I recently have been learning Unreal Engine and exprimenting with retro game design. As I was inspecting games for inspiration and technical details, I came across an interesting feature that I found in the Quake III engine.
In particular, the game Return to Castle Wolfenstein uses meshes on each level to create a background / backdrop for the maps. These meshes are miniatures hidden outside the map, which are then projected like you would use an HDRI(?). The projected view can never be reached. No matter how far you “fly” out of the map. The mesh itself seems to be a static mesh, as I was able to locate it and stand on it. (See screenshot attached / below).
My question would be: Is such thing achieveable using Unreal engine? I already did several searches for this topic. The problem is that I don’t know the correct term for this application of meshes.
Could you please advise if possible or not, and if yes, point me towards the right direction?
I don’t see why they would be projected as HDR if they just exist and render.
Chances are they don’t need to be projected, since they cost a single drawcall each to render.
You do the HDR thing when you bake a level out of the game.
Say you make a super detailed map piece of some sort. You extract a cube map from it. Use the cubemap on another level and destroy (or simply do not bake) the level that originated said cube map so as to save on rendering costs.
I’m pretty new to Unreal Engine (basic knowledge) and mostly have experience with 3d modeling. So what you are saying is that if my narrow my search for closed level inside larger level, I should be able to find a guide that could lead me onto the answer how I can project the mesh out as the above example?
If i could figure out the term for such application of a mesh, or projection of the mesh onto the world, that would be the real deal. I can do my research after that.
Thank you again for your response. I greatly appreciate the help.
