I'd love a more in depth analysis of your favourite ones, or a comprehensive analysis after you've used them for a while :) Thanks for the great video!
Dragon Map Maker looks awesome! I think that workflow will be intuitive to anyone who has played The Sims, and it produces gorgeous results. Definitely gonna keep an eye on it.
Agreed. Very Sims-like -- and building is the best part of Sims by far. That's all I do with it. Actually playing Sims is pretty boring (to me). Think I'll check DMM out. Also very intrigued by Dungeon Scrawl since OSR black-and-white dungeon maps are pretty much the best.
Dragon reminds me of using DoomCad to design Doom levels back in the late 90s. You design the structure then assign a texture or bitmap to each surface. I think this is overall better because you can reassign a texture or style to an individual piece without having to replace it.
I had the same thoughts (perhaps from the same experience) as well. I'm shopping for a mapping tool and this might be the one. I'll have to see what they've changed since this video and maybe give it a go.
Once you get used to Talespire, it is super cool. The way that it is able to strip away blocks by layer when you zoom in, set up custscenes, and use lighting is truly brilliant. Also, mods are actually really easy to use with it as well.
the idear for that is great... but to be honest, i am always struggeling to blendout the correct layer, or to show the correct props... (I am the DM and we use to play face-to-face with one "presentation" screen... Talespire looks super cool but is not really useable for that)
@Taubrala i actually just did that last night, it worked great. I used the game's photo mode to display on a TV I laid on my table. Its more difficult than just a picture for sure, but in exchange you get things like animated torches, that painted miniature art style, and built in atmosphere tools.
I both love and hate talespire. Ive spent 40 plus hours trying to build the capital city of my world in it and am no where close to being done with even 10 percent of it also the height limit seems very low. my college of magic is supposed to be this massive onyx tower poking up into the clouds and instead its like 3 floors because the engine just wont let me go any higher. There is also supposed to be a massive underground sewer system sprawling through the whole city so trying to build that out then cover it up with other buildings is well a nightmare to say the least. It looks cools and has a lot of cool functionality but I could easily spend 10x the time to make the same simple map in any other map maker so its just not worth it in my opinion.
I LOVE Dungeon Alchemist; but sorely miss the swath of assets I had for DungeonDraft. However, DA is constantly under further development expanding an already amazing asset/feature collection and allow for adding your own 3d assets. If he used Dungeon Alchemist though, he could make these simple maps in under 5 mins.
I like RPG Stories quite a bit (on Steam). It still has a way to go, but it's getting cooler and more in depth with every Update. Also the Discord is super friendly, helpful and fun!
I used Dungeondraft for my VTT games, I like it quite a lot, even with just the default assets. But I'll probably branch out to extra assets once I get beter at using it
You're right. All of these look good for differing reasons. I might check some of them out later, but most likely Dungeon Scrawl. It seems to be quickest option, and for a novelist looking for a simple viusualization of a scene, to contain the least baggage.
PWS, thanks for the review. I have seen you review Fantasy Grounds for another video. I am surprised you didn't include its mapmaker in these videos as well, given the power and quickness inside even the free version of Fantasy Grounds.
Okay, Dungeon Scrawl is everything i have ever wanted. Just straight up drawing. No fancy crap, no complicated menus, no hyped-up graphics that never seem to fit, straight up theater of the mind stuff. Love it. Just made my sewer level for my Kids on Bikes game in about 2 minutes. Perfect. I can fill out the details with my DM brain.
Would be nice to look at explicitly sci-fi and/or apocalyptic map makers (i.e. ones that can best make those style maps). Also perhaps dungeon level vs city level vs world level.
Once you dive into talespire, it has initiative tracker, built in music, and character sheets that allow you to roll dice in game. No need for other apps or pages as a player.
Hey there! Love your vids! If i may i have a request: what about an easy, fast and cheap way to have your maps while live playing? I used to be an online master, but now I am starting to play live and i find this pretty difficult.
Realizing I’m probably a minute late here but…. would love to hear if you had any thoughts on these when used with low sight players. Been experimenting with high contrast maps, tokens, character sheets, and dice. Most are relying on manual tools.
Dynamic dungeon is another one you could test. A lot of assets are behind the patreon wall. As a pivot, top 5 VTT with a 10 minute setup challenge (map load, layer effects, fog of war setup, etc.) would be intereting.
Hello, your information is great and I am loving exploring making maps. You have mentioned in previous videos you have printed high level maps of the forgotten realms. Where are the getting the files? I’m looking at a forgotten realms map, as well as a couple old-school Raven loft maps
WOTC released the high res file for the sword coast a few years ago, but I don't think they released any others unfortunately. I got the file from the WOTC website
I really want to like Dungeon Alchemist but not having round buildings and the ability to rotate buildings really messes with me. I've been trying out Dungeondraft and I like it a lot BUT their export stuff for VTT's doesn't natively work with FGU or FVTT. You need 3rd party apps to do the conversion. I hear there is now a big delay in the release of the next version of DA which promised the features I needed. So I am going to stick with dungeondraft for now.
First let me admit I'm a boomer, then I'm just going to say which is not helpful, I don't know of any reliable way to display anything on a TV from any computer, because, well, random glitches and updates....
The videos are awesome, content and production. The only thing that bothers me is this habit of making the voice hoarser at the end of sentences. I'm going to have to wait for this trend to pass before I start consuming USA's media again.
If you play medieval fantasy then I think I'd have to agree! Although I really like the look of the maps from dragon map marker, and they print really nicely
@@powerwordspill Great Points. I keep forgetting about our modern/sc-fi players/gamers. The irony is, i'm even switching from many decades of GM'n fantasy to modern/sc-fi. 404 brain not found. 😂
I used dungeon alchemist to run a mini campaign and felt super restrained, I’ve switched to using inkarnate and much prefer it. I’m sure it’s subjective, but I wouldn’t recommend DA to anyone
Dungeon Alchemist is one of those things that has a great deal of potential but hasn't had it fleshed out fully It lacks robustness, and if you're not making fairly standard DnD fantasy areas for which there's a hundred maps of already, you'll be lacking
Why dont you try to build the same type of setting for each different program? That way you can show people the real difference between them. Decent vid but kind useless...
