Description
BeninTour is a 3D walk through Cotonou, Benin's largest city, that runs in the browser. You start on the Corniche in the morning, between young coconut palms and Atlantic waves, and follow the seafront to the Étoile Rouge roundabout. On the way you pass the 30-meter bronze Amazon statue honoring the women warriors of Dahomey, the Marina Palace, the drum-shaped halls of the Palais des Congrès and the busy Ganhi and Dantokpa market district. Every place was rebuilt from photos and videos taken on site.
It is a gift for anyone who has never set foot in Cotonou. For most people, Benin is a name on a map, and the author wanted them to arrive the way you really arrive: 10,000 FCFA in your pocket, zémidjan moto-taxis honking past, and people on the sidewalk calling out "Bonjour!" or "Bon maténé!" as you walk by.
Create your character (gender, name, skin tone, clothes) and explore at your own pace. Flag a zémidjan for 200 FCFA and ride on the back seat, or drive a car through traffic that overtakes and circles the roundabout. Chat with street vendors by text or by voice, buy something to eat when your energy runs low, or go jogging on the Corniche track. At each landmark, a guide tells its real history, to read or to listen to.
A treasure hunt ties the walk together. Five objects are hidden in the city, from a sacred cowrie shell on the beach to a raffia mask in front of the Palais des Congrès. Each riddle describes what you would actually see on the spot, so you learn to look at the city. Bring them back to the foot of the Amazon and answer a question about each place. The city keeps moving around you: the hours pass, tropical rain rolls in, goats cross the sidewalk. It plays with keyboard and mouse or with a gamepad.
Before the event there was already a Three.js prototype of Cotonou: four zones, third-person walking, traffic with red lights, paid zémidjan and car rides, a first character creator, spoken guides, vendor chat, saves and a set of models generated with Meshy AI, including the Amazon statue, parked zémidjans and cars, and a seated vendor. New during the event: all of the Tripo work, the treasure hunt, a time trial to Étoile Rouge, passersby who greet you, a minimap, thunderstorms, photo mode, a cinematic intro, the market district, and gender and skin tone in the character creator.
How Tripo was used
Tripo brings Cotonou's streets to life: the playable characters, the crowd, the moving moto-taxis and four of the hunt's treasures all come from Tripo.
- What it made: both playable characters and the crowd, the moto-taxi, and four treasures for the hunt.
- The chain: Tripo, then Blender, then glTF-Transform and meshoptimizer, then Three.js, with Playwright renders checking each step.
- From 82 MB to 0.8 MB: the rider model was cut from 82 MB to 0.8 MB, then cloned into 27 zémidjans that overtake and stop at red lights.
- Two characters, a whole crowd: two rigged Tripo characters fill the entire crowd. Their stride was retimed, the run was transferred from the woman to the man, and the texture was recolored for 10 outfits and 6 skin tones.
