# Seven Wonders on One Horizon

- Collected by: petergpt (collection) (original author unknown)
- Card: Verified rebuild
- Theme: Cinematic animations
- Stack: Three.js CDN · three@0.170.0
- Interaction: Drag
- Licence: prompt is a credited link (Shared publicly by the author; full text with credit, removed on request); rebuild code MIT
- Verified: 2026-11-09
- Original post: https://github.com/petergpt/3d-prompt-collection/blob/HEAD/README.md#prompt-03

## Original prompt

```text
Create a maximum-ambition Three.js world in which all Seven Wonders of the Ancient World stand together, restored and alive, along one continuous sunlit coastline - an image that has never existed and can only exist here. The camera sails a grand bay: the Lighthouse of Alexandria guards the harbor mouth; the Colossus of Rhodes stands over the next inlet; the Great Pyramid of Giza rises inland on a golden plain; the Hanging Gardens of Babylon terrace down to the water in cascading green; the Temple of Artemis gleams in its precinct; the Statue of Zeus is glimpsed enthroned through the doors of its own temple; and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus crowns a headland. This must not be a museum of scattered models on flat ground, a diorama with toy scale, or a dark stylized montage. It is one coherent, breathing ancient Mediterranean world at true relative scale.

The goal is the visual impression of a billion individually considered pieces: column flutes, gilded statues, painted friezes, terraced plantings, harbor chains, rigging, roof tiles, market awnings, processional roads and thousands of inhabitants. Achieve it with extreme visible detail, instancing and nested LOD, not raw counts.

If you use Three.js, add an import map before the module script mapping "three" and "three/addons/" to the same pinned version, and import only via those names. Everything procedural; no external assets.

#### FIRST FRAME - SEVEN WONDERS, ONE HORIZON
- Open from the deck-height of a ship entering the bay in late-morning sun: the Pharos towering close on one side with its smoke and mirror flashing, the Colossus visible across the water, and at least four other wonders readable along the receding coastline, each unmistakable by silhouette alone.
- The bay is alive: merchant ships under sail, oared galleys, fishing boats, gulls, sparkling water and wakes. The shore is alive: harbors, warehouses, processions, caravans moving between the wonders on a coastal road.
- True relative scale is a core spectacle: the Pyramid must dwarf everything as a mountain of geometry; the Pharos and Colossus read as astonishing but human-made; the temples are vast yet approachable. The viewer should visibly FEEL the size ranking.
- Bright Mediterranean light, saturated sea, painted architecture. No menus, titles or reveals.

#### EACH WONDER, DONE JUSTICE
- Pharos of Alexandria: three tapering tiers, the flame chamber with a polished mirror flashing periodically, spiral ramp traffic of fuel donkeys, statues at the corners, waves breaking on its mole.
- Colossus of Rhodes: a bronze sun-god standing beside (not straddling) the harbor entrance on a great pedestal, sun blazing off the bronze, ships passing beneath his gaze, a radiate crown catching light.
- Great Pyramid of Giza: polished white casing intact with a gilded capstone, mirror-flat faces flashing the sun, a processional causeway, sphinx and satellite pyramids suggested, heat shimmer on the plain.
- Hanging Gardens of Babylon: stepped terraces overflowing with instanced vegetation, visible water-lifting screws and channels glinting as they turn, waterfalls between levels, gardeners moving among palms.
- Temple of Artemis: a forest of slender columns with painted capitals, votive smoke, pilgrims, market of silver trinkets at its steps.
- Statue of Zeus at Olympia: inside its temple with the great doors open toward the sea road, the seated god in gold and ivory glimpsed glowing in shadowed interior light - a composed reveal through columns that rewards approaching the doorway.
- Mausoleum at Halicarnassus: the stepped roof and chariot finial on its headland, sculpted friezes readable up close, cypress avenue approaching.

#### ONE WORLD, NOT SEVEN EXHIBITS
- Stitch the wonders with living connective tissue: a coastal road carrying caravans of camels and carts, way-stations, aqueduct fragments, fishing villages, olive groves and vineyards on the slopes, herds, and a shared sea full of traffic moving between harbors.
- Each wonder generates its own activity system: pilgrim queues at Artemis and Zeus, construction-free (all complete and maintained - crews polish and garden rather than build), harbor loading at Pharos and Rhodes, funerary procession at the Mausoleum, priests on the Gardens' terraces.
- Populations are autonomous and purposeful: walking, sailing, loading, worshipping, trading. No frozen mannequins.

#### LIGHT, MATERIAL AND DYNAMISM
- Materials carry the spectacle: blinding white marble, painted friezes in ochre, blue and red, gilded bronze, polished limestone casing, deep green terraces, turquoise shallows over sand.
- The sun's low-morning angle rakes everything; the Pharos mirror and Pyramid faces throw periodic flashes; the Colossus burns like a candle at certain camera angles - stage these alignments deliberately.
- Constant gentle dynamism: sails filling, waterwheels and screws turning, smoke columns, banners, birds, waves and wakes, cloth awnings breathing.

#### EXPLORATION AND CONTROLS
- Default experience: a slow, majestic sail-by camera path along the whole coast that the viewer can pause, scrub and detach from at any moment into free orbit; a reset returns to the ship's-deck hero start.
- Presets: one perfect composition per wonder plus the full-coast aerial that shows all seven at once - the impossible postcard.
- Compact controls: time of light (morning / golden evening / torch-lit dusk with the Pharos flame dominant), sea and land activity density, sail-by speed, photo mode.

#### PERFORMANCE
- Bespoke maximum detail on whichever wonder is nearest the camera, streaming detail budgets as the sail-by progresses; silhouette-perfect distant wonders at all times - the seven must NEVER pop or vanish.
- Instanced vegetation, crowds, ships, columns and friezes; merged terrain and far architecture; LOD tuned so the full-coast view stays crisp.
- Quality selector reduces crowd density, vegetation and reflections before ever sacrificing wonder silhouettes or material splendor.
- Smooth on a modern laptop, devicePixelRatio clamped to 2. The outcome: the greatest hits of the ancient world, finally in one frame, alive.
```

Known issue: Up close the wonders and crowds read as blocky primitives rather than the richly detailed architecture the prompt asks for.

Prompt collected by petergpt; original author unknown (https://github.com/petergpt/3d-prompt-collection/blob/HEAD/README.md#prompt-03) via 3dmotion.io/e/seven-wonders-on-one-horizon