And how does it compare to similar offerings like Talespire?
Can you use your own 3D models or is it more of a system where you have to use what they make available? Just curious to see what potential this has over 3rd party offerings?
There really is no way to compare the two considering Sigil is barely in Beta. The best analogy I can think of would be trying to compare 2 cakes but one of them is not done being mixed in the bowl, and the other is ready to serve.
There really is no way to compare the two considering Sigil is barely in Beta. The best analogy I can think of would be trying to compare 2 cakes but one of them is not done being mixed in the bowl, and the other is ready to serve.
Just compare them as they are and what direction they seem to be going? Does Sigil allow you to upload your own 3D models? Is it a planned feature? How does it handle the ruleset and how is it for creating maps and play spaces compared to other options.
Yeah, no. Too many assumptions have to be made to make a comparison thus rendering any comparison useless. There are simply too many variables on what Sigil may be for it to be of any value. It'd be like saying i can run faster because my shoes have one more stripe than someone else's.
There really is no way to compare the two considering Sigil is barely in Beta. The best analogy I can think of would be trying to compare 2 cakes but one of them is not done being mixed in the bowl, and the other is ready to serve.
Just compare them as they are and what direction they seem to be going? Does Sigil allow you to upload your own 3D models? Is it a planned feature? How does it handle the ruleset and how is it for creating maps and play spaces compared to other options.
after a few mins of mucking around (still going through the usual learning curve clicking things) things dont look to bad,
havent found anyway to import character minis yet but unsure if thats a potential limitation by design (size conversion - perhaps a later feature) however it seems like you can create a mini while in sigil to use (just the species from the 2024 core books by the looks, assume it will expand)
so far it seems to have for character creation (visuals):
Species: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling and orc (really hope all the other species get added, especially: goblins, kobolds, bugbears, grung and tortles)
Body Shape: male and female
Stature (not sure what they are called but you drag a pointer inside a single box and character changes depending on pointer location): tall/short, skinny/muscles/fat
Poses: 14
faces: 3 for human, 1 for the others
hair: 20
facial hair: 19
eye colour: didnt count
Helm options: 21
torso options: 22
shoulders options: 7
hand options: 15
main-hand weapon: 40
off-hand weapon: 39
leg options: 19
feet options: 21
base options: 17
outside that it seems to have:
mini size options: tiny, small, medium, large, huge, gargantuan
fog of war
inventory items: from 2014 and 2024
only public character sheets (dont have any of the species available so couldnt look into)
journal - includes mark up
music options: 6
click and drag terrain
visible dice rolls
spells and abilities work: the ones i tested had visuals (didnt search but guide says all from fifth edition are supported)
100+ monster stats to add to minis (didnt count them all but theres alot)
honestly outside adding more options (visual) and some potential bugs (like all programs, found one where orcs and mustaches dont display the whole mustaches but thats minor) sigil actually feels like quite a good foundation to build and expand upon
however i did have one issue (most likely user issue) - took me a while to find the dndlauncher once i closed it (kept searching for sigil) :P
all in all believe its a very good start, nice work
EDIT: will have more of a muck around with it tomorrow - havent used a VTT before so got nothing to compare to but think sigil will be able to compete with the others people mention
hope that future adventure purchases come with a premade for the VTT along with extra content to use
Yeah, no. Too many assumptions have to be made to make a comparison thus rendering any comparison useless. There are simply too many variables on what Sigil may be for it to be of any value. It'd be like saying i can run faster because my shoes have one more stripe than someone else's.
All I am asking is what the thing actually does, it really shouldn't be that hard a question to answer. Does it allow uploading of your own 3D files? Is the map building any good? Judge the program as it is and compare it to the other VTTs on the market as they are, it isn't hard.
Luckily the person below you has submitted a more informative answer so I will just read their post.
There are quite a few big differences in how the game is designed and developed, but probably the biggest difference between Talespire and Sigil, is that Talespire is a community-driven product. There is a sort of parallel development taking place where Talespire develops the core features of a VTT while the community develops everything else.
In Talespire, all of the functionality you would expect in a VTT is there, but not necessarily because the devs added it if that makes sense. For example, there is a DnDBeyond integration, but that is created and managed by the community.
That and of course, Talespire actually works as intended, which I don't think you can really say about Sigil. That of course is because Talespire has several years more development than Sigil.
To answer the OPs specific questions.
Yes, you can upload your own 3d models and you can actually publish them for the community to use so there is a huge library of models as well as pre-fabs of reconstructed 3d scenes and scene objects.
The Map building tool is I would say probably more complicated than what most people are going to be comfortable using, it is very feature-rich and that is the cause of the complexity, so it's coming from a good place, but that doesn't change the fact that it is quite involved. Thankfully there is such a great community behind Talespire, with things like Talespire Tavern and Talespire Bazar that you can pretty much get away with using pre-fabs to prep your sessions. So actually building custom boards is something you can skip entirely. You can get away with just using pre-fabs. Most of the time this is how I prepped when I was using talespire.
In the end though compared to other VTT's its a lot more time-consuming to work in 3d, so your session prep becomes less about prepping your session and more about prepping your 3d boards if that makes sense. The two are distinctively different experiences, so you have to do all the stuff you usually do (write stories, prep encounters etc..) but then you also have to build the environments and setup the scenes with 3d models and so on.
For me personally, after doing it for about 2 years I got to the point where I realized that the time spent doing that and what you get out of it wasn't worth the trade-off. It's in the end (my opinion) much easier and just as effective to use something simple like Owl Rodeo to create a digital environment for an online session.
As a whole though I have gotten away from online play entirely, most of the time when I was using Talespire and all that was during the Covid period. Now that this is behind me, I naturally don't want to have anything to do with online play. It still sometimes comes up but considerably less so than before.
The other thing about Talespire is that it's a one-time purchase and you automatically get all updates free from that point. So it's much cheaper than Sigil. I think I paid 15 euros for it and that was all that was ever needed.
Yet all this maybe for naught as 90 percent of the Sigil staff just been laid off. So its either going to die off quickly or remaining staff is going to be crunched severely.
had another little play around with the creative mode in sigil - found it fun, could see putting a whole day into creating some scenes for an adventure started with this: (sorry about picture quality and size - used paint and imgur)
ended with this - dont think i done to bad for a first attempt just mucking around :) found some visual effects - fireflies, fog and some purple stuff :P (there were others like portals, fires and such but didnt use them) ooh and light sources cast shadows - which i found pretty neat
also here is an image of a premade map
and lastly here is a character mini i put together - went with an orc (since there were no goblin player minis.. )
all in all, would recommend it to people if someone asked about a VTT the bones of sigil feel solid and if they created more assets as more books get released (rather then the assumed micro-transaction packs) given time, could see sigil maturing very well as an extra tool in the toolbox for DMs to utilise
it takes forever to quit, have to use ctrl/alt/delete to end the task
it doesnt let you import maps
it has limited creativity and map space
it has like 5 music options and doesnt allow for any others to be imported
its difficult to find the launcher on dnd beyond - (spoiler alert - there isnt one)
it has limited tokens - couldnt find anywhere how to import more
the "quick use guide" is pathetic and only pushes the POS sample adventure that it comes with
overall - it sucks and should have never been started - if this is what they worked on (forever) - what an absolute waste of space this is. what a horrible waste of developer time and energy.
it takes forever to quit, have to use ctrl/alt/delete to end the task
it doesnt let you import maps
it has limited creativity and map space
it has like 5 music options and doesnt allow for any others to be imported
its difficult to find the launcher on dnd beyond - (spoiler alert - there isnt one)
it has limited tokens - couldnt find anywhere how to import more
the "quick use guide" is pathetic and only pushes the POS sample adventure that it comes with
overall - it sucks and should have never been started - if this is what they worked on (forever) - what an absolute waste of space this is. what a horrible waste of developer time and energy.
There IS a way to import images for flat maps, but not 3D maps. It's a thing better used for when you want a custom flat image.
I honestly have none of the problems that I am seeing from some above. I find it rather easy to use and quick to navigate. My desktop is a nearly 10 year old, upper mid-range gaming rig though. I have to wonder if people are using Chromebooks to have these kinds of issues.
If you want a 3D VTT, it is decent. Not spectacular, but easy and free to use. I wish it had more options though.
Because it was in Beta testing phase when it was seemingly abandoned, the full spectrum of hardware and software interactions have not been tested and optimized. It is very possible to run perfectly on one rig, then chug like a frat guy on new years eve on another, even if that other system has better specs. There are also issues with unreal engine itself having strange stability issues, so one person's experience might not be reflective of yours. i would say try it yourself, but i think it isn't going to go anywhere.
You could always try talespire, but it doesn't handle systems, and i think you need to import 3D models.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
Eh. I am not so sure any Chromebook could run Sigil. Just from a quick Google search, even the best Chromebooks of today in terms of components use Intel UHD Graphics (the graphics are done on the processor, not with a dedicated graphics card), which came out in 2021. By running fewer background tasks on the system, Chromebooks can get away with lower-end processors. Sigil requires a GTX 970 - this is a very old GPU that came out in 2014. By comparison, the decade old GTX 970 is 512% more powerful than the Chromebook's graphics card.
For a Windows comparison, my non-gaming computer is probably two years old at this point, but it had the higher end of Intel processor and integrated graphics on its release. Its integrated graphics is approximately the equivalent of a GTX 750; that means the minimum graphics card for Sigil is about 234% faster than my integrated card. While integrated graphics cards continue to improve, I do not believe we are at the point where any integrated card can pass a GTX 970 dedicated GPU.
That is a HUGE problem for Sigil--it means it can only be run on a dedicated gaming computer built in the past ten years or so. That is great for those of us who have a gaming computer... but, because of how D&D works, a single player in the group not having a gaming rig likely means the entire group decides to use a different option than Sigil. I am guessing very few groups are going to go "oh, you do not have enough power for this one VTT? We are picking the very new, very limited VTT over you, our friend."
The sad thing? They almost certainly could have made a 3D VTT that worked for everyone - there are plenty of games that run fine on integrated graphics cards. Skyrim and plenty of other games from a decade ago, might not look as good as Unreal 5 can look... but it still can render pretty decently on an integrated card with pretty solid (if not modern AAA standard) graphics. It was a profoundly strange choice for them to cut drastically into their potential player base (which, again, compounds on itself) in pursuit of something that looked like BG3, instead of something that looked like Skyrim and actually functioned for everyone.
Id be pretty shocked if Sigil ran on Chrome OS with any hardware combo, let alone a Chromebook. Not sure why it would even be mentioned given the number of good gaming PC's that can have issues (from what has been posted, I don't game on computers or have a graphics card).
I have had fantastic results with very old Chromebooks and the maps tool. I have seen working Chromebooks at pawn shops as cheap as $20 and you could put them on lay away. A very economical choice.
Caerwyn, I articulated myself poorly, which has led to misunderstanding. I edited my post for clarity and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I very much mean that a CB could not run Sigil, but for the price of Google's mid-tier products you could instead get the hardware that meets their recommended requirements and for Google's upper tier, you can get an entire desktop that would run it. It is possible to be on a budget and run Sigil, just not when buying an infamously poor product marketed at college students who do not need to run software any more demanding than Power Point and Netflix.
Caerwyn, I articulated myself poorly, which has led to misunderstanding. I edited my post for clarity and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I very much mean that a CB could not run Sigil, but for the price of Google's mid-tier products you could instead get the hardware that meets their recommended requirements and for Google's upper tier, you can get an entire desktop that would run it. It is possible to be on a budget and run Sigil, just not when buying an infamously poor product marketed at college students who do not need to run software any more demanding than Power Point and Netflix.
Sorry if it seems I was putting words in your mouth - my goal was to provide the spec comparisons to help illustrate the problem Sigil has.
Just to be clear, while I also provided data on Chromebooks, I think the bigger issue than Chromebooks is how Sigil disqualifies most Windows laptops on the market, even modern ones. You could spend a couple hundred--even over a thousand--on a laptop that meets your normal, professional, non-gaming needs... it might even be a pretty good laptop for almost every purpose... but if you did not buy one with a dedicated GPU (which has downsides, such as increased weight, decreased energy efficiency, makes it run hotter, typically runs louder, often at lower price points is not as well constructed as a comparable non-gaming rig, etc.) you cannot run Sigil at all as integrated cards are still leagues behind an eleven-year-old GPU in terms of graphics processing.
There are many components missing some may be trivial, others not so much. A cheap (super cheap in most cases) pawn shops Chromebook will work with maps, but a $700 plus pc might get Sigɓil to work until the 3 or so employees run out of things the 90+ percent of the devs that were laid off can provide support for the few 10 year old gaming PC's that have the niche hardware and proper whatever hsrdware that allows Sigil to run until the 3 or 4 devs left get done rolling out what is left to run on the pc's that have little to no issues with the alpha release. For the bulk it is far from a functional release alpha or not. Glad it works for you.just dont see this as a viable solution much like the 4e vtt. Wizbro has pooped the bed yet again.
And how does it compare to similar offerings like Talespire?
Can you use your own 3D models or is it more of a system where you have to use what they make available? Just curious to see what potential this has over 3rd party offerings?
only just installed and going through the "quick start guide"
heres a copy if interested in giving it a read - Quick Start Guide
There really is no way to compare the two considering Sigil is barely in Beta. The best analogy I can think of would be trying to compare 2 cakes but one of them is not done being mixed in the bowl, and the other is ready to serve.
Just compare them as they are and what direction they seem to be going? Does Sigil allow you to upload your own 3D models? Is it a planned feature? How does it handle the ruleset and how is it for creating maps and play spaces compared to other options.
Yeah, no. Too many assumptions have to be made to make a comparison thus rendering any comparison useless. There are simply too many variables on what Sigil may be for it to be of any value. It'd be like saying i can run faster because my shoes have one more stripe than someone else's.
after a few mins of mucking around (still going through the usual learning curve clicking things) things dont look to bad,
havent found anyway to import character minis yet but unsure if thats a potential limitation by design (size conversion - perhaps a later feature)
however it seems like you can create a mini while in sigil to use (just the species from the 2024 core books by the looks, assume it will expand)
so far it seems to have for character creation (visuals):
outside that it seems to have:
honestly outside adding more options (visual) and some potential bugs (like all programs, found one where orcs and mustaches dont display the whole mustaches but thats minor)
sigil actually feels like quite a good foundation to build and expand upon
however i did have one issue (most likely user issue) - took me a while to find the dndlauncher once i closed it (kept searching for sigil) :P
all in all believe its a very good start, nice work
EDIT: will have more of a muck around with it tomorrow - havent used a VTT before so got nothing to compare to but think sigil will be able to compete with the others people mention
hope that future adventure purchases come with a premade for the VTT along with extra content to use
All I am asking is what the thing actually does, it really shouldn't be that hard a question to answer. Does it allow uploading of your own 3D files? Is the map building any good? Judge the program as it is and compare it to the other VTTs on the market as they are, it isn't hard.
Luckily the person below you has submitted a more informative answer so I will just read their post.
There are quite a few big differences in how the game is designed and developed, but probably the biggest difference between Talespire and Sigil, is that Talespire is a community-driven product. There is a sort of parallel development taking place where Talespire develops the core features of a VTT while the community develops everything else.
In Talespire, all of the functionality you would expect in a VTT is there, but not necessarily because the devs added it if that makes sense. For example, there is a DnDBeyond integration, but that is created and managed by the community.
That and of course, Talespire actually works as intended, which I don't think you can really say about Sigil. That of course is because Talespire has several years more development than Sigil.
To answer the OPs specific questions.
Yes, you can upload your own 3d models and you can actually publish them for the community to use so there is a huge library of models as well as pre-fabs of reconstructed 3d scenes and scene objects.
The Map building tool is I would say probably more complicated than what most people are going to be comfortable using, it is very feature-rich and that is the cause of the complexity, so it's coming from a good place, but that doesn't change the fact that it is quite involved. Thankfully there is such a great community behind Talespire, with things like Talespire Tavern and Talespire Bazar that you can pretty much get away with using pre-fabs to prep your sessions. So actually building custom boards is something you can skip entirely. You can get away with just using pre-fabs. Most of the time this is how I prepped when I was using talespire.
In the end though compared to other VTT's its a lot more time-consuming to work in 3d, so your session prep becomes less about prepping your session and more about prepping your 3d boards if that makes sense. The two are distinctively different experiences, so you have to do all the stuff you usually do (write stories, prep encounters etc..) but then you also have to build the environments and setup the scenes with 3d models and so on.
For me personally, after doing it for about 2 years I got to the point where I realized that the time spent doing that and what you get out of it wasn't worth the trade-off. It's in the end (my opinion) much easier and just as effective to use something simple like Owl Rodeo to create a digital environment for an online session.
As a whole though I have gotten away from online play entirely, most of the time when I was using Talespire and all that was during the Covid period. Now that this is behind me, I naturally don't want to have anything to do with online play. It still sometimes comes up but considerably less so than before.
The other thing about Talespire is that it's a one-time purchase and you automatically get all updates free from that point. So it's much cheaper than Sigil. I think I paid 15 euros for it and that was all that was ever needed.
Yet all this maybe for naught as 90 percent of the Sigil staff just been laid off. So its either going to die off quickly or remaining staff is going to be crunched severely.
had another little play around with the creative mode in sigil - found it fun, could see putting a whole day into creating some scenes for an adventure
started with this: (sorry about picture quality and size - used paint and imgur)
ended with this - dont think i done to bad for a first attempt just mucking around :)
found some visual effects - fireflies, fog and some purple stuff :P (there were others like portals, fires and such but didnt use them)
ooh and light sources cast shadows - which i found pretty neat
also here is an image of a premade map
and lastly here is a character mini i put together - went with an orc (since there were no goblin player minis.. )
all in all, would recommend it to people if someone asked about a VTT
the bones of sigil feel solid and if they created more assets as more books get released (rather then the assumed micro-transaction packs)
given time, could see sigil maturing very well as an extra tool in the toolbox for DMs to utilise
it takes forever to load
it takes forever to quit, have to use ctrl/alt/delete to end the task
it doesnt let you import maps
it has limited creativity and map space
it has like 5 music options and doesnt allow for any others to be imported
its difficult to find the launcher on dnd beyond - (spoiler alert - there isnt one)
it has limited tokens - couldnt find anywhere how to import more
the "quick use guide" is pathetic and only pushes the POS sample adventure that it comes with
overall - it sucks and should have never been started - if this is what they worked on (forever) - what an absolute waste of space this is. what a horrible waste of developer time and energy.
There IS a way to import images for flat maps, but not 3D maps. It's a thing better used for when you want a custom flat image.
I honestly have none of the problems that I am seeing from some above. I find it rather easy to use and quick to navigate. My desktop is a nearly 10 year old, upper mid-range gaming rig though. I have to wonder if people are using Chromebooks to have these kinds of issues.
If you want a 3D VTT, it is decent. Not spectacular, but easy and free to use. I wish it had more options though.
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It supports Chrome OS, I thought it was windows only?
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Because it was in Beta testing phase when it was seemingly abandoned, the full spectrum of hardware and software interactions have not been tested and optimized.
It is very possible to run perfectly on one rig, then chug like a frat guy on new years eve on another, even if that other system has better specs.
There are also issues with unreal engine itself having strange stability issues, so one person's experience might not be reflective of yours.
i would say try it yourself, but i think it isn't going to go anywhere.
You could always try talespire, but it doesn't handle systems, and i think you need to import 3D models.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
Eh. I am not so sure any Chromebook could run Sigil. Just from a quick Google search, even the best Chromebooks of today in terms of components use Intel UHD Graphics (the graphics are done on the processor, not with a dedicated graphics card), which came out in 2021. By running fewer background tasks on the system, Chromebooks can get away with lower-end processors. Sigil requires a GTX 970 - this is a very old GPU that came out in 2014. By comparison, the decade old GTX 970 is 512% more powerful than the Chromebook's graphics card.
For a Windows comparison, my non-gaming computer is probably two years old at this point, but it had the higher end of Intel processor and integrated graphics on its release. Its integrated graphics is approximately the equivalent of a GTX 750; that means the minimum graphics card for Sigil is about 234% faster than my integrated card. While integrated graphics cards continue to improve, I do not believe we are at the point where any integrated card can pass a GTX 970 dedicated GPU.
That is a HUGE problem for Sigil--it means it can only be run on a dedicated gaming computer built in the past ten years or so. That is great for those of us who have a gaming computer... but, because of how D&D works, a single player in the group not having a gaming rig likely means the entire group decides to use a different option than Sigil. I am guessing very few groups are going to go "oh, you do not have enough power for this one VTT? We are picking the very new, very limited VTT over you, our friend."
The sad thing? They almost certainly could have made a 3D VTT that worked for everyone - there are plenty of games that run fine on integrated graphics cards. Skyrim and plenty of other games from a decade ago, might not look as good as Unreal 5 can look... but it still can render pretty decently on an integrated card with pretty solid (if not modern AAA standard) graphics. It was a profoundly strange choice for them to cut drastically into their potential player base (which, again, compounds on itself) in pursuit of something that looked like BG3, instead of something that looked like Skyrim and actually functioned for everyone.
Id be pretty shocked if Sigil ran on Chrome OS with any hardware combo, let alone a Chromebook. Not sure why it would even be mentioned given the number of good gaming PC's that can have issues (from what has been posted, I don't game on computers or have a graphics card).
I have had fantastic results with very old Chromebooks and the maps tool. I have seen working Chromebooks at pawn shops as cheap as $20 and you could put them on lay away. A very economical choice.
Caerwyn, I articulated myself poorly, which has led to misunderstanding. I edited my post for clarity and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I very much mean that a CB could not run Sigil, but for the price of Google's mid-tier products you could instead get the hardware that meets their recommended requirements and for Google's upper tier, you can get an entire desktop that would run it. It is possible to be on a budget and run Sigil, just not when buying an infamously poor product marketed at college students who do not need to run software any more demanding than Power Point and Netflix.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
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Sorry if it seems I was putting words in your mouth - my goal was to provide the spec comparisons to help illustrate the problem Sigil has.
Just to be clear, while I also provided data on Chromebooks, I think the bigger issue than Chromebooks is how Sigil disqualifies most Windows laptops on the market, even modern ones. You could spend a couple hundred--even over a thousand--on a laptop that meets your normal, professional, non-gaming needs... it might even be a pretty good laptop for almost every purpose... but if you did not buy one with a dedicated GPU (which has downsides, such as increased weight, decreased energy efficiency, makes it run hotter, typically runs louder, often at lower price points is not as well constructed as a comparable non-gaming rig, etc.) you cannot run Sigil at all as integrated cards are still leagues behind an eleven-year-old GPU in terms of graphics processing.
There are many components missing some may be trivial, others not so much. A cheap (super cheap in most cases) pawn shops Chromebook will work with maps, but a $700 plus pc might get Sigɓil to work until the 3 or so employees run out of things the 90+ percent of the devs that were laid off can provide support for the few 10 year old gaming PC's that have the niche hardware and proper whatever hsrdware that allows Sigil to run until the 3 or 4 devs left get done rolling out what is left to run on the pc's that have little to no issues with the alpha release. For the bulk it is far from a functional release alpha or not. Glad it works for you.just dont see this as a viable solution much like the 4e vtt. Wizbro has pooped the bed yet again.