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The reliable way to turn a real place into a playable game map is to treat it as four coordinated layers: an elevation raster for the ground, attributed vector lines for roads, closed polygons for buildings, and a georeferencing system that keeps every layer aligned. Choose a bounded area and target engine first, convert geographic coordinates to a local game origin, build terrain before roads and buildings, then generate simplified, tiled meshes with selective collision and level of detail.
What the conversion pipeline actually does
A web map image is not a game world. A game needs geometry, height, collision, materials, navigation data and a performance plan. The source data normally comes in two different forms:
- Elevation: a DEM, terrain raster or terrain tiles that describe the ground height at sampled points.
- Vectors: OpenStreetMap (OSM), GeoJSON or another GIS source containing road centerlines, building footprints and attributes such as lanes, width, height or storeys.
Keep the sources in a common WGS84 georeference while you process them. Before creating meshes, transform latitude and longitude into a local coordinate system whose origin is near the playable area. A local origin reduces floating-point error, while the WGS84 relationship preserves the connection to the real location.
The order matters: prepare and validate terrain first; project roads and buildings onto that terrain; then split the result into cells or tiles and assign level-of-detail (LOD), materials and collision. If you generate roads or buildings before the heightfield is correct, later changes produce floating roads, buried foundations and mismatched intersections.
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Choose the route before downloading data
There are three practical implementation routes. The right choice depends less on which file format you prefer than on whether the world must stream at runtime, whether artists need to edit the result, and which engine owns the build process.
| Route | Best fit | What it provides | Important constraints |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cesium for Unity or Unreal | Streamed, georeferenced worlds and large-area coverage | 3D Tiles, Cesium World Terrain and Cesium OSM Buildings; a full-scale WGS84 globe | Requires a Cesium ion account for the documented terrain and building assets, access-token management and network access or a self-hosted content plan |
| blender-osm | Artist-controlled offline preprocessing and export | One-click OSM and real-world terrain import into Blender; Simple 3D Buildings roof types; automatic placement on terrain | Large extracts need early clipping, simplification and an external metadata strategy; premium features add materials, UVs, vegetation and projected satellite imagery |
| GeoScape in Unreal | Scripted Unreal Editor builds with editable terrain, roads and buildings | Latitude/longitude, area size, terrain detail, independent Terrain/Buildings/Roads switches, Overpass and GeoJSON parsing | Public Overpass services can be busy or rate-limited; finer terrain detail cannot recover information absent from the elevation source |
Cesium for Unity is documented as an Apache 2.0-licensed plugin. Its Unity quickstart lists Unity 2021.3.2f1 or later. The Cesium for Unreal quickstart was written for Unreal Engine 5.1 and states that later versions follow the same steps. GeoScape documentation recommends beginning with a dense-city prototype covering roughly 0.5–2 km before attempting a larger Unreal World Partition.
Define the area, engine and data contract
1. Bound the playable area
Start with a rectangle or polygon that includes the play space and a small margin for terrain skirts, road approaches and streaming transitions. Do not begin with an entire city. An OpenStreetMap extract can be unexpectedly large: the OpenStreetMap Wiki gives an example of more than 100,000 buildings in a 350 MB New York file. Clip that extract before mesh generation.
2. Decide what the player must experience
- Driving or vehicle gameplay requires road widths, junction geometry, collision and a navigable surface.
- Walking gameplay needs building entrances, sidewalks or paths where available, walkable slopes and selective collision.
- A distant skyline can use low-detail building masses, while only selected hero buildings need detailed facades or interiors.
- A globe-scale or continuously moving experience favors runtime streaming; a fixed mission area often benefits from offline cleanup and baking.
3. Write a data contract
Record the coordinate reference system, extract bounds, dataset date, elevation provider, vertical units, expected road fields, building fields, target engine version and output cell size. This prevents a later import from silently mixing degrees, metres, feet or incompatible datums.
Acquire and align elevation and vector data
Elevation for the ground
Use a DEM or terrain tiles with known horizontal coverage and vertical units. Reproject or resample the elevation to the same extent as the vector layers. Decide the vertex spacing before generating roads: GeoScape exposes this choice as Terrain Detail (m/vertex). A smaller metre-per-vertex value creates more terrain vertices and potentially smoother slopes, but it also raises memory, processing and streaming costs. It cannot create cliffs, berms or building-level detail that the elevation source never measured.
OSM, GeoJSON and other vectors
Roads should arrive as attributed centerlines, not painted pixels. Buildings should be closed Polygon or MultiPolygon features. GeoJSON FeatureCollections can carry those geometries plus properties for height, storeys, width and lanes. Preserve the original attributes in a sidecar dataset even after you simplify the render mesh; gameplay systems may need tags that do not belong in the final vertex buffer.
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Coordinate conversion
Keep source coordinates in WGS84 while selecting and validating the area. For engine geometry, choose a local origin near the map center and convert every point to local metres using the same transform. Apply that transform to the terrain sample grid, every road vertex and every building corner. Confirm alignment with at least three known points, such as a road junction, shoreline or survey marker, before generating thousands of meshes.
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Cesium is the shortest path when the world must remain georeferenced and stream content at runtime. Cesium for Unity documentation describes 3D Tiles, cloud content and a full-scale WGS84 globe; the Unity quickstart can import Cesium World Terrain and Cesium OSM Buildings. The equivalent Unreal flow uses the Cesium plugin and Cesium ion.
Unity setup
- Use Unity 2021.3.2f1 or later, as required by the documented quickstart.
- Install the Cesium for Unity package and configure a Cesium ion access token.
- Add Cesium World Terrain and Cesium OSM Buildings to the scene.
- Set the georeference and choose the longitude, latitude and height for the local gameplay origin.
- Place gameplay actors, roads, triggers and navigation volumes in local coordinates while retaining the geographic origin metadata.
- Test the intended camera distance, tile refinement and collision behavior before adding high-detail props.
Unreal setup
- Install the Cesium for Unreal plugin and connect it to Cesium ion.
- Add Cesium World Terrain and Cesium OSM Buildings to the level.
- Set the georeferenced origin and verify that the streamed tiles cover the intended play area.
- Build gameplay-specific meshes and collision separately; streamed visual content is not automatically a complete driving or navigation solution.
- Test with the network conditions and packaging model you expect to ship. If an offline build is required, decide which content will be self-hosted or baked.
This route reduces custom GIS plumbing, but it does not remove production work. You still need token security, a network or self-hosting strategy, gameplay collision, navigation data, LOD policy and an offline fallback if your game cannot depend on a live service.
Route 2: preprocess a static world with blender-osm
The OpenStreetMap Wiki describes blender-osm as a GPL add-on that downloads and imports OSM and real-world terrain data into Blender. Its base edition supports many Simple 3D Buildings roof types and can place buildings on terrain automatically. The premium edition adds default materials, UV mapping, forests and trees, and projected satellite imagery.
Blender workflow
- Install the add-on and define a tightly bounded geographic area.
- Download the terrain and OSM layers for that area.
- Inspect the imported terrain, roads and building footprints before exporting anything.
- Remove irrelevant features, repair obvious geometry errors and decimate distant objects.
- Use height or storey attributes where they exist; assign a documented fallback for buildings without them.
- Separate terrain, roads, building masses and metadata into collections so each can receive different materials, LODs and collision settings.
- Export an FBX or glTF scene for the target engine and retain the source attributes outside the render mesh.
Offline preprocessing gives artists the most control over cleanup, topology, UVs and materials. It also makes the export a snapshot: changes in the real world require a fresh extract and a repeatable rebuild. Keep the dataset date and license beside the exported scene so a later update does not lose attribution.
Route 3: automate an Unreal build with GeoScape
GeoScape exposes latitude/longitude, area size and terrain-detail controls, with independent switches for Terrain, Buildings and Roads. It accepts public OpenStreetMap Overpass data and a global terrain-RGB elevation source. It can also parse GeoJSON FeatureCollections containing building polygons and road lines.
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Configure inputs and field mappings
Map the source properties for height, storeys, width and lanes. A building with a measured height should use that value; one with only storeys needs a storey-height rule; one with neither needs a clearly marked fallback mass. Likewise, road width should come from a width attribute where available, then from a documented road-class or lane-based fallback.
Run the documented editor call
sub.build_location(-33.9249, 18.4241, 1.0, 4.0, True, True, True)The documented example supplies latitude, longitude, area size, terrain detail and three enabled layer switches. Treat it as an editor-generation step, not a runtime streaming API. For larger Unreal areas, convert the result to World Partition and build HLODs. GeoScape recommends keeping Landscape always loaded while buildings and roads stream by cell.
Build the terrain first
Generate a heightfield or tiled terrain mesh
- Crop the DEM to the playable bounds plus the streaming margin.
- Convert vertical units to metres and document any offset or scale.
- Resample to the selected metre-per-vertex spacing.
- Generate a heightfield or tiled terrain mesh with consistent edge samples so adjacent cells meet without cracks.
- Place the local origin near the play area and verify the transformed bounds in the engine.
- Assign terrain materials by slope, elevation or source classification only after the geometry is validated.
Handle source limitations honestly
Terrain detail is constrained by the elevation source. Increasing mesh density interpolates between samples; it does not recover missing retaining walls, small embankments or building foundations. Add authored meshes for those features when they affect gameplay, and keep them separate from the base terrain so a later DEM update is manageable.
Turn road centerlines into playable roads
Classify and width the network
Group centerlines by road class, lanes and width. Prefer a supplied width attribute. If it is absent, use a documented fallback based on road class or lane count and mark the segment as uncertain for visual review. Do not treat a centerline as a finished road: it contains no pavement width, banking, curb, shoulder or collision by itself.
Generate ribbons or spline meshes
- Clean duplicate points and remove zero-length segments.
- Sample the terrain along each centerline and place the road vertices at those heights.
- Offset the centerline to create a width-aware ribbon or construct a spline mesh with the required cross-section.
- Insert explicit geometry at junctions so triangles do not overlap or leave holes.
- Resolve bridges and tunnels as separate cases. A bridge should not be forced to follow the ground underneath, and a tunnel needs an opening, interior surface and collision strategy.
- Assign road materials and collision by class; distant roads can use a cheaper mesh or even a non-colliding visual representation.
Road meshes should be sampled or clamped to the final terrain, not to an earlier draft. If a road crosses a steep slope, decide whether to cut the terrain, build a retaining structure or let the road follow the slope; the correct choice is a gameplay and art decision, not something the centerline can infer.
Extrude and place buildings
Validate footprints
Start with closed building polygons. Repair self-intersections, remove microscopic slivers and split multipolygons into valid parts. Preserve holes where they represent courtyards. A footprint that is open or invalid cannot produce a reliable wall mesh.
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Choose a height rule
- Use a measured height attribute when present.
- If only storeys are available, multiply by a documented storey-height assumption and keep the result flagged as estimated.
- If neither exists, apply a conservative class-based fallback for massing and mark the building for review if it is important to gameplay.
Conform the building to terrain
Sample the terrain around the footprint. On mild slopes, offset the base to the local ground height. On steep slopes, split the footprint, terrace the foundation or create a retaining structure so the building does not float on one corner and bury on another. The final building mesh should retain its source identifier so doors, interiors or gameplay metadata can be attached later.
Use distance-appropriate detail
Generate low-detail masses for distant cells. Reserve facade assets, roof details and interiors for selected hero buildings. Blender-based workflows can import multiple Simple 3D Buildings roof shapes; GeoScape can map height and storey fields from Polygon or MultiPolygon inputs. Neither source guarantees accurate architectural detail, so avoid presenting estimated extrusions as surveyed structures.
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Choose cells around gameplay, not just geography
Split terrain, roads and buildings into cells that match the engine’s streaming system and the player’s expected view distance. Keep terrain cell edges aligned and make roads cross cell boundaries with a small overlap or a deterministic stitching rule. A single giant mesh prevents efficient culling and makes every edit expensive.
Use separate budgets for each layer
- Terrain: keep the Landscape or base terrain available according to the engine’s streaming needs, then reduce far-field resolution or use HLODs.
- Buildings: switch from detailed meshes to simplified masses as distance increases.
- Roads: retain collision only where vehicles or characters can reach; distant road visuals rarely need complex collision.
- Materials: atlas or reuse materials by feature class and avoid unique textures for every building.
- Metadata: store tags, identifiers and source attributes in compact data files rather than duplicating them in every render vertex.
Validate at intended play distance
Test tile loading, pop-in, seams, collision and navigation while moving at the fastest expected player speed. Check both a dense-city block and an open area. There is no authoritative performance benchmark in the documented material, so measure your own target hardware, engine version, cell size, texture budget and camera distance instead of relying on a generic triangle count.
Licensing and attribution before shipping
OpenStreetMap roads and buildings are covered by the ODbL. GeoScape’s licensing guidance tells users to review attribution and share-alike obligations before distributing generated content. Elevation, imagery and terrain tiles have separate provider terms. A map that is free to view on the web is not automatically free to redistribute as baked textures or exported meshes.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors- Record the provider, dataset date, extract bounds, coordinate reference system and license in project metadata.
- Keep required OSM attribution with the build and in any accompanying documentation or credits.
- Check whether an elevation or imagery provider permits offline caching, texture baking and redistribution.
- When regenerating a world, preserve the old source manifest so shipped assets can be traced to their inputs.
Common failure modes and fixes
Everything is offset or rotated
Verify that every layer uses the same WGS84 interpretation, axis order and local-origin transform. Check three known points before rebuilding meshes. Do not fix a datum mismatch by manually nudging individual objects.
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Roads float above or cut through ground
Re-sample the final terrain after terrain resampling and apply the road’s intended vertical offset. Inspect bridges and tunnels separately; they must not be clamped blindly to the surface.
Buildings float, sink or lean
Validate closed footprints, sample all footprint corners and apply a terrain-conforming foundation or slope split. Check whether the source height is metres, storeys or an inferred fallback.
Overpass requests fail or take too long
Reduce the bounding area, cache extracts and schedule retries. Public Overpass servers can be busy or rate-limited; a production pipeline should not assume unlimited interactive access.
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The city looks detailed but runs poorly
Clip earlier, simplify geometry, reduce material variety, tile the world and add LODs before adding more art. An extract with more than 100,000 buildings can overwhelm an engine even when each individual building is simple.
Fine terrain settings do not improve the result
Inspect the elevation source’s native resolution and coverage. Finer mesh spacing only interpolates existing samples; it cannot restore detail that was never captured.
Quick Recap
A repeatable production checklist
- Select the engine route and a bounded test area.
- Download elevation and vector data, recording provider, date and licenses.
- Keep source layers in WGS84 and establish a local origin near the playable area.
- Crop and validate the data before mesh generation.
- Generate and test terrain at the chosen metre-per-vertex spacing.
- Generate width-aware roads from attributed centerlines, handling intersections, bridges and tunnels explicitly.
- Extrude valid building polygons using measured heights, storeys or marked fallbacks.
- Split all layers into streaming cells, add LODs and limit collision to gameplay needs.
- Run movement, seam, loading and navigation tests at target play distance.
- Package attribution, source manifests and provider permissions with the project.
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