Smooth surfaces with incorrect reflections

Smooth surfaces correctly displayed in UE4.11 are showing strange artefacts and jaggies in 4.12.
Any idea how to fix this?

Reflections in 4.11:

Reflections in 4.12:

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Hi Devel.bmad,

Can you try 4.12.2 that released today and see if you still have this issue? There are some fixes for reflections that went into this HotFix that may resolve your issue.

If you’re still having the issue, please test in a blank project with starter content as a comparison to your asset to make sure that it’s not your content that is the issue. I’ve tested this in the latest 4.12.2 release with the SM_Chair asset from Starter Content as an example. I’m not able to see any of the faceting that you have here though.

Try that and let me know, Shoudl the issue still be present please provide detailed repro steps and any additional information needed to reproduce the problem.

Thank you!

Tim

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Hi Tim,
tried 4.12.2, same issue. Also created a new empty project, no issues with the SM_Chair, same issue with my asset.
My asset was working fine before 4.12, though, so it would be useful to understand what’s wrong. Also, several other assets are exhibiting the same problem now. I’m on mac, if this may help, also.

Thanks for you help!

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From what I can see it might be that your smoothing groups may be too low. Any thing with an angle under 30 can produce cubic or jagged results. If not, just try boosting the smoothing group angle and re-import.

Or

The New Reflection System uses Different Normals, so on surfaces like that you need to Activate 16 bit normals

Go to Project settings, in ->Rendering ->Optimizations → Gbuffer Format; and enable “Force 16 Bits Per Channel”

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Hi, thanks expungeme. I don’t see “Force 16 Bits Per Channel” in optimisations in 4.12.2, but in any case this option has been introduce to improve the reflections (at expense of heavier computation), when disabled it shouldn’t affect existing assets.

Also, how do I set the smoothing group angle?
If possible, I’d rather a solution that does not force me to export and reimport again every asset in my project…

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Sorry, didn’t give you all the right info, it goes like this

  1. Project Settings
  2. In The “Engine” section to the left, click on “Rendering”
  3. Scroll Down to “Optimizations”
  4. And Change “GBuffer Format” to “Force 16 Bits Per Channel”

“High Precision Normals” works as well

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Thank you, this does fix the problem. “High Precision Normals” fixes the problem as well.

Which one has less impact on the performance?

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“High precision” should be considered less intensive, as some things can be configured to use 8 bit normals, where as Forcing 16 bit overrides all normals and normal maps to only be 16 bit.

And as far as your smoothing groups go the chair was at 60 so that’s good, and your model was nicely done!

P.S And could you please re-activate the answer, I forgot that commenting again deactivates it :wink:

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Great, thank you! :slight_smile:

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