Use a Sprite's alpha to define a visible boundary within the flat reflection destination.
Use your own silhouette#
- Prepare an RGBA PNG with transparent pixels outside the wanted shape. Import as Sprite (2D and UI), retain alpha and avoid Tight Packing in a Sprite Atlas.
- Assign it to Surface Shape. RGB is ignored; alpha masks the reflection. None gives the standard rectangle.
- Choose Match sprite aspect to preserve proportions. Otherwise Surface Size stretches the mask to the destination frame.
- Adjust Shape Alpha Cutoff. A small value such as
0.001preserves soft transitions; higher values remove more translucent pixels.
| Detail | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Supported shapes | Circles, triangles, irregular outlines, holes and soft alpha boundaries. All five reflection modes share mask support. |
| Placement | The full original sprite rectangle is normalized over the destination. The sprite pivot does not move the plane. |
| Import/atlas | Unpacked or rectangular-packed sprite. Read/Write is unnecessary. Point/Bilinear filtering affects alpha edges. |
| Plane | Remains at the rectangle's top edge, or right edge for a vertical Mirror. |
| Capture cost | A small visible silhouette does not reduce the rectangular capture region. |
Keep the shape and plane distinct#
A circular mask is a circular window onto a flat reflection. It does not create curved mirror normals or geometry. Tight-packed masks are rejected. Rotated rectangular atlas and platform split-alpha formats require target-platform validation.
For an ellipse that should be circular, match aspect or set destination height to width × original sprite height / original sprite width.
An irregular puddle workflow#
Author the exact outer outline and transparent holes in the sprite. Assign the shape, match aspect and place the flat plane at the intended top edge. Exclude ground/shore decoration from capture and add a correctly sorted background underneath.
Use the sprite's alpha for curved edges. Soft Edges operates on the enclosing rectangle rather than every irregular boundary. If the reflection stays rectangular, confirm outside pixels are truly transparent: a white circle on an opaque background still has rectangular alpha.