First of all, hope title doesn't falsificate and sorry if my question makes few to zero sense.
As I am working on a browser based game with isometric projection, my initial idea was using sprites with canvas, but after then decided to switch to a webGL based solution for using some 3D features as well.
After then and reading Ocean Quigley's blog post about imposters ( http://oceanquigley.blogspot.com/2010/03/decorating-buildings-in-simcity4.html ) , I was not sure about " Buildings were rendered by projecting textures onto very simple 3D geometry " part.
So I sent him an email about this and he was kind to reply. If I may quote he replied that
... we made simple boxes to capture the extents of the buildings. We UV'd the building sprites onto those boxes, using an orthographic projection, mapped to the appropriate camera (which was fixed per zoom). That was just part of our content pipeline - the game fetched the appropriate art asset (3d model with texture) and inserted it into the scene.
After this happy coincidence to learn briefly what UV mapping is, I am pity still not sure about this basic geometry part
For example when looking at Simcity 4's Dao Chemicals building,
If I am not mistaken, entire building without container props next to is one box, container props next to it are separate boxes and game fetches them and put into scene. And doubt these are 3D models anymore looking at Last Chance Motel for example (tables, trashcans, signs all are separate props)
But what I don't get is (considering what I know about UV mapping is very limited) if it is possible to UV map a box with a "texture" like this?
Or asking same question different way, how can I manage mapping sophisticated modelling into simple geometry?
Thanks in advance