Reflection Layer
The Reflection Layer makes a surface reflect the rest of your scene. Use it for polished floors, wet ground, glossy tabletops and mirrors.
Unlike the Glass Layer, which is about seeing through a surface, this is about seeing the scene bounced off it.
Reflections render on the WebGPU graphics pipeline. On a browser without WebGPU support, which falls back to WebGL, the layer will not appear — so set your scene's Renderer accordingly before publishing. See Play Settings.
Adding the layer
Select an object, then in the Material section of the inspector click + and choose Reflection.
Choosing a Surface mode
The Surface control is the first decision, because it changes what the reflection can show:
| Mode | Use it for | What it can show |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | Any geometry — curved, irregular, sloped | Whatever is visible on screen |
| Mirror | Flat surfaces: floors, walls, still water | A true reflection, including things the camera can't see directly |
Shape works on anything and is the right default. It reflects what's currently on screen, so an object's hidden underside, or something just off the edge of the frame, won't appear in the reflection.
Mirror is a genuine reflection rendered from the mirrored viewpoint, so it can show an object's underside in a floor, or scenery outside the frame. It's meant for flat surfaces.
One Mirror surface per scene. If several objects use Mirror, the largest one gets the true reflection and the rest fall back to Shape. Plan for a single hero reflective surface — a floor or a water plane — rather than several.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Blur | Softens the reflection. Raise it for brushed metal, polished concrete or a rough wet surface; keep it at zero for a clean mirror |
| Thickness | How thick the reflecting surface reads as being |
| Steps | How far the reflection searches through the scene. Higher catches more distant detail at more cost |
| Steps Size | How finely it searches. Smaller is more accurate, larger is cheaper and can skip thin objects |
| Tracing | The search method — Linear or Hi-Z. Hi-Z generally holds up better over long distances |
Blur, Thickness, Steps, Step Size and Tracing apply to the Shape mode. A Mirror surface renders a true reflection and doesn't need them.
Tips
- Blur does the heavy lifting. Perfectly sharp reflections read as artificial in most scenes; a little blur is usually more convincing and cheaper.
- If a reflection has gaps or streaks, raise Steps or reduce Step Size — that's the search missing geometry.
- Reflections cost performance. On a scene that's slowing down, reduce Steps first. See How to optimize your scene.
- Wet ground: a dark base colour, moderate blur and a low roughness surface gets you most of the way there.