Back to search

How was the reflection of the hologlobe done in the command and control room? Apparently it's not SSR or a cube map?

TL;DRThe hologlobe reflection combines screen space reflections with a light at the globe's centre given a bulb radius matching the globe, set at very low intensity, giving a near-perfect reflection.

Nathan DearsleyVehicle Art Director, Foundry 42 UK

It's a combination of two things there. So we have screen space reflections, SSR as you've already called it. That's okay, but it's got a nasty tendency that the falloff, which is called Fresnel, on the surface, it's not a linear gradient. So it cuts off really harshly on very shiny surfaces, and of course water is very shiny. So what I've done there was — we've got the ability to, you put a light in the center of that globe, we're able to tell the light to have what we call a bulb radius. So the radius of that globe, I think, is like 1.5 meters, so I'm able to put in a diameter on that of three meters, and then you get a perfect reflection. So you set the intensity very, very, very low, and then you get what you saw: it's an absolute perfect reflection of what is essentially a gigantic light bulb. The key with that stuff is that we want to get that then dynamically changing to the hologram tech when that comes in.

Reverse the Verse›2.2 - UK·
Published on this date.5 Aug 2016
EpisodeArt & graphics