My table’s been chasing this big villain for like half a year, and last session we finally cornered him in the ruins of an old temple. I could’ve just read out a narration and called it done, but after all that buildup, a cloaked figure with his back to the moonlight just felt like it wasn’t doing the moment justice.
So I went ahead and made a 30-second cutscene: the villain standing dead center in the ruins, cloak whipping in the wind, moon hanging behind him, slowly turning his head to face the camera — no dialogue, just some atmospheric music underneath. I first generated a character portrait to lock in his look, then animated it from there.
The second it played, the whole table actually yelled out loud. Worth every second of those 30. Technically it wasn’t that hard, the hard part was finally landing the payoff I’d been building for half a year.