adywan said:
The thing with Cg troopers is that it they are based in the computer and not in real life so reflections etc happen because someone has programmed them to be there. But in real life things are much different. The stormtrooper armour doesn't reflect the muzzle flashes, which are bright, even in dark lighting so the chances of them reflecting the laser fire is small, if any chance at all. The blasters in the OT were REAL firing props, unlike the plastic lightweight crap ones using in the PT. These things actually fired and created a real, on-set muzzle flash. Guess what....no reflection on any part of the armour
So i won't be adding any reflections to the troopers armour
Coming back to this issue:
I would buy this explantation, but it's incomplete.
The reason we rarely see the reflections of muzzle flashes is because muzzle flashes are extremely short, and are rarely caught on camera. Some flashes are extremely bright, but you'd never see them on 24fps film. Even if you do, you're not guaranteed to be getting the flare at its brightest. Sometimes, the guns don't even appear to fire, but we still see residual smoke and an ejected shell, but no flash (and therefore, no reflections). For instance, in your screenshot, we are seeing mostly smoke, and little to no flash. So it's natural that we wouldn't actually see reflections on his armor.
Forgive me, as I don't have a version of ESB on-hand, but I do have a good example from ANH.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/21101
A screenshot comparison will reveal that the flare not only illuminates all the surroundings, but we can see specific reflections in the helmets of both troopers.
This is a good example, because it reveals a best-case-scenario, where we can see the flare and its effects, which are always there, but rarely picked up on camera.
There are good reasons to mimic this as a general rule.
-It makes sense. The blaster bolts in-universe are many times brighter than the puny on-set flashes, so to see the evidence of the light is visually expected and sensical.
-It's consistent. We see light cast from blasters in other parts of the saga. Yes, even in the OT, such as the turbolasers and some other instances, even with hand-held blasters.
-It's visually compelling.
Here's a little mockup I made, that shows how it might look to color the illumination red (even though this might even be too much).