This is fresnel. You should be able to see this in any modern engine using PBR. If you are not seeing this, your roughness is incorrect or your camera is not perpendicular enough the surface normal.
I wanted to show quickly some progress shots so here they are: And some textures. This was made in Cryengine 3.5.8 so everything is using the pre-PBR way of texturing.
It died down because it's pretty easy to have a synced workflow now. PBR and reflections show sync errors worse than before so it's still very important.
Awesome news. Congrats to the peeps who won. Now its time for the good beer >.> no more Milwaukee's Best for these folks no sir, time to break out the PBR. :D
I feel like it's reflection is too nice. You should rough the PBR value a bit. Maybe this is just an illusion I'm seeing, but it feels a little mirror like.
The block out looks pretty good to me :D great choice for a portfolio piece I think. PBR is pretty awesome! Are you going to try Substance for the materials?
Progress on the texturing, using the PBR to practice/learn it to use it for next projects. The flat wall is almost done, need some last tweak. For the other one it's just the beginning.
In spite of its name; it's not absolute. The gradient should also be visible with a cutout map. If what othyz above says doesn't work, have you tried other materials like the PBR materials?