# Mirror with Lumen is horrible **URL:** \ **Category:** Rendering\ **Tags:** unreal-engine, Lumen\ **Created:** [May 30, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353 "2021-05-30T11:34:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jarnosrt8](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/jarnosrt8/32/469649_2.png) [@jarnosrt8](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jarnosrt8)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/1 "2021-05-30T11:34:53Z")
May be I’m making something wrong, but it is impossible for me to make a mirror with Lumen’s reflections. I saw videos where they make this mirror in Unreal 5 and it seems pretty clear, but I don’t understand how he did it. I don’t want to use ray traced reflections. You can watch here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mDItWAJETU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mDItWAJETU) And this is my mirror: ![espejo](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/3X/1/8/18588740b6c44e7221a78f59e49cf6d713d6ec2b.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![poky](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@poky](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/poky)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 3:20pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/2 "2021-05-30T15:20:11Z")
ouh nouhhh ---
**Author:** ![midgunner66](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/midgunner66/32/466711_2.png) [@midgunner66](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/midgunner66)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2021, 4:35pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/3 "2021-05-30T16:35:50Z")
The answer is in the description of that video: > Lumen Reflections works similar to Screen Space Reflections but with the quality of planar reflections. **It is really high quality accurate reflections but only when the reflected parts are visible in the screen.** Otherwise I think **it falls back to a low quality reflection** , which seems like is generated using Mesh Distance Fields. Which is correct. Read the [screen tracing](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/RenderingFeatures/Lumen/TechOverview/#screentracing) section in the docs. So you need to use planar reflections. ---
**Author:** ![indystry](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/indystry/32/870239_2.png) [@indystry](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/indystry)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 7:19am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/4 "2021-06-22T07:19:43Z")
Same thing, testing reflective surfaces with Lumen looks absolutely low res. Made a video with basic stuff. Boosting Lumen reflections quality to magic number 4 does help but then the GI stops getting reflected in the reflections. Tried increasing final gather lumen quality as well as lumen resolution in project settings from 2048 to 4096 which also helps but very tiny bit, the final reflection is still very much unusable. [![](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/d/0/0/d00cf06d47acf8402361167067df546fb75ec516.jpeg "UE5 Lumen Reflections Issue") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVbgxNo7A08) ---
**Author:** ![Frenetic\_Pony](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Frenetic\_Pony](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Frenetic_Pony)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 8:49am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/5 "2021-06-22T08:49:13Z")
So while setting lumen reflection quality to “4” in postprocessing volume helps, right now you need hardware RT for this to look good. Maybe by release the highest lumen software setting will work better, but not right now. ---
**Author:** ![pezzott1](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/pezzott1/32/1215068_2.png) [@pezzott1](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/pezzott1)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:21pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/6 "2021-06-22T15:21:05Z")
> [@Frenetic\_Pony](#): > > So while setting lumen reflection quality to “4” in postprocessing volume helps, right now you need hardware RT for this to look good. This. Right now setting it to ‘4’ (past the ‘2’ slider cap) will give max quality. Their goal is to have Lumen reflections eventually offer same quality as RT reflections. Reason why they are deprecating it. ---
**Author:** ![HiwaRostami](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/hiwarostami/32/693744_2.png) [@HiwaRostami](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/HiwaRostami)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/7 "2022-09-01T13:54:11Z")
Hello, at the first go to project settings from Edit menu 1- Engine-\> Rendering-\> Global Illumination: sit on [Screen Space(Beta)] 2- Engine-\> Rendering-\> Reflections: Support global plane for Planar Reflection: set On 3- Search [motion]: set Off 4- Make mirror material and search Reflection, set On: High quality Reflection & Planar Reflection 5- Put Planar Reflection in front of mirror, 6- Go details, set value of Normal Distortion Strength & Prefilter to [0] 7- Set value Screen Percentage to [100] \*\*Congratulation \*\* > [@Improve reflection mirror material in UE5](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/improve-reflection-mirror-material-in-ue5/639011): > > Hello, at the first go to project settings from Edit menu 1- Engine-\> Rendering-\> Global Illumination: sit on [Screen Space(Beta)] 2- Engine-\> Rendering-\> Reflections: Support global plane for Planar Reflection: set On 3- Search [motion]: set Off 4- Make mirror material and search Reflection, set On: High quality Reflection & Planar Reflection 5- Put Planar Reflection in front of mirror, 6- Go details, set value of Normal Distortion Strength & Prefilter to [0] 7- Set value Screen Perce… ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2022, 2:01pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/8 "2022-09-01T14:01:53Z")
I’ll just add something hear for anyone recently looking at this thread: I believe they’re talking about EA, UE5.0 has much improved lumen reflections, including performance, temporal stability, and in some cases feature improvements. 5.1 also offers its’ own improvements, so I’m essentially saying lumen reflections are much better than the ones currently documented here. ---
**Author:** ![StrommLighght](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@StrommLighght](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/StrommLighght)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2023, 4:56am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/9 "2023-07-08T04:56:37Z")
Kinda cringe, I even tried UE 5.3 build and like planar reflection is a blurry plane that’s not helpful. And like a billion combinations of lumen and screen space reflection properties you can’t get rid of the shadow artifacting, weird funny lines… Idk, feels like just something nobody bothers with in the UE pipeline… ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Mine](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/daniel_mine/32/571244_2.png) [@Daniel\_Mine](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Daniel_Mine)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 9:25am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/10 "2023-08-30T09:25:52Z")
Really? This is a mirror with unreal 5.2 with highest settings possible… ![Bagnomovie 0010](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/3/5/2/352e42644733cd68c88d918fb2a0a3f3b4d35242.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 2:25pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/11 "2023-08-30T14:25:32Z")
What’s your shadowing method, if I may ask? ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Mine](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/daniel_mine/32/571244_2.png) [@Daniel\_Mine](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Daniel_Mine)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 6:58am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/12 "2023-08-31T06:58:56Z")
Virtual shadow maps, but even with shadow maps it’s the same. Ray traced shadows is not enabled because it messes up all metahuman clothes, but even enbabled doesn’t change the situation In outdoors is even worse… The only solution at the moment is still planar reflections that is very heavy Capturescene2d seems that is not working anymore with last updates… ![Screenshot_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/d/e/5/de58d403b8b605520a1e9996795bb834c4133857.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2023, 3:18pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/13 "2023-08-31T15:18:06Z")
I have never seen lighting behavior like that before. That complete darkness is baffling to me, the surface cache should be providing acceptable coverage for everything in general. Could you post your PPV settings please? ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Mine](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/daniel_mine/32/571244_2.png) [@Daniel\_Mine](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Daniel_Mine)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 1:56pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/14 "2023-09-02T13:56:52Z")
> [@jblackwell](#): > > PPV I use camera settings instead of post process volume. Anyway what do you need exactly? They are many things that I can show to you. Maybe there is a fast way to send all together… ---
**Author:** ![James\_Alliban](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@James\_Alliban](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/James_Alliban)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:17pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/15 "2023-09-02T17:17:56Z")
I just spent a long time looking into this. The short answer is that it is not currently possible to make a decent mirror with Lumen. My project is not interactive and will be delivered as a video so I had to set up the rooms with mirrors in a separate map which where I baked the lighting and used a planar reflection for the mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Mine](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/daniel_mine/32/571244_2.png) [@Daniel\_Mine](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Daniel_Mine)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 6:24pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/16 "2023-09-02T18:24:17Z")
It’s the same thing I’m doing too, it’s just so ■■■■ heavy. I can barely navigate the scene with planar reflection active. and rendering time are double. More than owing a rtx 4090 I don’t know what to do. Any suggestion to make it lighter without losing quality? ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2023, 4:40am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/17 "2023-09-03T04:40:22Z")
A few visualizations of your surface cache would be wonderful, or just the project file itself I suppose. By and large your behavior seems very unusual compared to what I normally see with lumen. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel\_Mine](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/daniel_mine/32/571244_2.png) [@Daniel\_Mine](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Daniel_Mine)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2023, 6:15am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/18 "2023-09-03T06:15:11Z")
here the surface cache screen. Let me know if you need also the scene, because it’s very heavy, more than 200 gb. You know I use it as my object library container so… But if you need I can try to export this level in a new one ![Screenshot_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/b/5/4/b54b87951521fe014ce2dc30b4cf688443a3ccbd.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2023, 4:53pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/19 "2023-09-03T16:53:45Z")
Yep, that would definitely be the problem. Your surface cache is essentially how well lumen parameterized your scene. The yellow is things it cannot cover (EG skinned characters), and the pink is what it refuses to cover because of memory expense. Your scene looks as poor as it does because significant portions of it have zero surface cache coverage, meaning they’re just returning black and don’t affect GI. This can be fixed, but it partly depends on how you did it to begin with. I know that lumen interacts with the foliage tool in strange ways, but if this was done with foliage, make sure ‘affect dynamic indirect lighting’ is checked.’ Also, crank your lumen scene detail as high as it will go to get some amount of coverage there. Failing all else, you can also solve this by simply cheating the lighting. Place a series of rect lights around the scene to mimic the sky light. Lumen can get lighting in reflections assuming there’s an analytical light source, which the sky light technically isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![jblackwell](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jblackwell](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jblackwell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2023, 4:55pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353/20 "2023-09-03T16:55:12Z")
Of course, that won’t make it lighter necessarily. Honestly, the only real way to get good reflections in lumen is to either A. author all of your art to very specifically cater to its’ limitations, or B. throw immense amounts of processing power at it. [Next page](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/mirror-with-lumen-is-horrible/232353.md?page=2)