iRiven

Erik · **Posted:** Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:27 pm

I've just found out that the iRiven website is online at http://www.cyanworlds.com/iOS_Riven/ !

There aren't many surprises, but it's nice to see progress! "Zoom in anywhere for more detail", I don't think that's possible with Myst, is it? I also wonder what the "Hot Spot Hints" are. I guess you can have visible hot spots for the things you can click on, just like the in game "Return to Mysterious Island" if anyone has that on the iPhone.

Also, the extras page features a very cool high-res image of a MagLev.

By the way, the game will be around 1,5 GB! :lol:

Malfhok · **Posted:** Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:09 pm

Yay!

Seriously, on the sounds page under Extras, they need "Cho?" in there!

(And the rundown introducing Riven on Getting Started is just hilarious…) :lol:

tanshin · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:41 am

Ooh, this makes me so excited! Those images look absolutely stunning!

Haxxy · **Joined:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:36 pm **Posts:** 2

Well, since I've been waiting for this for years, I have a couple very specific questions.
The one that matters most to me regards the resolution of the images. Since the original Riven used a measly 640x480 resolution, can I assume that the iPhone 4's Retina Display, at 960x640, will not be taken advantage of? Likewise, will the images simply be upscaled for the iPad's 1024x768 display? I can't imagine Cyan re-rendering and redoing all the post processing for every single one of the 4,000 or so shots, and I am somewhat doubtful of the restoration of the live video footage to high-definition being plausible.

Mystdee · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:55 pm

As Chogon said earlier in this thread Riven HD (high definition) is planned for iPad sometime after the Riven for iPhone/iTouch is released (which will also work on iPad)

tanshin · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:02 pm

Hmm... well if it's being released after... I guess one of the big extra costs would be the power consumption from the extra computer processors

And then I guess adjusting the hot-spots.

Haxxy · **Joined:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 3:36 pm **Posts:** 2

Mystdee wrote:

As Chogon said earlier in this thread Riven HD (high definition) is planned for iPad sometime after the Riven for iPhone/iTouch is released (which will also work on iPad)

Yes, but "HD" doesn't necessarily mean true higher-definition rendered graphics. Simple upscaling techniques could be used instead. An example of this would be the Playstation 3's release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 HD Remix; because there were so many hand-drawn sprites in the game, they were simply upscaled rather than redrawn in high-definition.

tanshin · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:36 pm

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, the chance that they have all of the textures, maps, 3D files, etc still in pristine condition isn't exactly the highest of a possibility.

However, when you look at this image on the site:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

It looks pretty darn good!

Whether it was upscaled or rerendered I can't tell myself. Either way it's a wonderful image.

Something does tell me that these images were at least re-somethinged because compare this other image on the site:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

With the original from the game:
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Also, as another point, that image they posted of the dome does not exist in game.

PS: I still live by something that Gene Wilder/Willy Wonka said: "You should never doubt what no-one is sure about"

Malfhok · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:15 pm

tanshin wrote:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, the chance that they have all of the textures, maps, 3D files, etc still in pristine condition isn't exactly the highest of a possibility.

Quite a few of those textures, anyway, were reused in Uru. So I'd say they were in pristine condition.

tanshin · **Posted:** Thu Aug 19, 2010 5:24 pm

Ah, true. I forgot about the Cleft sky (just one of the many I'm sure).

As Prince John says in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, "Things are looking up!"

LuigiHann · **Joined:** Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:07 pm **Posts:** 837

tanshin wrote:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, the chance that they have all of the textures, maps, 3D files, etc still in pristine condition isn't exactly the highest of a possibility.

My assumption has been that they don't have the capability to re-render anything from scratch, but what they must have is larger renders of each shot from the game. Which is to say, when they were originally making it, they rendered everything at some large resolution, scaled it down to 640x480, and then touched them up. I could be wrong, but if they had every shot of the game backed up someplace, rendered at this huge size, it would make porting it to a resolution of 960x640 or 1024x768 easy.

That theory also makes me really wish that they'd remake the whole game for PC, as well

IMForeman · **Joined:** Tue May 09, 2006 1:48 am **Posts:** 47

LuigiHann wrote:

tanshin wrote:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, the chance that they have all of the textures, maps, 3D files, etc still in pristine condition isn't exactly the highest of a possibility.

My assumption has been that they don't have the capability to re-render anything from scratch, but what they must have is larger renders of each shot from the game. Which is to say, when they were originally making it, they rendered everything at some large resolution, scaled it down to 640x480, and then touched them up. I could be wrong, but if they had every shot of the game backed up someplace, rendered at this huge size, it would make porting it to a resolution of 960x640 or 1024x768 easy.

That theory also makes me really wish that they'd remake the whole game for PC, as well

This was always the assumption I worked on, that Riven's original graphics were likely rendered at a far higher size than the version that was released as a game. In which case, this would mean pulling out the original, already rendered, master assets, reducing their size to either iPhone or iPad sized, recompressing the graphics and videos with modern techniques and then making a new game engine that can run them.

I cannot tell you how stoked I am to see Riven HD announced, especially since I cannot get Riven to run reliably on my PC. The version I got fro Great Old Games crashes randomly, one time whilst I was saving, losing me a great deal of work.

I do have some wonderings, though.

1.) If Riven HD has graphics at iPad native resolution, then this will easily be the highest quality version of Riven yet released, so if the iPhone/iPod Touch version is a gig and a half, how big will the HD version be?
2.) Will the HD version be released as a separate app, or as a Universal app? Meaning, if I buy the iPhone version and use it on my iPad until HD is released, will I need to rebuy the app, or will my existing purchase be replaced with the HD for the price I would have already paid. I'm fine either way, but I like to know these things ahead.
3.) How long after the iPhone Riven will Riven HD come along? Ballpark?

johnsojc · **Posted:** Fri Aug 20, 2010 12:00 am

If Cyan is going to all the trouble of making an HD version for that Apple stuff, I wish they could port it back to PC as well with an installer that might even work on a 64bit version of Windows. I'd be happy to buy it again.

matthornb · **Posted:** Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:45 am

Yeah, it'd be good to port this to a bunch of platforms. PC version, please!

But really - this looks phenomenal. It doesn't seem upsampled, it seems genuinely high-quality.

Uprezed pictures have a certain "look" to them, which is thankfully not present here.

LuigiHann · **Joined:** Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:07 pm **Posts:** 837

IMForeman wrote:

2.) Will the HD version be released as a separate app, or as a Universal app?

I'm sure they'll be separate apps. We know how big the iPhone app will be, and can imagine how big the iPad version will be... a universal app would have to be close to the sum of both sizes, given that it would basically need both sets of images and videos at the very least.

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