Any way of having prerendered CG backdrops?

#1 I'm pretty sure you'll have to get into some C++ on that one:

There's a resource or two floating around on how to get a video into Torque... and you could probably apply that texture to a billboard sitting where the water should be...

Getting the billboard to clip properly may be a challenge however. My 3D-fu is quite weak... but I'm thinking "stencil buffer". Render just the water into the stencil, then use it when drawing your rendered water.

But I could be Very Wrong.

#2 Reduce your water video to individual frames and cover your billboard with an IFL texture that contains those frames.