Overview
A real-time XR stage environment built in Unreal Engine 5 — a pink foggy cityscape with a procedural emissive window lighting system, designed for live stage production.
The Challenge
Designing a fully real-time XR stage environment using Unreal Engine 5 — a pink foggy cityscape with procedural emissive window lighting for a live stage backdrop. The goal was a cinematic, high-performance scene deployable in a live production context.
Technical Approach
Built a procedural emissive window material system using Blueprint and HLSL Custom nodes to simulate hundreds of building windows without using RectLights — solving major performance bottlenecks. The fog and atmosphere were tuned using UE5's Exponential Height Fog and volumetric clouds.
Key challenge: Achieving the dense emissive glow look without destroying GPU performance in a real-time context.
Result
A fully real-time stage backdrop with dynamic lighting, atmospheric depth, and a signature pink-hued cityscape aesthetic — optimized for live event deployment.