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jeremyengleman β Riven Lagoon
Published: 2008-03-09 21:50:17 +0000 UTC; Views: 36870; Favourites: 623; Downloads: 7927
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1997. Softimage 3.51I did some work a while back for a video game called Riven: The Sequel to Myst. You might remember it. This is a shot that I rendered at high res that never appeared in the game.
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Comments: 198
The worlds in Riven, probably an extensive pipeline was involved with many utilities and 3rd party plugins, but from what I've read, between internet conversations and articles and the limited-run book 'From Myst to Riven', etc, the worlds were largely made using Softimage plus some custom plugins [LumeTools, coded by Cyan staff] for lighting and water effects. Softimage was one of the top tier 3d packages during the 1990s and was competitive pretty much up until Autodesk bought the Softimage software developers' company and cannibalized it. The same 3d software used for the digital dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' (I should note, JP also used a LOT of puppetry and animatronics and even full body latex suits for certain velociraptor shots - only 30% of the dinosaur shots in the film were CGI, which is partly why those sequences still hold up). Anyway... Cyan had some $50k Silicon Graphics workstations, which when purchased circa '94 at the beginning of Riven's development, these were the most powerful computers you could buy short of custom building a supercomputer. Nowadays, though, the Cyan staffers use those things as doorstops.
The original Myst used a 3d modelling program called StrataVision, which never moved forward very quickly post '93, but Strata 3d (a rebranding) actually still exists and has fallen way behind the top-shelf 3d apps.
The guy who modelled roughly 1/3 of the 3d content in Myst, including basically all of Stoneship, Chuck Carter, is now launching a game called 'Zed'.
Myst III Exile used 3ds max, and 3ds max was also the primary toolset for the worlds Cyan built into Uru (the Myst MMO) though the pipeline they used involved their in house developed 'Plasma' engine, and internally created Plasma-compatible plugins for 3ds max 7/8, versions of the software that are now obsolete. Cyan used different variants of the Plasma engine on RealMyst, Uru and Myst V. They later made the iOS port of RM and RM:ME with the Unity game engine, and Obduction uses Unreal Engine 4.
And yes, I'm a huge fan geek with a ridiculous amount of obscure knowledge relating to the Myst series. I am so tied into the fanbase by this point that I have actually made some fan ages for Uru and such. There are literally several current and former Cyan staffers following me on Twitter, LOL.
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Wow! you, worked on riven? THE riven??
heh, looks like EVERYONE is here on DA nowadays, lol.
really loved the looks of that game man, but they didnt age well due to the resolution, and the resolution alone... it would be so great if you and the others who rendered riven were to make an HD render of everything in the game and release a remastered HD riven.
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It's awesome that you worked on such an amazing game. I never got tired of looking at this island and its beautiful colors. Thank you so much for sharing this!
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It is an honour and a privilege to have encountered a person who worked with Cyan to create Riven, that was and still is a masterpiece. The graphics in this image were phenomenal then in 1997 and are still phenomenal now, many years later.
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Oh, I have been trying so hard to get High-res shots from Cyan but it seems they have lost all of the original stuff, without a doubt the greatest game of all time (in my humble opinion), have my own fan site and a licence to produce mugs, coasters etc from Cyan, always love to see Riven stuff and this is a great image (thank you).
Listen to the music pretty much all the time, got my own Riven posters all over the house including an A1 sized framed map of all 5 islands (scanned strategy map, cleaned up with Photoshop), has pride of place in my hallway with twin spotlights over it.
Love what the guys at Starry Expanse are doing, will be so good when they have finished.
One place I would love to build/see for real? Riven of course...
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This was one of my favorite places in the game. Β I remember watching my dad play this when I was, like, 4 or 5...I always hated this one room in Island 1 that was really dark and had a cage-like thing in the middle of it. Β Scared the shit out of me back then.
I would honestly love to see a remake of Riven. Β With today's technology, it could be a whole map instead of a bunch of renders.
One more thing: what happens when you beat the tombstone room on Island 2? Β Like, what do you find?
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Hopefully you don't mind spoilers so here goes....... **SPOILERS** The cage-like thing is actually a holographic imager. You'll find others elsewhere in Riven too. The "tombstone room" is actually the secret entrance to the Moiety hideout (the Moiety are a group of rebel villagers that use guerrilla tactics in opposition to Gehn. You encounter one at the start of the game when he darts the gaurd and lets you out of the cage).
If you haven't played through Riven you should go pick up a copy on gog.com or the iOS version on iTunes. While you're at it check out Cyan's new game Obduction at www.obductiongame.com/
If you're interested in a realtime version of Riven you should check out the Starry Expanse project www.starryexpanse.com/
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I do miss those worlds. Best games ever and never been beaten by what so ever after. It's still a part of me..or better said I'm still a part of those worlds. From Myst to Riven, Exile, Revelation, Uru and The end of pages. They were stunned creations and still are. Great job all who worked on them.
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The game you guys did was a masterpiece and a great inspiration. It amazed me when I brought it. Thank you dearly for sharing this!
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This is awsome. I live near Lake Tahoe and (well maybe 45 min away but still close) anyway, they have beaches that look exactly like this, that water is tropically clear but its fresh water. The view of it from an Airplane is stunning, you can see every rock under water in the shallows.
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I adore Riven, it is definitly one of the most beautiful game I've ever played. The atmosphere was so special, somehow welcoming but at the same time it scared the hell out of me...
Remember this lagoon, it was one of my favourite places in the game 
I loved to walk on those cliffs, and running down the stairs over there so I could get a closer look on those plesiosaur-like creatures
Amazing to see work from one of the contributors to the game, thanks for giving me and so many people an amazing gaming experince
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Riven was the smartest game I ever played. The quality of the narrative storyline and graphics put it decades ahead of its time. Massive highfive for working on it!
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There will never be a more lovingly-crafted game universe than that of the Myst series. Thank you so much for sharing.
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Awesome!~ \o/
I loved playing this as a little girl, and one of the things I remember most was watching my dad play it as well, and I remembered seeing the creatures bathing on that rock... x3
It's such an amazing game!~
Although I doesn't work on my computer, sadly. ;_;
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Love your work! I played Riven. Loved it. What program did you use to render/create this?
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If you rather not be featured please let me know, thank you
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My favorite game (and Riven is what I preferred among all of the same series), although in it the possibility of moving the view was somewhat more limited than Exile.
Here you can see my nostalgia for that kind of games here:
[link]
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This is awesome!! I so want to go there!!! I'll have to settle for playing the games again, I guess!! .....Love this!!!
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So gorgeous. The world of Riven hasn't yet seen its equal in games or cinema.
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I adore Riven. It's so gorgeous! Love this angle.
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You worked on this game? Holy TAMOLE! That must have been really fun : ) Good work.
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Gorgeous, what I wouldn't give to see the whole game at that resolution. This game, more than any other, is what inspired me to get into the 3D industry.
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this is one of the best games iΒ΄v ever played....great work....thanks for that melancholic point
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Wow! I played this game when I was little, could never beat it though... Your work is really great, especially the figure studies.
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I loved Riven, it had the most beautiful enviroments. I remember that lagoon.
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Playing Riven now. Beautiful, haunting, nostalgic. Thank you so much for your wonderful work.
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i can't play that anymore! well i can but the music won't work now!
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I was addicted to Myst and Riven when I was a kid. Still am I guess. I just watched a couple of speed runs of the game, now I'm all inspired. It was an amazing game, and you have a billion kudos from me for giving me an appreciation for scenery at a young age. Seriously awesome. I wanna get the Riven symbol for a Tattoo.
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I love Myst series too, Riven is something special amongst them, I think big part of the greatness of the game is that the textures aren't too smooth, there is cracks and rust, makes it more believable (and I love rusty old things)
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Hey, I'd for sure pay for a print of that. I've been trying to get my hands on something physical from Riven for a while now. There doesn't seem to be much out there. Riven is probably one of the most beautiful games yet made and I don't mean just aesthetically. Huge props for your contributions Mr. Engleman.
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This is awesome. Used to play the games (love them) and they popped into my head today for some reason and I want to play them again.
Started doing a search for wallpapers and this showed up in the google image search. Very good work! We've come so far with computer graphics and I think these games still hold up very well.
What did you create these worlds in? render?
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Riven was my favourite game of all MYST games. All the puzzles made perfect sense within their environment - as they were part of the environment, very unlike the puzzles in some of the other Myst games where they didn't make any sense at all.
It's a beautiful shot! And it makes me want to play a high-resolution version of the game! That would be cool!
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Oh wow, so you worked on Riven? Amazing. That is probably one of my favorite games. I remember this scene, too. If you stand by the rocks at a certain angle they form a fish, I believe. Really cool work.
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Great game!! i cant believe you worked on it to!! thats amazing! it was so great, i Love the music and just the mystery of it, it was fantastic
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RIVEN! My favourite game <3 Great work! *thumbs up*
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O_O So sad this didn't make it into the game! It's juch a gorgeous shot (then again, most shots in Riven were lol)! Such a neat shot of the Sunner rock
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You were involved with Riven? Amazing, truly amazing.
Any chance you can explain the hologram of Ghen in the Temple?
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Y-you worked on... Riven...
!!!!!!!!
I'm in the middle of playing it right now!
Amazing work on the game!
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