“Impostering” isn’t a new idea in real-time rendering, it’s been around for quite some time. To put it simply, it’s replacing complex geometry with simple sprites (textures) to reduce the complexity of the scene. If the sprites can be dynamically regenerated upon certain criteria (when the camera exceeds some threshold, usually) or cached locally, then the effect is a huge improvement in render-speeds with almost no impact on visual quality.
Maxis was apparently experimenting with using Imposters, with sprites rendered from 3D Studio Max, in their “Simsville” game. The game was, unfortunately, canceled and never released. But a video has just appeared on Youtube showing the effect in action, and reminding us of the game that never was.
