Screen Space Reflections

Definition

Screen space reflections offer an alternative to the mirror material in order to create reflections of other surfaces in a scene.

In contrast to standard rendering methods, which use the geometric elements present in a scene, screen space rendering methods use the information in a rendered image in order to calculate reflections. These reflections are generated based on the specular intensity of each standard or multi-layer material applied to a surface visible from the current point of view.

The calculation is carried out in real time, which allows you to continue to navigate freely within the 3D world. The time required for calculation is not significant in most contexts.

In Patchwork 3D Design, enabling screen space reflections is a database-wide property. It is applied in all rendered contexts : viewing in a 3D viewport, creating of a render using a snapshot editor...

Enabling Screen Space Reflections

Use the button in the Matter toolbar to enable or disable screen space reflections.

Using Screen Space Reflections

All visible surfaces along with the product's environment are reflected when using screen space reflections. When a transparent surface is placed in front of other surfaces from a given point of view, only the transparent surface will reflect the other geometries in the scene. The surfaces behind it, if they are reflective, will reflect the environment.

	Standard Reflections	Screen Space Reflections
Materials	Works when a mirror material is used in the scene.	Works when a standard or multi-layer material is visible in the scene. Screen space reflections must be enabled using the button in the toolbar.
Type of surface	Works when a mirror is applied to one or more planar surfaces.	Compatible with all forms of surface, including non-planar forms.
Method of generation	Uses the geometric information in the scene to calculate reflections.	Uses information in a rendered image of the scene to calculate reflections.
Reflected surfaces	Reflects all surfaces present in the product, or, if the reflected surfaces are restricted to surfaces with a tag, reflects all surfaces with that tag.	Reflects only the surfaces that are visible from the current point of view. For example, the bottom of a table that is not visible to the observer will not be reflected in the floor.
Situations to avoid	Avoid using standard reflections in geometrically complex scenes, due to the required calculation time.	Screen space reflections cannot be used for rendering employing a tiling strategy with tiles that represent a very small portion of the final image. This can occur, for example, when rendering an extremely large snapshot. If this is the case, an error message will be displayed.