- "What's the story with all the elevators lately?"
"I heard Kylo Ren destroyed the one over in D sector."
"If you ask me, who's ever in charge of this place should be transferred to Hoth." - ―Two Stormtroopers
Reflections is a 2018 Star Wars themed tech demonstration of experimental ray tracing graphics techniques for use in video games built with Unreal Engine 4. It involves two stormtroopers complaining about their assignment who are overheard by Captain Phasma.
Synopsis[]
Two First Order stormtroopers are waiting for an elevator and begin complaining that many of them are offline, with one being destroyed by Kylo Ren. One of them says that "who's ever in charge of this place should be transferred to Hoth," only to turn around to find that the door had opened to reveal Captain Phasma. The two enter the elevator and awkwardly stand around until it arrives at Phasma's destination. When Phasma exits the elevator, one of the stormtroopers asks "Do you think she heard us?" The video cuts to the stormtroopers standing in snow where the other stormtrooper quips, "Yeah, I think she heard us." They hear animal howls and gasp in fear.
Development and release[]
The short film was developed by Epic Games for the 2018 Game Developers Conference keynote presentation to demonstrate new real-time ray tracing graphical capabilities in video games. Ray tracing is a technique that models how light interacts with reflective surfaces (for instance, modeling how the elevator lighting reflects off of Phasma's armor onto the Stormtroopers' armor and the walls). Reflections was created in partnership with Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment studio, ILMxLAB, and graphics card manufacturer Nvidia and used experimental code for the Unreal engine. The film is entirely computer generated in real-time at 24 frames per second by running on four-GPU DGX Station from Nvidia (valued at $60,000 USD).[4]
Appearances[]
| Characters | Organisms | Droid models | Events | Locations |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Characters
Droid models
Locations
Organizations and titles
Sentient species
Vehicles and vessels
|
Weapons and technology
Miscellanea
Sources[]
GDC 2018: Epic Games, NVIDIA, and ILMxLAB Unveil Stunning Star Wars Real-Time Ray Tracing Demo on StarWars.com (backup link)
Notes and references[]
- ↑
GDC 2018: Epic Games, NVIDIA, and ILMxLAB Unveil Stunning Star Wars Real-Time Ray Tracing Demo on StarWars.com (backup link)
- ↑ Reflections takes place prior to Phasma's death in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, the events of which take place immediately after Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. Star Wars: Galactic Atlas dates Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens to 34 ABY, meaning that Reflections takes place during or before that year.
- ↑ Reflections
- ↑ Unreal Engine + $60,000 GPU = Amazing, real-time raytraced Star Wars by Orland, Kyle on arstechnica.com (March 21, 2018) (archived from the original on June 6, 2020)
External links[]
- "Reflections" – A Star Wars UE4 Real-Time Ray Tracing Cinematic Demo on the official ILMxLAB YouTube channel (backup link)
