Hello,
check out my screenshot - you can see how nice the Reflections on my Water are in 4.13.2 and how weak in 4.14. In both versions the material settings are the same (SSR enabled on translucent material with surface forward shading). I also disabled the new “Reduce lightmap mixing…” in 4.14, but that didn’t help.
Hey c0cllc,
In order to effectively assist you, I am going to need some way to reproduce this issue on my end. With that said, you are more than likely coming across the change made to our roughness values between 4.13 and 4.14. I answered a similar question for another user who was reporting a problem with the visible differences between the two versions.
Take a look over my answer and let me know if you have additional questions.
Thank you,
Hello Andrew,
thank you, the problem is, that even with disabling the new “Reduce lightmap mixing…” i don’t get the desired effect.
I’m basically using the ocean water material from your starter content but switched it to translucent, surface forward shading and SSR enabled. I also just added some depthfade. So you can easily reproduce it.
Your link shows pictures with more or less subtle differences between now and before. My picture shows a difference like day and night compared to them…
But if this is the way it is going to be now, then i’d really like to know how i can get those nice and realistic far sunset-reflections like i was getting in 4.13… It really doesn’t make sense for them to not be there…
I am getting some good results on my end between 4.13 and 4.14. I have followed your instructions and get nearly identical results.
vs.
As you can see I have sharp specular highlights on the waters surface being driven by the roughness value. This is part of the reason we generally ask for repro steps in a new blank project, or a project provided to us as there are a number of settings on various actors that can influence roughness and the way it is perceived.
If you can provide to me a minimal test project or precise repro steps to get this to occur on my end, it will make the bug reporting process easier for the both of us. Let me know if you have additional questions or comments.
Cheers,
Hello and thank you Andrew,
your testpictures are from a very nearby perspective and looking down from higher ground, so there are no far-horizon reflections and thus you don’t get the problems.
Here is a link to a test project in 4.13, please use the perspective from the camera inside. You could then convert it to 4.14 and you will see the difference i’m talking about…
link deleted
So I did some extensive testing and discovered the issue lies with the Forward Shading method, SSR, and Stationary Skylights.
We made changes to the lightmap mixing for roughness as you know, but we also made minor changes to the Skylights intensity which now behaves differently. There was a small oversight in adding this change to our 4.14 release notes which has been addressed in internal comments for the bug below.
The effect you achieved in 4.13 was actually based on an incorrect skylight intensity and SSR working within its limitations with forward shading. You can tell because if you disable SSR on your material, the effect is gone. You have two options at this point. You can stay on 4.13 and work with the process you have established, or use 4.14 and work with the new behavior of Skylight intensity for environment reflections and the improved SurfaceForwardShading Lighting Mode.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Thank you,
Thank you, that is a bit sad though - i’m going to try and fake this in 4.14 now…I hope i find a way. Thanks anyway for the extensive testing!