Reflections at 100km

One of the key challenges in Supersonic Fight is making the world feel believable.

Techniques like shadows, ambient occlusion, and reflections are essential for grounding everything in reality. This week, I’ve been focusing on how the ocean reflects the sky.

At low altitude, a simple cubemap (a panoramic sky texture centered on the camera) can work well. However, the game isn’t limited to low-level flight — you might be flying at altitudes up to 85,000 feet (26km). At those heights, simpler techniques start to break down.

To explore this, I compared several approaches.

Each column in the image below represents a different altitude (1m, 15km, 26km, 100km), and each row shows a different technique:

• Cubemap centered on the camera

• Cubemap locked to sea level

• Planar reflections

• Ray traced reflections

(Please note: atmospheric fog is not yet applied here. This is effectively a “clear air” comparison to highlight the differences between techniques.)

Results

• Cubemap approaches quickly become inaccurate at higher altitudes

• Planar reflections provide a strong, consistent result across all heights

• Ray tracing is the most physically accurate, but is extremely expensive and doesn’t always feel right at lower altitudes

Conclusion

Right now, planar reflections offer the best balance between visual quality and performance.

The next step is to integrate atmospheric fog into the reflections, which should significantly improve the final look and better match what you would expect to see in the real world.

If you’d like to follow development more closely or get involved in discussions, feel free to join our Discord: https://discord.gg/2AQMA9Wvgd

—Rich