# How and where to position reflection captures?

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-and-where-to-position-reflection-captures/385166>\
**Category:** Rendering\
**Tags:** Reflections, unreal-engine, specular, Level-Design, Lighting, question\
**Created:** [February 16, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-and-where-to-position-reflection-captures/385166 "2017-02-16T21:39:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Araklaj](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Araklaj](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Araklaj)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-and-where-to-position-reflection-captures/385166/1 "2017-02-16T21:39:51Z")

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I’ve been recently struggling getting proper reflections in certain places of the map I am working on. The two examples are tunnels and the metal bridge. Bridge is using a metal material with roughness map, sewers are non-metal with spec/roughness maps. You can see my issues in the attached screenshots (ignore poles, they are just there to visualize 3D position of the captures).

I don’t really care for reflection details but want to get lighting/specularity right, which seems to partly depend on reflection captures if you have spec/roughness on materials. So with that in mind, my question is, how many reflection captures should I use in a certain space, and how to position them? Should they surround the light source? Be under light source? Between light source and the surfaces? Be far away?

 ![126608-capture.jpg](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/d/1/a/d1a0135883f9d8cc687552ae9ba7d10de759955b.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![Luos](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/luos/32/918700_2.png) [@Luos](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Luos)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-and-where-to-position-reflection-captures/385166/2 "2017-02-17T00:13:37Z")

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- about eye height of player.
- a few with big radius covering whole rooms (one for an entire room) (can be higher up if needed)
- a few spread out trough room with smaller radius.
- Around small details the player might walk around a lot.

Its an average guideline ofcourse.  
thats how I do it at least, and seems to work rather well.