What is it?

The Adventure3d project helps you to translate your roleplaying adventure dungeons from pen&paper into 3D models and generate videos from a flight over your model dungeon or even through the rooms.

Adventure3d contains lots of objects you can use: e.g. different types of rooms and corridors, animated fireballs, chest with and without treasure, animated doors, trap&secret doors, altar, tomb, bed, cupboard, table, chair, glass with beer or wine, card games, paintings on the wall.

Additionally this project contains a lot of macros needed to generate a video animation from the created model, e.g. a camera path macro.

Adventure3d bases on the famous freeware raytracer POVRAY. Indeed it is some sort of library for it. You do not need to know anything about the POVRAY raytracer - but is it helpful if you intend to create additional objects which are currently not contained in this library.

Adventure3d is easy to use. To demonstrate this, read the example below.

System requirements

Since POVRAY is available under Linux, Mac, Windows, and as source code, you may run Adventure3d under nearly any platform. There are nearly no restrictions on processor power - but it helps a lot, since raytracing is very time consuming. POVRAY and Adventure3d does not need any special 3D graphics card.

Simple Example

The following example description presumes the Windows version of POVRAY, because it provides an embedded editor which make things easier. Therefore, Linux fans, please forgive me - I am a Linux fan, too! (BTW: This HTML page is written with Emacs :-)).
  1. Download and install POVRAY.
  2. Download Adventure3D and unpack it in an arbitary directory, e.g. c:\, so that it unpacks to c:\adventure3d\adventure.inc and other files.
  3. Start POVRAY and create a NEW file within the POVRAY editor:

    #include "adventure.inc"

    #declare PosR1=<-4,0,-2>;
    #declare PosR2=< 2,0,-1>;
    #declare CamPos=<0,5,-10>;

    object{RoomD1(4,5, 4,2,4,3) translate PosR1}
    object{RoomD1(3,3, 0,1,0,2) translate PosR2}
    object{ConnE(0,0, 1,2)}

    camera { location CamPos look_at <0,0,0>}
    light_source { CamPos color White }
  4. Save this file under c:\adventure3d\simple.pov and hit the RUN button in POVRAY.
You will see the following scene:
Too complicated? No it is easy! Here is the explanation:

TO BE CONTINUED (2006/05/23)...