Unreal Engine + $150,000 GPU = Amazing, real-time raytraced Star Wars

SAN FRANCISCO-In the computer graphics community this week, companies from Nvidia to Microsoft have been stressing just how important real-time raytracing will be to making games look more movie-like in the near future. Epic Games used a striking demo at a Game Developers Conference keynote presentation this morning to show just how much better raytracing can make real-time, interactive graphics look with top-of-the-line hardware right now.

The Star Wars "Reflections" demo, made with the cooperation of Industrial Light and Magic, showed two extremely realistic-looking and talkative Stormtroopers clamming up in an elevator when the shiny Captain Phasma pops in. Running on what Epic still refers to as "experimental code" (planned to be introduced to Unreal Engine for production later this year) the raytracing in the demo allows background elements like the guns and the opening elevator doors to reflect accurately off Phasma's mirror-like armor in real time. These are the kinds of effects that Epic CTO Kim Libreri highlights they've "never been able to do before [with rasterized graphics]."

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments