Apr
25
2015

Creating car mirror with rendertexture

An article by mgear

Creating simple car mirror using rendertextures.

HOW TO
– Right click at Project window, Create / RenderTexture
– Rename “New Render Texture” into something else, like “MirrorRT”
– Drag & Drop “MirrorRT” into 3D object (preferably some flat object) at scene view (it automatically creates Materials/folder and “MirrorRT” material there and assigns to the object)
– Right click at Hierarchy window, Create / Camera
– Rename “Camera” into something else, like “CameraMirror”
– Position “CameraMirror” into that 3D mirror object and rotate it so it looks toward the mirrored view direction
– Make “CameraMirror” the child of 3D mirror object, so that it follows it
– Disable [ ] GUILayer and [ ] AudioListener components from “CameraMirror”
– Optional: Adjust Clipping Plane Near values for both cameras to 0.01 or so (if your model gets gets clipped near camera)
– Select rendertexture file from Project window and Drag & Drop it into “CameraMirror” TargetTexture field
– Hit play!

EXTRAS
– Select “MirrorRT” from Project window to adjust render texture resolution & settings
rendertexture_settings

—

Resources:
– I used this free car model : http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/717576
(had problem with the mirror mesh UV mapping, so made small script to temporarily fix it : PlanarUVMap.cs, attach it to the mesh that needs fixing)
– RenderTexture manual : http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/class-RenderTexture.html

—

Image#1: Broken & fixed UV map (later also mirrored UV map horizontally)

fix_uvmap_1

—

Image#2: Posioning “CameraMirror” into mirror (on this 3D model “Chrome_20” is the mirror mesh and camera is set as child of it)
mirror_camera_position

Tags: mirror, rendertexture, tutorial, uv

About the Author:

.fi

8 Comments + Add Comment

FIRAT 08/07/2015 at 05:09

Hey Bro Can I ask you a question?

Reply
- mgear 08/07/2015 at 05:35
  
  of course, yes
  
  Reply
FIRAT 08/07/2015 at 15:01

http://hizliresim.com/ZD8nOV

I’m trying to do here, but I failed as a mirror.

Reply
- mgear 08/07/2015 at 15:14
  
  Try it first on default plane or quad to see if it works (because UV mapping in custom can cause problems). Also do you have the 2nd camera there somewhere?
  
  And try adding some UV debug texture into the mirror mesh, to see if that works:
  http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i113/Huidafa/UVTextureChecker4096.png
  
  Reply
  - FIRAT 08/07/2015 at 15:31
    
    my mirror is not the only part combined with body ?Does it create a problem?
    http://s1164.photobucket.com/user/firatuckan/media/images_zpsyhimkcws.jpg.html
    
    Reply
    - mgear 08/07/2015 at 18:32
      
      yeah, that will cause problems..
      you could try making separate mirror mesh in Blender or other 3D software and place it there.
      
      Reply
Soraphis 03/08/2015 at 21:54

thats not how a mirror works. this is how a notebook webcam works.

to simulate a mirror you need to adjust your camera based on the position of the main camera

Reply
- mgear 03/08/2015 at 22:33
  
  yeah good catch! have to update this scene later.
  
  Reply