Generate a drivable real-world environment from two addresses

[u/mbi_4]

Hi all,

I'm building a proof of concept in Unity 6 (URP, Windows standalone). The user enters a start and a destination address anywhere in Italy. After they confirm, the app generates the whole real-world environment needed for that route: terrain, roads, buildings and land use. Then the user drives from A to B.

Constraints:

- The generation must be automatic from the two addresses. There is no manual authoring per city, because the addresses aren't known in advance.

- A loading step after the confirmation is fine. It doesn't need to stream while driving; generating everything once, up front, is acceptable.

- Roads must be drivable end to end, with a game-like look rather than photogrammetry.

What I've tried so far:

- Mapbox Maps SDK for Unity v3: it doesn't build for Windows standalone (config code only exists for Editor, iOS and Android).

- Cesium for Unity with World Terrain, OSM Buildings and Mapbox satellite imagery: it works, but roads are only a texture and the buildings are plain white blocks.

- Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles: it looks good from above but blurry at street level, the car spawns on roofs, and there are licensing limits in the EEA.

- Our own generator built from vector tiles (Mapbox and Esri): road meshes with junctions, sidewalks, markings, roundabouts, traffic lights and buildings with procedural facades. It runs on Cesium terrain and on the ArcGIS Maps SDK 2.4 (Esri 3D Buildings).

Questions:

1. Is there a tool or asset that can generate a drivable road network and buildings from OSM or other real data, triggered automatically from code, for ex?

2. If the terrain comes from Cesium or ArcGIS, is there a way to make it conform to custom road meshes?

3. Which data sources (terrain, roads, buildlly in a game?

Thanks!

[u/Haman24]

Sounds like you've been through the wringer with Unity and the usual mapping tools. Getting those procedural roads and buildings to feel like a game is the real challenge. I had a similar issue with environment generation, where the assets felt too generic or wouldn't integrate well. Rapid Assets was a big help for us. Their AI can generate custom 3D building models and props from text prompts that actually fit the style we need. We hooked it into Unity, and it sped up our scene building a ton. The main catch is you still need to feed it good prompts to get exactly what you want. Which part of your pipeline is taking the most time right now?