Is it possible to achieve these reflections in real time with UE4 ?

Andreicus

I'm currently working on a couple of scenes that i want them to have strong reflections caused by wet surfaces and glowing lights in the night and dark places.
The final look that i'd like to achieve, regarding reflections and lights, would be something like these images:


*render made by Creative Shrimp: http://https//www.creativeshrimp.com/


*render by Cornelius Dammrich: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/JbgBR


*render by Cornelius Dammrich: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/RyJW

I don't really care about photorealism for the props, what i really care about is achieving a scene with strong reflections that "overstimulate" the eyes of the viewer like the first image.
I know that with an offline render software is obviously possible but i'm wondering if it's possible to achieve a similar result in real time using UE4 or i'm only wasting time and i should set up a workflow for non real time rendering from the start.

From my experience i would say that maybe it would be possible to achieve a result like the third image but i don't think that it is possibile, with the current tech, to make a real time render like the first image.

I'd like to hear the opinion of more expert artist than me, thanks.

Obscura

In Unreal 4, you can use "planar reflections" to achieve high quality real time reflections, so I would say the first 2 image would be doable. But the third one would be harder to get it right, because planar reflection only reflects on a plane, and you would need to place multiple of them so it would quickly become too expensive for weaker hardware. You can use a combination of reflection techniques, but really, only the planar one gives fully accurate reflections.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/PlanarReflections

Andreicus

Obscura said:

In Unreal 4, you can use "planar reflections" to achieve high quality real time reflections, so I would say the first 2 image would be doable. But the third one would be harder to get it right, because planar reflection only reflects on a plane, and you would need to place multiple of them so it would quickly become too expensive for weaker hardware. You can use a combination of reflection techniques, but really, only the planar one gives fully accurate reflections.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/PlanarReflections

I see, i actually never used planar reflections because i usually do a combination of classical spherical reflections+ssr if needed.
I'll take a look at them.

NNois

Obscura said:

In Unreal 4, you can use "planar reflections" to achieve high quality real time reflections, so I would say the first 2 image would be doable. But the third one would be harder to get it right, because planar reflection only reflects on a plane, and you would need to place multiple of them so it would quickly become too expensive for weaker hardware. You can use a combination of reflection techniques, but really, only the planar one gives fully accurate reflections.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/PlanarReflections

Well, actually ScreenSpaceReflection in UE4 is perfect if we don't speak about the edges of the images.
I can surelly say you can produce thoses reflections without a problem, and I'm not agree, don't use planbar reflections, not needed here

cupsster

Yes it is possible, you might want to enable 16bit normal map buffer in UE as well as it is off by default.

Andreicus

NNois said:

Obscura said:

In Unreal 4, you can use "planar reflections" to achieve high quality real time reflections, so I would say the first 2 image would be doable. But the third one would be harder to get it right, because planar reflection only reflects on a plane, and you would need to place multiple of them so it would quickly become too expensive for weaker hardware. You can use a combination of reflection techniques, but really, only the planar one gives fully accurate reflections.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/PlanarReflections

Well, actually ScreenSpaceReflection in UE4 is perfect if we don't speak about the edges of the images.
I can surelly say you can produce thoses reflections without a problem, and I'm not agree, don't use planbar reflections, not needed here

cupsster said:

Yes it is possible, you might want to enable 16bit normal map buffer in UE as well as it is off by default.

Thanks for the tips. In the latest build of the UE they introduced Raytracing so it's another option now.
Although i can't use it because i don't have an RTX card and my PC is too old for an upgrade, i will try it out with my next build.