Dynamic Cubemaps

OVERVIEW

Community Shaders feature which improves reflections with an advanced reflections system.

Screen-Space Reflection Capture takes information from the screen and projects it onto a sphere, used as a cubemap. This means that once data has been seen, it can be accessed even when off-screen at the cost of accuracy. This means that reflections can reflect their environment rather than a fake scene.

This was inspired by Nostalgia Shader which first did screenspace reflection capture. Whilst the basic concept is the same, I have expanded on it in many ways which makes it significantly more powerful. In most cases it should feel like pure magic.

In exteriors, this data is blended with the reflections cubemap to add the sky, which changes with the time-of-day and weather.

This works in multiple stages where only one runs a frame to maximise performance:

• []Capture: Projects screen-space information to the raw cubemap, and updates positions used for fading in and out data.

  []Inference: Infers missing information (due to either having faded out or missing).

• Specular Irradiance: Generates blurred textures used for reflections.

  It also extends water reflections so that they can span across the whole screen, and fully replaces interior cubemaps so that they reflect the real environment.

  The ENBSeries dynamic cubemaps specification is fully supported, including complex material support. However, it comes with the following additions:

  - Coloured reflections. Vanilla cubemaps can be replaced with an sRGB F0 reflectance value, e.g. from Physically Based - The PBR values database (specular colour). Instead of making a dynamic cubemap black, give it a colour! Black cubemaps are mapped to an F0 of 1. 0.

  - Blurred reflections. Standard reflections are slightly blurred to look more realistic.

  - Inference to generate more accurate cubemaps.

  - Fades in and out data depending on positions. Alongside inference, reflections will change as you move through a cell and can estimate what is behind/above/below you.

  - Adds screenspace data in exteriors as well as interiors. This means that lights and windows can be captured during night-time, as well as shadows, grass, and more.

  This feature also supports VR, which means that an approximation of SSR is offered for VR users. The sky cubemap is also unlocked which means that mods like SkyVRaan are no longer needed.

  Additionally this adds fresnel as a form of cheap specular GI for dielectric surfaces. This applies