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CryEngine 3: The Reflection test

This is one my first successful applications of a cubemap on a non-reflective surface to mimic the effect of reflections. There are many tutorials on how to apply cubemaps in CryEngine 3 and it is not too difficult. Long story short a cubemap is a 'cheaper' way of creating reflections in large engines like CryEngine. The idea is that it scans the surrounding makes a 6 sided cube with the surrounding (hence the name Cubemap) and then displays up as a reflection. The downside of cubemapping is that it is not a real time reflection so it will not update even if the player moves in front of it or the entity changes position. Complex engines do not use real-time reflection due to expense of performance they will cost.

These are some of the pics of different attempts to demonstrate the cubemap effect. Chrome and glass give the biggest visual impact.

The most effective reflection can be achieved only by fine tuning  the variable parameters such as specular shading, glossiness, Fresnel bias/scale/power and so on. These affect the reflection contrast, light intensity, and several other crucial factors required to get the desitred output.

- Gamika