could as well at least share my idea. Any thoughts, anyone?

Rendering groups with decreasing opacity can be done with a shader; glow shaders use this method. However I am not sure that I understand what fadeout or texture blending effect you want to achieve?

Well, suppose you've got a simple plane of 5x5 faces, and another one the same size. Suppose these two planes are aligned next to each othere, just they slightly overlap. Now if each plane has a different group assigned, you could have the edges of each group render with decreasing opcaity, just as described in my previous post. Since the groups are overlapping each other, a decreasing opacity on the edges would result in the two groups smoothly blending into each other. Suppose the two groups have different textures, these would then blend into each other as well.
If this can be done with a shader, I'll ask in the shader forum since I wouldn't know how. Anyway, I thought as the engine is rendering each group in a separate pass anyway, you could probably integrate such a routine into the engine directly.
Does that make any sense?

Yes, but I think this is a very special purpose that most users won't need, and thus not suited for being hardwired in the engine.

Probably. However, the only two ways to achieve blended textures in 3DGS, currently, are either using transition textures or a multitex-shader with blendmap, and I think there should be an easier method. Simply the strange one I posted was the only way I could think of, but I'm sure there are other methods for texture blending.
In concrete: An easy texture blending option, if possible one that even applies to blocks, would be great. And I think others would definitely like that, too.

*BUMP*
Any thoughts anyone?

Quote:

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the only two ways to achieve blended textures in 3DGS, currently, are either using transition textures or a multitex-shader with blendmap,

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Incorrect.. in a shader you have other options, such as blending by height, slope, location, etc.

However, what would be helpful in this regard is the ability to arbitrarily set vertex data, such as by using vec_to_uv, but to additional texture coord sets and vertex colors.

Currently, unless im mistaken, vec_to_uv only affects texcoord0 .. you ought to be able to set any of the sets. Additional you could set vertex color as well.

This way you can store a per-vertex color for blending, without the need for additional blend maps in the shader, and you can precalculate slope and hieght values for efficiency.