What I tried today#
Experimented different ways of achieving the cockpit monitor effects:
Three SceneCaptureComponent#
This one is straightforwad. Add 1 SceneCaptureComponent2D per side of the mecha. Trick is actually to position at the same location as the first person camera, and use HideActorComponent function to hide the mecha itself from the view.
Single SceneCaptureComponent#
I tried to use a single scene capture with ultrawide POV, and divide the UV in the material, so it gets split into 3. I don’t know what happened and the outcome is a lot messier then I thought (probably screwed up the material blueprint). The issue is that the frame rate is no better than the 3 screen capture component solution as I’ve tested in more complex scenes. My thought is because the single RenderTarget texture has to have large size (I set it to 3072x1024 and it’s still blurry). UE5 was not happy about the large size of the texture, and understandably this might take a different type of toll on the rendering process.
Transparent Shell#
Now I might just use this approach for now. When you hop into the cockpit, I will replace the shell material to translucent, and I might put up some pillars to mimc the idea of panoramic view. This is by far the cheapest and most performant solution… Considering how costly things can easily add up to in Unreal, I think I just have to use this hack…
What worked#
I typically have attachment issue with ideas, for example, I’d love to have the proper monitors in the cockpit, since (1) it feels more authentic, (2) I can dictate what to be shown precisely on the monitor. In general, I can’t kill my darlings like a proper designer. I think today I had some personal growth by providing all the solutions I can think of and pick the more reasonable one.
And what didn’t#
Very frustrated that the single SceneCaptureComponent solution didn’t work out… I was hoping it can somehow make the monitor idea possible. In the future if I decide to go with lowpoly or PS1 type of graphics, I might revist these ideas.