# Best way to fake reflection on a metallic material?

**URL:** <https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798>\
**Category:** Questions\
**Created:** [August 5, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798 "2022-08-05T09:29:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Alec](https://forum.babylonjs.com/u/Alec)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798/1 "2022-08-05T09:29:15Z")

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I have a car model to display on a scene:

 ![range rover exporter](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/babylonjs/original/3X/2/f/2f092040265727dd7a7a83d204e3604ab9eb8549.png)

But the environment texture in the scene change the original color too much:

 ![MicrosoftTeams-image (2)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/babylonjs/original/3X/a/e/ae616ad9c89c54dafa66933b91e98948e2a58b4e.jpeg)

What is the best way to fake reflection using a flat texture? I want the model to be as light as possible in size, so I want to avoid using cube maps.

The best option so far is using a texture like this one:

![reflection texture](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/babylonjs/original/3X/f/6/f675421e49c88ef16ed0429231d1ee57f84becc8.jpeg)

As a reflection texture, and set the uv unrwap mode to equirectangular. The result is not perfect tho, there is a better way to do this?

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**Author:** ![carolhmj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/forum.babylonjs.com/carolhmj/32/25918_2.png) [@carolhmj](https://forum.babylonjs.com/u/carolhmj)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 10:13am UTC](https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798/2 "2022-08-05T10:13:36Z")

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> But the environment texture in the scene change the original color too much:

You can reduce the scene’s environmentIntensity property 🙂 [Scene | Babylon.js Documentation (babylonjs.com)](https://doc.babylonjs.com/typedoc/classes/BABYLON.Scene#environmentIntensity)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Alec](https://forum.babylonjs.com/u/Alec)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 10:27am UTC](https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798/3 "2022-08-05T10:27:22Z")

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I’ll chek this out, thanks.

But is there a chance that is the same as the Environment parameter in the level section of PBR material, like this:

 ![immagine_2022-08-05_122650561](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/babylonjs/original/3X/c/a/cac711fd24eebbed034547f405d5d472a69ce625.jpeg)

In this case I can lower the light from the environment cubemap, but that makes the material dark, it still needs a texture for the reflection.

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**Author:** ![mawa](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/forum.babylonjs.com/mawa/32/12384_2.png) [@mawa](https://forum.babylonjs.com/u/mawa)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://forum.babylonjs.com/t/best-way-to-fake-reflection-on-a-metallic-material/32798/4 "2022-08-05T13:00:49Z")

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Hi, I would rather lower the level of the environment texture. By lowering the level instead of intensity, you are keeping with the difference between the white and black point. It’s only that the white point because ‘light gray’ and the black point ‘dark gray’. Overall, as you lower the ‘level’ of your environment texture, the texture will be less present and ‘flatter’. I often use a level between 0.2 to 0.5 for my reflection of an env texture on metallic parts. It gives enough reflections while not altering too much the color of the metallic part.