Selective Reflections

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  • What is that stops Enscape reflecting?


    As in;


    In the first attached image (Enscape Reflections) we see the objects on the right reflected in the glass of the objects on the left


    In the second attached image (Capture) - from an albeit larger model - but made with identical components and materials, we do not get everything?

  • Makes sense - but if that's the case, why do we get some slabs, columns and walls?

    Enscape does reflect objects that are not on the screen, but very selectively to keep working in real time. What exactly gets reflected is decided based on a number of heuristics considering objects properties (number of triangles, size, distance, etc.).

  • I can only think on two "solutions" for live rendering: 1) calculate all the geometry just in case it's seen in a reflection or 2) calculate every piece of geometry you see from every mirrored surface in every frame as you move around. Both are really intensive.

    In theory the second solution could be "turned on" for static images (and/or when you stop moving). Since the Enscape team say they are constantly working on improving reflections I'm sure that something like this will emerge in future releases.


    As a work-around (in theory and for room sized reflections) you could literally mirror your scene and place it behind a sheet of glass. (Relatively simple to do with Sketchup's components.) But it will double the geometry.


    Another solution for still images would involve a bit more work (but with the speed of Enscape's rendering is plausible); "Create view" where you want the scene (so that you can return to it) then change the enscape view to what you would actually see if you were standing at the mirrored surface, looking where the mirror shows, then render this view. This can then be used as an image texture instead of the glass when you return to the first scene. (Or can be applied post-production, but that seems like extra steps to me.)


    Yet another solution that might work for smaller, fixed animations and outside scenes is to create a reflection view (as above) and place it as a "billboard" that will be seen in the reflection. But it will cast shadows and may need to be lit properly. When taking the reflection image you will probably need to remove some close geometry and make it huge so that it looks right.


    And as Micha suggests, you could also render a really wide FOV at a stupidly high resolution, then just crop the image back to the size you initially wanted. But you are probably rendering >5x the image size... again with the speed of Enscape's rendering this might not be a problem.

    • Official Post

    Makes sense - but if that's the case, why do we get some slabs, columns and walls?

    You can also feel free to check out the following FAQ article for more information about this subject:

    Why are some of my objects/parts of my project not displayed in reflections?