The Starry Expanse Project

Jacek, a veteran surface artist, occasionally surfaces to create surface-level surface tetures for the surfaces of our project.

Tom is a software engineer focused on VR development living in Hawaii. His efforts have helped to scope the project's VR ambitions and contributed to the first public VR demo's success. He's been coding since he was in middle school and often pretends to be good at it.

Aaron, who got into software development because of games like Myst and Riven, now studies graphics programming, shaders, engine development and general software development philosophies in his spare time. Aaron has experience in web development, computer vision, machine learning, graphics, and distributed system. When he's not programming, he's probably doodling.

Henry is an Adelaide-based 3D artist with a love for sculpting high detail environments. He has been focussing on recreating several of Riven's terrain surfaces.

A founder of the Starry Expanse project, Philip started out planning and modeling, but has since switched over to programming and coordination. A pioneer of new systems, he is always eager to help the project stay equipped with the most effective and elegant use of technology.

A singer/actor/dancer by day and composer/audio engineer by night, Hollister is incredibly excited to help bring the audio side of his favorite game into the modern age!

Joining us as an environment artist, Stuart has demonstrated a high level of technical skill in Blender. He has recently developed a proprietary suite of camera-matching tools using photogrammetry that have proved invaluable.

Cameron, a detail-oriented character artist, has taken on the immense task of recreating all of Riven's characters and creatures.

Chris began his career as a software engineer with a medical imaging startup. He then moved into visual simulation, gaming, networking, security, and browser development. Chris contributes to the Starry Expanse project writing tools, and working on the game source.

Merijn is our in-house critic. A professional product designer with an emphasis on engineering, he always provides assessment of how we can do things better, more efficiently, or more clearly.

Jonas joined our team as a motion graphics artist, but has since segued into providing the project with beautiful 3D environment art.

Freelance 3D artist by day, methodical gamer by night, Robert is a specialist in hard surface modeling. He usually uses his formal training in the art of games to make shiny overly-complicated robots and guns, but a world of islands and levers were a welcome change of pace.

Nick's role has changed many times since joining the team in early 2011. From camera matching to real-time VFX, environment art to animation, Nick has had a broad range of experience helping bring Riven's Ages to life. He now acts as senior production supervisor and lives out of a spreadsheet.

Andrea is a hard-surface modeler with a fantastic eye for detail. He has been very industrious in the short time he has been part of the team, contributing large numbers of assets to the project.

A professional multimedia producer, Iman joined the Starry Expanse team to champion the video side of things, both for in-game assets and marketing materials. Since many of these video needs are currently further out in the project’s pipeline, he’s been tackling many of our other media needs, such as promotional content, social media strategy, and a visual overhaul of our website. He’s also restructured our internal task management system, and tries to pitch in wherever else he can.

Samuel is a game developer living in Melbourne with a strong background in motion & graphic design. He considers himself a generalist, dabbling with any creative software he can get his hands on. In his spare time he works on his own smaller game projects.

Kelly is from the Pacific Northwest, where she runs her own graphic arts business. A graduate of the Art Institute of Portland, she brings 3D modeling, texturing, graphic arts, and an endless supply of enthusiasm to the table.

Kyle is a system administrator and programmer for the team. With an undying passion for mathematics, physics, electronics, and programming, it's no wonder that Kyle's first memory in this world was playing Myst with his father. When he isn't doing any of those other nerdy things, he is off hiking, biking, or climbing in the mountains of Northern Utah.

With a background in architectural rendering and software development, Jeff has focused on perfecting the way we extract data from the original stills of Riven to create geometry, using several different software packages to dramatically speed up our workflow.

Jan, who hails from the Netherlands, is a skilled environment artist who uses his Blender skills to model and texture many of the project's iconic assets.