Faked Material Reflection help (based on Bullet Train Livestream)

[redphoenix2k]

Hi guys im trying to recreated the fake material based ‘reflection’ that was mentioned in the Bullet Train Livestream video at around minute 30 for the billboard

The Making of Bullet Train | 02 | Feature Highlight | Unreal Engine

So far i managed to put together most parts of the material nodes by watching the video but im still missing 2 sections (since i cant make them out from the video)

1-the entire opacity section (im assuming it calculates opacity based on distance)
2-a small node connecting to a texture node (im suspecting its a mask perhaps)

This is what i got working so far (using a cute hamster texture )

the material is see-through from under the ground and translucent, but thats pretty much it

I’m new to unreal and very bad when it comes to shaders i must admit lol

So i need help to figure out what is missing to finish this material to make it work like in the youtube video it would be great help

Hints or solutions are all welcome!

Thanks

[anonymous_user_d9a669e1]

Hi,
I tried to recreate it too, the same way as you did.
The missing node before texture is a “clamp” , min and max values to default (0,1).
The opacity part:

• Tex coord –> mask G — > lerp node
  with 2 scalar parameters connected to the A and B slot of the lerp node.
  And connect the lerp to opacity.

You say that when you assign your material to a mesh and put this mesh under an other, you see it through?
For me, it didn’t work.
Your material is set to Surface, translucent, unlit, that’s it?

[redphoenix2k]

@EdWasHere;471769

Hi,
I tried to recreate it too, the same way as you did.
The missing node before textue is a “clamp” , min and max values to default (0,1).
The opacity part:

• Tex coord –> mask G — > lerp node
  with 2 scalar parameters connected to the A and B slot of the lerp node.

You say that when you assign your material to a mesh and put this mesh under an other, you see it through?
For me, it didn’t work.
Your material is set to Surface, translucent, unlit, that’s it?

Cool man thanks i’ll add them and test them today after work !

For the see-through to work i had to go into the material detail and uncheck an option called ‘use depth buffer’ or something similar (i’ll recheck tonight)

When i unchecked that the material immediately appeared over everything not just the floor plane (which is overkill as i still prefer to have some objects occlude it)

As for the rest of the material properties it is surface/translucent/unlit like i noticed in the video

[anonymous_user_d9a669e1]

i had to go into the material detail and uncheck an option called ‘use depth buffer’

Yes, I had to do the same.
So, I didn’t understand how some objects could occlude it.
I asked this question on this forum and said that these faked reflections were working like decals. But I didn’t clearly understood why, as the material
is set to “Surface” and not “Deferred Decal”.
I think that you only see one part of the material stuff in the video.

[redphoenix2k]

@EdWasHere;471792

Yes, I had to do the same.
So, I didn’t understood how some objects could occlude it.
I asked this question on this forum and said that these faked reflections were working like decals. But I didn’t clearly understood why, as the material
is set to “Surface” and not “Deferred Decal”.
I think that you only see one part of the material stuff in the video.

True i heard him mention the decal thing so first i tried to use ‘deferred decal’ instead of ‘surface’ but it didnt seem to do the trick

Also more interesting than the material for the billboard reflection was the animated reflection of the legs of the soldier they showed

That looks pretty sweet tho i could not get much clues from the video how it was pulled off

[anonymous_user_d9a669e1]

i tried to use ‘deferred decal’ instead of ‘surface’ but it didnt seem to do the trick

I did the same! It didn’t work.

[redphoenix2k]

@EdWasHere;471769

Hi,
I tried to recreate it too, the same way as you did.
The missing node before texture is a “clamp” , min and max values to default (0,1).
The opacity part:

• Tex coord –> mask G — > lerp node
  with 2 scalar parameters connected to the A and B slot of the lerp node.
  And connect the lerp to opacity.

You say that when you assign your material to a mesh and put this mesh under an other, you see it through?
For me, it didn’t work.
Your material is set to Surface, translucent, unlit, that’s it?

Ok cool some progress done here using your help, but we’re still not done yet

what i noticed is the following

1-the tex-cordinate node in the opacity section ‘might’ be inaccurate as it is red while in the video the blurry small node u see at mark 28:10 seems green

2-the roughness parameter doesnt work using the current roughness node setup

3-the reflected image itself seems to have wrong mapping compared to the reference image (dont know where i messed that one up)

[anonymous_user_d9a669e1]

Here is my material:

This one works.
Make opacity lerp between 0 and 1.
Between 0 and 0.1 makes it invisible.

[redphoenix2k]

@EdWasHere;472371

Here is my material:

This one works.
Make opacity lerp between 0 and 1.
Between 0 and 0.1 makes it invisible.

i first tried between 0 & 1 but i was getting a fully opaque material for some reason on my nodes

thats why i squeezed the numbers to 0 & 0.1

i guess there is something i mis-connected somewhere

i will try yours