How to turn a terrain in a 3D model

[noob]

I would like to know how to turn a WC3 terrain or possibly a SC2 terrain in a 3D model because I would like to make a map which contains the terrains of random iconic maps and the possibility to destroy and replace them or some other similar thing. (and the possibility to make it all fit in a small size through resizing)

If I do not find how maybe I should just grab SC1 terrains and use flat terrains but I wonder if the 3d model and 2d maps would fit together well or just make things look too odd.

 

[Tal'Rarity]

Could use a mix of images and walkable destructibles and/or custom pathing for cliffs/3D I guess would be the easiest, I'm using dummy units myself.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Even if you could use Dat-C3's approach it would not look good as soon as you need fog of war because destructables can not be partially visible.

Why not just do the dirty work and actually try to recreate these terrains?

 

[noob]

For the simple reason that this way I can not move around map terrains, make them rotate around each other, disintegrate them at will , rescale them at will and so on.(I want that to happen during the game not in the editor)
It would make the whole map very cluttered to have 12 full map terrains (even in 492 by 492) in it and there is a cam viewing distance limit meaning I can not do full shows of the entire map if I make a real big map containing 12 maps.(I made half scaled heroes and stuff like that but you can not halve the scale of terrain titles)
I told the reason for seeking what I seek in the first post: 3d models allows to do a ton of things you can not do with regular map elements.
I plan to not have fog of war: I planned some sort of sandbox arena.
You call your way the hard way but I believe that if I have to make the 3D models myself instead of converting the maps it will take longer than making the maps. The problem is not the technical aspect of really having the maps in the same terrain but that with your way I can not move submaps conveniently.
If I had a way to turn SC2 maps in 3D models I would probably have made remakes of WC3 maps in SC2 before.(because not all WC3 maps exists in SC2)

 

[Zwiebelchen]

You could take a look into the ShadowCalculator tool i uploaded sone years ago and reverse-engineer how it creates the 3d model for the shadowmap and start from there.

Alternatively, ask Retera on how he would do it. He's working on a fully fledged game engine being able to read wc3 maps.