Building a Digital Twin XR Campus: Best practices for multiplayer lectures & database-linked attendance?

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
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Hi everyone,

I am planning an ambitious XR project to build a full-scale digital twin of our university department. The core loop of the application is to create a persistent virtual campus where students can put on an XR headset, synchronously enter their respective lecture halls to attend live classes, and have their attendance automatically verified and logged.

Because this is a large-scale project, we are starting with a localized Proof of Concept (PoC) restricted strictly to our own department. We will be using RealityScan / photogrammetry data to construct the environment mesh, which will then be imported into Unreal Engine 5.

Before we freeze our tech stack and commit to specific mobile optimization pipelines, I want to ensure our foundational architecture is solid. I’d love to get your thoughts on three high-level architectural pillars:

  1. RealityScan Asset Management Strategy: What is the best workflow for handling raw photogrammetry data within the master level structure? Is it wiser to assemble individual room scans as standalone actors within one persistently loaded map, or utilize a Level Streaming / World Partition approach to keep the memory footprint low right from the start?

  2. Network Replication Topology for Large Groups: For a virtual classroom setting supporting 30 to 50 concurrent student avatars, what networking topology handles player sync most efficiently without massive rubberbanding? Should we lean toward a traditional Dedicated Server model, or look into external multiplayer engines (like Photon or Epic Online Services) that specialize in multi-user spatial presence?

  3. Secure Client-to-Backend State Syncing: We need the XR client to securely log attendance details back to the university’s central database. To keep the client lightweight and secure, should we execute direct REST API calls over HTTP from the client runtime, or should all database mutations strictly route through an authoritative middle-tier server?

If anyone has built multi-user educational platforms, simulation environments, or large-scale digital twins in UE, I would greatly appreciate your advice on how to structure this pipeline before we start coding.

Thanks!

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smart to nail architecture before optimizing. quick take on the pillars:

world structure — do not assemble rooms as standalone actors in one persistent map. use world partition: one persistent level, room scans as actors grouped by data layer per room/zone, streaming by runtime cells. photogrammetry meshes get huge and wp handles load/unload by player position; data layers give per-room control (hide/swap rooms for events without touching geometry). level instances also work per-room and are easier to iterate, but wp is the better long-term base for a whole campus.

asset strategy — decimate and lod the scans hard; nanite is the cleanest path for digital twins if your target hardware supports it (photogrammetry + nanite is basically made for this). simplified collision only (convex decomposition / generated), never full-detail, or nav and physics choke. atlas textures where you can.

multiplayer + attendance — server-authoritative: dedicated server (listen is fine for the poc) with replicated avatars and voice. keep the database off clients: lecture halls get a server-side volume, enter/exit events + a heartbeat from the gameinstance subsystem on the server push to your backend over http, logging duration not just presence. one small rest endpoint for the poc, reconcile later.

the actual project killer in these builds is usually none of the pillars — it is photogrammetry on standalone xr hardware. if headsets are quest-class, prototype one full room on device before committing the pipeline, and budget for decimation/atlasing from day one.