mirror material?

this is UE3:
v=9Lr1drrhzK4

why is this not possible to do in UE4? how long should we wait until it will? it is an absolute must for almost any scene.

Actually it is possible -> take a look at the reflection demo. There you can find a mirror material :slight_smile:

https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?4732-mirror-material-creation

actually it is not possible -> THIS](://ft.trillian.im/efa6257197fce847ff12c38f511516cb45fa16b0/6sxaavh9WAJUi4WzCpWAdAv2PXt5K.jpg) is not a mirror. its a live camera footage broadcasted on a screen. check the youtube above, thats a mirror, and that is Unreal Engine 3. the SceneCaptureReflectActor is missing and its not possible to do without the missing actor. thus something like window or mirror is impossible to render realistically. and i wonder why is it missing? im sure it wont be a big deal to implement the actor from udk that should be there in the first place. its an absolute essential feature

Hi, i am the author of that UDK bathroom demo.
and i can confirm, realtime reflections like that are impossible to achieve in UE4 without the missing SceneCaptureReflectActor.
Which is really mind boggling to me. Why on earth would you discard a feature as essential as that?

Is there a way of getting this request to the right ears? cause i would love to see the SceneCaptureReflectActor implemented ASAP

This is how realtime planar reflections worked :
v=2XoheOgAfkg
and i cant think of any good reason why this should be impossible to do in UE4.

+1 for this!

i need the realtime reflection too.
Hope they listen to use.

Jazvecina,

Where is that bathroom sample scene located?

Thanks

nowhere, its just that youtube

Thanks Jazvecina, for the reply.

you have to use cubemap, i know it is not real-time but so far it is best solution

right, but that would look really horrible.
so it’s not really a solution

Cubemaps - real time or not - are not a replacement for mirror surfaces which require maximum accuracy :slight_smile:

This gave some hopes but unsure how it evolved: ?v=Q4P0SdDANvo

Well, that one is probably made with the Scene Capture 2D Actor. and it looks really fake.
The problem with that is, that the 2D actor is static no matter the players position in space. its more like a TV screen, not a mirror.

A mirror setup must have a reference plane, it must be aware of the players position in space, and it must evaluate the reflection angles depending on where the player is and where is he looking.
Which is essentially the UDK’s SceneCaptureReflectActor

Yep and that’s what he’s trying to achieve, change the reflection camera transform based on the player POV. I know he has a WIP thread somewhere on the forum discussing the issue.

Have a look at this thread. It´s not perfect, but works.
https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?29791-Mirror-Material-with-Roughness&p=120163&viewfull=1#post120163

no it doesn’t.

Not quite sure why nobody suggested this yet, but you can make a 1:1 mirror with 2d scene capture actor.
Bear in mind that, there’s no material function to blur the texture sample as of now, so getting the reflection to render without jaggies will require quite big resolution.

//
Actually now i see that it has been suggested.
Well, this is as good as it gets for now. With right material setting it is possible to set up 2d RT for a mirror with around 60 to 100% satisfaction rate, depending on usage.
I’ve got it to work very well, but only at bigger than up-close distances and angles weren’t clamped, so if player was looking at a low angle it would just stretch the texture.

Off-topic but your signature fires up my antivirus.

Great, thanks Mars007 - I’ll give it a try at some point, looks solid.

+1 Accurate mirrors for archviz