It’s been awhile since I pulled data from google earth (via Sketchup if I remember my method correctly) and then had to go through a series of translations to get it to work in software like Unity and Unreal.
Maybe technique has gotten better, but I found that the level of detail wasn’t there, or perhaps if it was the data was simply too dense for my video game work.
Instead I started generating height maps through different software. of course is only useful if you are trying to go for that more realistic sculpt of a landscape and if the map doesn’t have to be a specific place.
L3DT is the software I used. I believe I had to export as Targa files, then go through Photoshop and convert my files to tiff. Much of the problem with software like is that it is hard to control the results. I’ll think that the first generated landscape looks quite nice, and if i can just make a little lagoon and beach it’ll be perfect,then spend the next four hours trying to generate it and see if I get close which isn’t possible, as it’s randomly generated, so that means some sculpting is required afterwards.
Finally, upon importing, the Z axis is always extremely high, and needs to be scaled back quite a bit to get it into the right proportion.
There is other landscape software out there that is quite good, and quite pricey.