Most of the screens in AO/AE had only two depths of field; the foreground elements and background elements.
Those epic vistas could be easily recreated with a series of matte paintings. In fact, you could wrap said paintings around a very simple, low poly "landscape" set only a short distance from the foreground camera and it would look magnificent. The sky could be a static matte. The foreground would be where the most polygonal and atmospheric detail is applied.
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