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Interactive 3D Temple
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The Temple Pattern Module for NWN
The following is outdated, old, and I no longer support this project I created. However it is still fully available and operational! Over 200 people have downloaded and tried this project. I am willing to answer questions as best I can about the project but I no longer work on it. I do however, have a page that discusses entertainment from a Biblical perspective with facts and statistics. The link is on the bottom of this page.
UPDATED - NOW 2 VERSIONS (no expansions needed!)
I have designed and published an interactive 3D Temple of the Old Testament, based upon the Tabernacle of Moses. This format is in what is called a module or mod. The mod is for computer game called Neverwinter Nights or NWN. (I will be using the abbreviations as I continue on this page). Whether you hate or love computer role-playing games, what is unique with this game system, is that you can create your own mod's or games.
This feature is so nice, many schools and other institutions have used NWN as a teaching tool. I used to have sources and quotes that are now outdated or deleted, but Wikipedia still states this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights#Educational_usage
Neverwinter Nights has been used by many colleges and universities for a variety of educational purposes. It is used at West Nottinghamshire College in the United Kingdom as a means of delivering Key Skills and of showing IT designers how to understand the coding in the game. The college uses the game for students ages 14 to adult. The Synthetic Worlds Initiative at Indiana University has used it as a basis for the creation of Arden: World Of William Shakespeare, where Shakespeare's dramatic history of Richard III and The War of the Roses can be interactively explored. The game and the Aurora toolset are also used at Macquarie University in Australia. The University of Alberta offers a computer game design course which uses Neverwinter Nights and the Aurora Toolset as the platform for teaching and course projects. The University of Minnesota uses the game to teach journalism students how to gather facts and information for news events with a modified modern setting for the game that involves interviewing witnesses and doing library research. In the modified game, students work in pairs putting together a story about a train accident that causes a toxic chemical spill.
As you can see, I am not the 1st to use NWN as a learning tool.
By creating your own mod, you can control everything that is placed in the game. As such, I have created a Biblical environment which has NO fantasy elements such as magic or monsters. Of coarse a person is limited by the computer graphic models to use in the game. As such, some models are not accurate to what the Bible gives. Fortunately NWN has been around awhile and because of this flexibility many computer artists and modelers have created numerous custom content to be used. Unfortunately the more content you use, the bigger the resources for the mod. Some extra content has to be added via hakpaks or haks. This is not like other computer game hacks where a person breaks into the code to allow people to copy and play the game for free or changing the graphics illegally. Bioware, the company that made NWN, has made hakpak compatibility, where you can load in custom content just by using the games tools. In fact they encourage this and have given out awards for such content.
I have chosen minimal custom content to make the mod and corresponding hak as small as possible while giving satisfactory Biblical imagery to the appearances needed. If I were a modeler or computer programmer/scripter I could make an impressive realistic temple that could look almost exactly like the pattern God gave Moses, unfortunately I don't have those skills.
I am not setting you up for a disappointment however, as I am very pleased with the final outcome. I have taken the time to make the quality as good as possible to represent the excellence God desires His people to give the world and to His church. This is no shoddy work. I have spent about a year of experience creating mods for NWN and thus have experience to make a mod of quality. Of coarse there are many out there who can do better than me, based on their computer skills or the amount of time they spent in fantasy gaming. That is not my focus or calling and as such I think I can put my other skills into the task at hand to give a New Testament look at the Old Testament Temple imagery. While those with modeling skills may not have the gifts needed to put together a Biblical tool such as this.
NWN may be the best vehicle for such an endeavor that I know of, for what I wanted to do. (At the time this was written) There is other such vehicles for other similar works. For example you can download a 3D Tabernacle of Moses which you can explore here (free):
The Virtual Tabernacle
They also have an online version and I think even a chat room version. But there are no lessons involved, only looking at the imagery itself. And the imagery is much more accurate than the one I have created. But you can move around inside the 3D environment. There is another such project, the old one is no longer working and they are working on a new one. You can check out their webpage and work there (but the program is not up and running yet):
3D Virtual Tabernacle
I also recommend their links page which has many Tabernacle links to pictures, animations, and movies, some for free and some for purchase:
TABERNACLE LINKS
The benefit of this is you can get NWN cheap, especially used copies. Whether you go to Ebay or a local used media store. However, to use my original mod, you will also have to have both expansions for NWN: Hordes of the Underdark (HOU) & Shadows of Undrentide (SOU). Again, these expansions give commercial fantasy mods, but also give a new tileset terrain, useable for making mods, as well as other newer features, thus they are redeemable and don't have to be used for fantasy entertainment. However, as of my last update, I now have a no-expansion version available for download as well. So you can purchase the original game without any expansions to use my mod. There are other expansions, in particular one called Kingmaker, I believe, but that is solely a commercial mod and adds no more content for mod builders. These 2 expansions can be purchased together in 1 package with NWN if you buy the NWN Diamond Edition. It contains everything you need. Be aware though there are many DVD copies of this, and it won't work unless you have a DVD player for your computer. I think, but am unsure, that there also are CD versions of the Diamond Edition. Look for this format if it is a concern before you purchase a copy. (This was written before DVD players were standard in computers, but still may be a concern for some people.)
There is also a Gold Edition, but this is only basic NWN with SOU. You could buy that and then purchase an edition of HOU separately. Or you can purchase all 3 separately like I did, and I got the expansions used real cheap, less than $10 each. One locally the other on Ebay.
You will then need to install all these onto your computer, and probably need to update the game via the patching process through your internet connection (this is free and just fixes errors in the game and adds more content). (Please note, patching through the game may not work, since the game is so old, you may have to search online for a downloadable patch.)
Remember, I also have a no-expansion version, and thus you only need basic NWN to run it. But you can run both versions with the expansion installed.
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You can download my free module here:
Neverwinter Vault
That link leads you to the webpage on the Neverwinter Nights Vault where I uploaded my modules. It is a website for NWN content. I am NOT the owner or webmaster of that site, it is simply a tool I am using for them to host my NWN content for free. I am however, the User content provider for that page. I have access to what can be downloaded there as well as descriptions of my content. I do NOT have any authority over the advertising on the page. My website cannot handle the actual mod or hakpak for my mod, and thus have to use such websites. (I now no longer update nor regularly visit that page, but it still works free at the last look)
On that page you can view some pictures of my mod: The Temple Pattern as well as download the needed files. That page has the readme's and mod's zipped together as 1 file without the haks. You can also download a complete package that has zipped together the readme(s), the mod, and the hakpak(s). I suggest downloading that as it has everything you need (if you own NWN, SOU, HOU - for the original mod, or download the other package if you do not). But the hakpak is not on that page (separately), but there is a link to it. Which takes you here:
Sheep Hak Plus
That page is on the same website and is simply the page for the hakpak I created. Which is needed for the mod.
The desert hak was not made by me. I chose a small desert tile set, that had relatively good graphics. There was a smaller desert tileset, but the tileset was not very good. You can download the desert tileset here (if you want to download it separately):
Desert Tileset
You will need a zip utility to uncompress these files (except the solo readme file). They are compressed so that they can be stored with less space as well as downloading faster. I zipped them with Winzip. Most Windows systems come with a free zip utility so you probably don't even need to find one any more, but if you do, there are many free ones out there.
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I have a webpage that discusses entertainment more generally, but which does focus on gaming in general, with a scriptural and statistical view here:
The Entertainment Page
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