During role-playing, I often feel that while having a visual illustration of the characters helps to immerse myself better in the adventure, being able to see the scene my character is currently in would also enhance the experience. I’ve been on the hunt for tools that let me do just that – illustrate the locations – for a long time. There are a variety of battle maps out there, but I was looking for something that’s not only a fixed top-down map-view, but can also be configured in various aspects, and preferably being able to look around in 3D is also an option.
Fortunately, I found RPGScenery not long ago. This tool allows me to jump around beautiful and complex 3D environments, letting me pick the location that fits my needs exactly, and show it animated, in real-time. I can fine-tune the weather, the sun position, and even add small touches like wind and fog. And once story-time ends, I can flip to a top-down view of the very same environment, with configurable grid types and sizes, so the fights can also be easily modeled!
What I also like about this tool, is that it can be used to queue different scenes one after the other, and save the presets on all of the scenes. This way, I can configure the locations and fine-tune them even before starting a session, and while being together with the party, they’d only see each location in the specific way I imagined and already set up.
If you’ve been looking for a similar tool, check out their Patreon page for more info: https://www.patreon.com/rpgscenery
You can also download a free demo with 2 scenes and all available features here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38458757