Reflection Banding on Concave Metallic Surfaces.

[anonymous_user_9af461e6]

@ZacD;461142

I think you just found the worst case scenario for reflections, It doesn’t seem to be an issue with your model, I tried using a sphere and a cube with a sphere cut out, and while I didn’t see much banding, I did see some. Obviously this isn’t very noticeable once you uncheck Lower Hemisphere is Black, having black in the reflections makes the banding worse, and isn’t very realistic.

The banding occurs along the polygons, and having a lower poly model or normal maps would help reduce the banding significantly

Here is the low-poly model - the banding is definitely “fixed”. The reflection now follows a plausible/physically realistic path and looks much better.

what still bothers me though, even though this is low poly and is improved, is that there is still this “hammered metal” look to what is actually a perfectly smooth surface. The reflection is still not behaving correctly from a physical standpoint, because there aren’t facets on that face, it is a smooth curve and should be reflecting as such. I would suspect my model, of course, since this engine is quite mature, but I’m at a loss to explain why I simply cannot get this reflection looking right when the two other engines we are experimenting with seem to be getting it “correct” right out of the gate?