Realm Overseer 3D

[GodPhoenix]

Has anyone tried Realm Overseer 3D or City Overseer 3D? What do you think? What are its strong/weak points?

My PCs like to have/manage their own cities, and I thought it might be a neat way to give them a cool visual...but I'm just not sure if it's worth it.

Thx.

 

[Luke]

If you have Campaign Cartographer, you can get an awful lot out of it.

What is does, in a nutshell, is take any maps you've created with CC2, and "instantly" build a 3D world for you to wander around in.

Whilst the graphics doesn't match NeverWinterNights, its far more flexible - allowing you to gaze into the distance with proper line of sight, and its proper 3D, in that you can move up and down (as in fly).

 

[GodPhoenix]

Is it easy to use/master? I've been slowly getting better at CC2 etc. (see my previous post about SSS's Ghelspad) so if it's fairly easy to use I think it could be very neat.

 

[Luke]

Is it easy to use/master? I've been slowly getting better at CC2 etc. (see my previous post about SSS's Ghelspad) so if it's fairly easy to use I think it could be very neat.

Once you have your CC2 drawing, its *very* easy.
I'm pretty sure that there's a demo available for download to play with.
You basically just start it, pick a CC2 drawing file, then go wandering around in the 3D world. You can try to get fancy with scripting and combat simulation, or you can do all your work in CC2, then just play with it CO3D.

 

[TeeSeeJay]

I bought this on a lark -- $20 wasn't too steep for a toy -- and I think it's pretty cool. However, the CC2 map you start with has to be pretty well-designed to work well in RO, and you'll end up doing a lot of back-and-forth comparision and updating to make things work out right.

I think it's best that once you're happy with your base map in 3D, start working with a copy, onto which you can drop all those "flavor" symbols that you wouldn't ordinarily use, but work well in the 3D map -- things like the tufts of grass and other bits and pieces. Those render nicely.

Also, RO's idea of a suitable color pallette might differ from yours, which makes all the difference if you want to use its texturing feature.

Lastly, make sure you build your CC2 map with the right symbols. RO only renders the "filled" symbols, not the "line" symbols -- or something like that. I tried one of my maps and nothing rendered in 3D because I had used the wrong symbol set. Likewise, if you use a lot of custom symbols, those aren't going to render at all.

 

[tennyson]

I'm pretty sure the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas is compatible with it as well. That's a nice feature if you are using a map that already exists in that campaign.

 

[TeeSeeJay]

I'm pretty sure the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas is compatible with it as well. That's a nice feature if you are using a map that already exists in that campaign.

This is true. However, the product came with a couple FR Atlas sample maps, and the layout got a little -- goofy -- when rendered in 3D. This is because the Atlas maps weren't built with this program in mind. You get things like objects getting stacked; like a town floating in midair because it slightly overlaps a mountain object, little things like that.

But it was cool walking around the moonsea.