Yes, for larger terrains you'll want to import from a heightmap. You'll want to do that anyway since the T3D editor doesn't give sufficient tools to create a "good" terrain anyway - and why bother with a big terrain if it won't be good? Take a look here to get started with making better terrains: http://wiki.beamng.com/Toolchain_overview#Terrain Note that at times in the past importing heightmaps has been very tricky (1, 2). I don't think that's the case right now fortunately! I recommend working on your level from this (unzipped) path: C:/Users/username/Documents/BeamNG.drive/levels/levelname After a quick test it seems that importing from this directory works fine for me: C:/Users/username/Documents/BeamNG.drive/yourheightmap.png Please note that you may not have two functioning terrains in place at the same time. You must delete your old terrain and F11 back out of the editor in order for the newly imported terrain to start functioning! Don't forget to F11 back into the editor and save as well if you need to!
Making a nice map is "hard" in general - there are many aspects and all of them require effort. With that said, I don't think it's out of reach for most people - it's just a project which requires a lot of time and effort.
