Specular highlights on transparent Material?

I already found out that this (title) is not really possible at the moment at UE4 which is a big, big drawback.

It’s not possible to create realistic water or glass without this feature.
I really don’t want to point the finger here but please check out Unity5 Glass shaders…

In my case the problem are underwater bubbles.

Refraction and transparency works, but without the specular highlight the effect looks not convincing.
Will there be an implementation of Spec Highlights on transparent materials in the future? I think it is a very important feature.

Is there at least any way to fake the effect?

Hey Picster -

We are always working on improving our features in the Engine and limitations to Transparency is on our list to address. In the meantime you can simulate the effect you are looking for by taking a cubemap with a similar color LUT (palette) as your level, place a reflection vector in the cubemap and multiply the results by a Fresnel. You may want to play with contrast and brightness by passing the results of the fresnel multiply through a Power (Contrast) and Multiply (Brightness).

Thank You

Eric Ketchum