I used this popular and effective method in our architectural visualization app for Apple Vision Pro.
Even after optimizing high-quality architectural models imported from 3ds Max or SketchUp, the scenes were still too heavy for the device. These projects included full-scale environments houses, complexes, and landscapes.
While the presentation started in front of the house for sale, neighboring houses also had detailed interiors, which caused a huge performance drop. Hiding them made the scene look empty, and turning transparent glass opaque created unrealistic and looks like a mirror.
That’s when I came up with the idea: make the neighboring interiors fake.
Technical solution:
• Captured each room’s interior using a Reflection Probe to create a 360° render.
• Converted the output from .exr to .jpeg (ASTC 4x4) and applied it to a cube as a texture.
• Built a custom URP Shader Graph shader, fixing inversion issues and adding per-face depth control for realism.
• Created an Editor Tool called Fake Interior Renderer, which automatically detects reflection probes, captures 360° images, names and saves them, creates materials, assigns the shader, and applies them to the exterior glass.
• The shader included smoothness control, keeping the windows reflective while displaying fake interiors behind them.
Result:
Achieved up to 200% performance improvement with no visible quality loss.
The method became part of our production pipeline for all architectural projects.