The Great Fleece: Reflection Probes vs. Screen Space Reflections in Unity

Today's article is going to go over reflections in Unity. Two ways to accomplish this are Reflection Probes and the new Screen Space Reflections, which are part of the Post Processing stack. I’ll go over the Reflection Probes first.

You can see below in the Scene View that the doors and wall section are not being reflected in the floor even though the outside environment is. Adding a Reflection Probe fixes this and gives a nice overall reflection as though the custodial staff just waxed everything thoroughly.

Creating a Reflection Probe is done by going in the Hierarchy, clicking the + dropdown, selecting Light > Reflection Probe.

Then I move the probe so that it is at the end of the floor and level it, so the center of the probe is just above the floor.

Next, I’ll click the Collider button in the Inspector and expand the probe to cover the floor. Then, in the lower-right corner of the screen, it shows the sphere generating the reflections.

There are now reflections, but they are now very clear. This is better when performance is needed over better graphics. Now Screen Space Reflections from the Post Processing stack is much better, as I will show next.

The above shows the reflections before the Post Processing with Screen Space Reflections is enabled. And below shows the reflections with it enabled.

You can see the reflections look much nicer in the second picture. So if your target platform is PC, Console, or another that can good processing power, then using Screen Space Reflections is your better option. Otherwise, if targeting lower-end platforms like mobile, you are better off using Reflection Probes.

I hope you found this interesting and informative. So until next time, I wish you well on your coding journey.