AStarfieldplayer has sparked a fresh debate in the game’s community. This time, it’s about mirror reflections.
The discussion was started by a user over on Reddit, who took to the Starfield subreddit earlier this week to post a side-by-side comparison of mirror reflections in Starfield (which are non-existent) and in 1996’s Duke Nukem 3D. The latter of which does include mirror reflections, which, at face value, can lead people to believe that Starfield isn’t as technically advanced as a game from almost 30 years ago. But that simply isn’t the case.
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Despite having over 6,000 upvotes, there were hundreds of comments defending Starfield’s honor. Many were quick to point out that even graphically intense titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 don’t have natural mirror reflections. Instead, any mirror found in Cyberpunk 2077 has to be “activated” to see the reflection. But you don’t see the Cyberpunk community complaining!
Others also pointed out how difficult it is to create the effect of mirror reflections. “Reflections are actually INCREDIBLY difficult to make in video games,” one user said, whilst another user explained how a lower poly count (such as Duke Nukem 3D) makes it easier to create a mirror reflection.
So, HowDOMirrors Work In Video Games?
As video games continue to advance further and further with each passing year, certain features become increasingly difficult to pull off. Mirror reflections, for example, can require developers to completely render everything twice, doubling the amount of resources required.
That’s not to say it’s not possible. From Super Mario 64 to Hitman 3, mirror reflections aren’t exactly uncommon. There’s a fantasticvideoby Inside Gaming that breaks down a few different techniques used by developers to create mirror reflections.
One technique used is called ‘planar reflections’, which renders the environment for a second time, but from an inverted perspective. This means it’s not a reflection, per se, and is actually the player controlling a duplicate character that is inverted.
Then there’s ‘cube mapping’, which involves generating a static 2D texture map of a particular environment and then projected from the inside of a cube. The reflection that is shown to the player is then dependent on the camera angle of the player. But when it comes to cube mapping, you’ll find that it’s far from perfect, with developers often applying a blurry filter so you’re able to’t see the imperfections.
Finally, we have ‘screen space reflections’. This method is often used for less detailed reflections, such as puddles or reflections on a shiny surface, and takes note of the player’s surroundings and projects a version of that for the player to see.
While a mix of the above methods are used regularly, advancements in ray tracing and GPU chip architectures from the likes of AMD and Nvidia are making real-time reflections more common. If you want to find out more, ensure to check out Inside Gaming’s full video.
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