Reflection Stepping (?)

[aeffertz]

I noticed with the higher amount of reflection you apply to a surface, the more stepping there is. It's not specific to this model in the pictures, rather all models across the game with reflective surfaces. I've noticed the more reflective you go, the more "stepping" there is in the shading. Is there any way to combat this? I've tried various spec and normal maps but it always just comes down to the amount of reflection on a surface that causes this stepping effect.

(ignore the face/face shading reflection, this was just the first model I had ready to export for testing)

.08 mirror


.02 mirror

[jlv]

It's because of the spherical coordinates in the environment map. As you get near the edges of the circle there's a lot of distortion. The environment map is oriented so the center points up and the outside edge points down, so the distortion should be worst on the undersides of things.