Screen Space Reflections (SSR) (DriveWorks Documentation)

Screen Space Reflections (SSR)

Screen Space Reflections or SSR is a camera effect that adds local reflections to a reflective surface. This effect can add further realism to a model making them more true to life. This effect can be enabled on the Default Camera or any Camera Entity in a 3D Document.

This camera effect is a screen space effect which means that only objects visible on screen can be reflected. Objects that are offscreen or obscured will not be reflected. This may result in some reflections not looking accurate.

The above example was generated in DriveWorks using Screen Space Reflections and Bloom. Both the floor and ceiling have been set as Reflective Appearances and SSR has been enabled on the Default Camera inside the 3D Document.

In the above example, we have entered high or strong values to illustrate the effect. In normal circumstances, you would use lower settings to apply a subtle effect.

Information Panel

With the Environment selected, the following will be displayed in the Information Panel.

SSR Settings

Screen Space Reflections Enabled

Enable and disable SSR on the Default Camera. Disabling SSR means any Reflective render property won't be rendered correctly in the Default Camera. TRUE enables the effect, FALSE disables it.

Resolution

Resolution is the amount of samples SSR will take to create the reflection. This is represented as a percentage. 1 is the maximum number of samples and 0 is none so reflections will not be performed. Resolution can be thought of as the number of steps taken across the screen to sample and create a reflection.

Resolution affects performance.Reducing the percentage of samples will improve performance. However, a larger number of samples will produce more realistic reflections.

Refinement

The Refinement property controls the number of refinement samples to be made in an area. When the Resolution has located a reflection, it improves the accuracy and quality of it by taking samples of the area. The base and maximum values are between 0 and 1. When it is set to 0, no refinement samples will be made and this will result in no reflections being received.

Intensity

Intensity alters the strength of the reflections from surfaces. It also affects the threshold of accepted reflective surfaces and by increasing Intensity, additional reflective surfaces will be visible.

Thickness

Reflection rays can travel behind objects. Thickness can be considered as the distance a ray travels behind an object. Thickness increases this distance and results in more rays being considered as reflections. A good value for this property is 10.

Falloff Sharpness

Screen Space Reflections is an approximation and can result in inaccurate reflections. This property determines the sharpness and gradient falloff of these inaccurate reflections.

Scatter

Scatter is a global modifier that allows you to alter the amount of pixelation that occurs when creating a reflective surface. SSR Scatter can be controlled individually in each Reflective property.

Blur Intensity

Blur Intensity controls how much blur is applied to the final reflections. Appearances with high reflectivity will blur less.

Blur Passes

Blur Passes is the number of times the image is blurred. This effect does impact on performance and selecting a lower number is preferable to a higher one.

Enabling Screen Space Reflections

To enable SSR on the Default Camera, follow the steps below:

Go to Environment in a 3D Document.
Set the property Screen Space Reflections Enabled to TRUE.
Make sure you have at least one Appearance in your 3D Document set to use the Reflective render property.

Viewing Screen Space Reflections in a 3D Document

In edit mode SSR won't be visible in a 3D document.

Enter Preview Mode, found in the Command Bar, to enable SSR Camera effects

In Preview Mode, 3D Document triads and wireframe selections will be hidden.

Camera entities will be visible and Camera effects will be enabled.

DriveWorks Pro 22 Screen Space Reflections (SSR)