How to enable SDFGI reflections for transparent materials?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By JamesC01

If I use a non-transparent material with SDFGI, I get lovely reflections in shiny materials, but if I make the material transparent (water or glass, for example) the reflections don’t work, and the material looks awful. How do I enable SDFGI reflections for transparent materials?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: Calinou

SDFGI likely has two limitations in place for performance reasons:

  • Transparent materials do not use reflections (sharp reflections at least), as these would be very expensive to render on transparent materials.
  • Transparent materials are not present in the signed distance field generated by SDFGI. This means transparent materials can’t reflect light and show up in reflections on other opaque materials.

Consider using a ReflectionProbe node around the transparent material to give it some reflections. This can be done along with SDFGI, VoxelGI or LightmapGI.