Computer games: Riven (2025 Remake) Cyan Games

 I was very happy to play the remake of Myst when that came out but I have been waiting for a new updated version of the sequel, Riven for decades. They did release it in its original form for the iPad years back and it was fun, though a pixelated sort of fun, to go back to it and not have to load another CD-ROM disk whenever I made my way to a new island in the game. For years a group of fans had been trying to update the game with new graphics until Cycan Games finally decided to join with them and have an official new version. 

This is not just a copy of the original with updated graphics. They have changed some of the gameplay and have added additional places to explore, reworked the puzzles and simplified some aspects of the old game that were, frankly, aggravating. 

The Myst remake looked amazing but this is on a different level. The care and quality of every place you visit is on its own worth buying a copy. Many of the puzzles have been rethought out to be easier to manage and make more sense within the gameplay. There is new dialogue and additional lore to keep even those who played the original multiple times over the years feeling like they are doing something new. 

As with Cyan's games after "Obduction, the characters are 3D models and while they move better than in the Myst remake that might take you out of gameplay a little. It didn’t bother me. 

I made a huge mistake and didn't make notes and just thought I would just cheat my way through the game, since I was only revisiting its worlds only to have back track to get information that varies every time you start a new game. I did find getting around was not as annoying as it had been. The islands and getting around them seems more logical and easier to manage now. 

I do wish, as I did originally, that the game stayed open after the conclusion so you could just walk around and revisit some of the mazing locations but it does have a fairly definite ending and there is no way getting around that! 

I didn't have a computer with the Apple Silcon chips in it so this was the first time I was able to play this and it was worth the wait, even though I wish I didn't have to. 

Animation: 28 Young Men (2026)

 

This is a remake of a 2020 version I made in Cinema 4D and had a lot of technical restrictions that never sat well with me. There was no way the software and my computer could but 29 characters in a shot and even just moving them around, which worked as no one was going to count the men, was even more limited, since they could really move much or the app would crash. I do think it worked but lacked the look I wanted. 

This version made with Blender, I hope, is much more realized with more movement and a better, more detailed setting. Michael Z. Keamy and I were originally going to film this with live actors in Provincetown but getting 28 young men to cavort naked on a beach, even in P-town isn't as easy to put together as it sounds. So I went with animation and his great narration. The soundscape is simple. I added some seagull noises to round it out but otherwise it's unchanged. The structure is basically the same as well. I like the way I set up the shots but now everything looks better and has more going on in each shot. I gave the young men and the woman more character I hope. 

Behemoth media website update 2026

This was a long time coming. I added new art, graphic design, videos and updated information. I still need to make a new demo reel but I don't have time for the 2D animations I want to make to go in it.

I recently put all my documentaries on You Tube in restored and slightly improved versions for free. Please check them out. I have started remaking some older animations to replace a few I can do much better with now. I am sort of "shoring up my legacy" (such as it is) as I am about to semi-retire, I hope, and would like my stuff to up to date and show itself off in the best light.

Behemothmedia.com

Mac Studio and Studio display

 

My six-year-old i9 iMac was showing signs of wear and tear, slowing down and crashing more often, and it was becoming harder to run newer apps that were designed for Apple Silicon. I was getting really worried and decided to get a Mac Studio before I couldn’t work at all. Since it wasn’t a brand-new 27-inch iMac, which I’d been dreaming of for ages, I needed a monitor and went with the Studio Display. I’ve always thought Apple makes the best screens, and this one had features that others didn’t.

Specs:

• M4 Max chip with a 16-core neural engine
• 16-core CPU
• 40-core GPU
• 64 gig RAM
• 2 TB hard drive

This machine is a huge upgrade from my old iMac, which was already pretty powerful. With the M chip, many of my apps run much smoother. It’s super fast and completely silent—no more noisy fans! I was also surprised to find that my Huion tablet works perfectly on it, something that had become impossible on my Intel machine. I was able to update Blender to version 5, which is only available on Apple Silicon, and the workspace is a huge improvement. My first animation render was over three times faster than a similar one I did just a few days before getting the Studio.

I wanted to get a new Mac while they still offered a variety of ports, something that’s likely to change soon. I have a lot of accessories that I can’t afford to replace, and they all use USB 3 connections. This setup has two USB 3 ports, six USB-C ports (plus four on the monitor), a spot to plug in my internet connection and a card slot for my camera cards—in the front! It also has a headphone jack and the display has a camera. 

Overall, this will really take me into the future and give me the tools to tackle more complex projects, especially in 3D and 2D animation. 

Animation update: 28 Young men by Walt Whitman

 Six years ago, I made an animated short with my writer pal Michael Z Keamy. He narrated. We had planned to do the poem live action at a secluded part of the beach in Provincetown but getting 28 young guys to splash around naked on the beach in Provincetown is harder than one might think. I decided to animate it instead. 

The original version was OK. Extremely limited by my version of Cinema 4D and my computing power at the time. Turns out having 28 young animated men isn't all that easier to get on video. 

Now using Blender and my older but still powerful 10 i9 processor imac, it was possible to improve on it. The structure is the same but the sets are better made and there are actually 28 men and the woman in the poem in the animation now. The people look less cartoon-y and all the characters move, something I could not accomplish before without crashing the computer. 

It's coming along and I feel I am doing more justice to the poem and Keamy's narration. 

Poster project: The Deady mantis

 

I watched this old sci-fi film this week and it was much better than I remembered so I decided to add it to my little movie poster project. I painted the mantis in Krita. Luckily, that was my plan, as my Huion tablet was all over the screen in Affinity and only less so in Krita. Huion has not updated the driver in years and the image started at 24x36" so it was LARGE. I had to cut the size in half to get decent performance on my 10 i9 processer iMac.  Irritating but I did it anyway. I used shots from the film and references of real praying mantis for pose. 

Illustrations: patates. mettre à jour!

 Updated the look of the cartoon versions of my oldest grand-nephews for future use. The youngest got much better illustrations and I want the older ones to get improved avatars. The little and big potatoes, or the younger and older brother. Maybe I will do thier parents as well and really get myself in trouble. 

Illustration: Death as a Friend

 

Another in this maybe series. Made in Blender this one I had a very strong idea for based on an engraving my friend Jeannette showed me decades ago. Well, sort of... it turns out the engraving "Death as a friend." Looks nothing like this and then I thought it might be  from another old illustration, "Death as a friend to the poor" which was a little closer to what was in my head. Could be I saw something and just associated it with a title I like better. 

In any case, this is an old woman holding hands with death in a lonely room that doesn't look like it's had many visitors recently. I tried two versions: colour and black and white. They both have strengths and weaknesses. Did post-processing in Sffinity Studio and discovered that the NIK plugins now work in them, as they did in the older Affinity suite! 

Illustration: Bejamin

 I did a portrait of a friend's cat not that long ago and, after the recent death of someone close to him, he inherited another - Benjamin. Benjamin is girl cat I was told after sending this image to him. I thought both cats should have portraits and I hope that this is a positive gift that helps him through this very sad time. I can't offer much so I do what little I can. 

She's a pretty girl! 

3D Illustration: untitle mortuary art

 I have had an idea of doing something like this since the '8-s and have never found a way to get what I wanted. I t was going to be a photo then an ink drawing and then back and forth between those until recently I decided learning more Blender was a way to get an image out of my head. Of course now I might do a small series. 

I have a good amount of resources with Blender now to accomplish something close to what's in my head. I thought I would learn some techniques like depth passes and isolating parts of a scene with other passes but as I worked on this, none of those things would have been useful. 

The large cryptlike building behind the figures is based fairly closely on a structure in a huge cemetery in Budapest. The mourning figure is based on a mourning angel statue, I really liked the pose. The skeleton already had wings so he didn't get any. 

I had some buggy issues with Blender that were pretty annoying. I use a Make Human plugin integrated into Blender and Humgen to make more realistic humans but Make Human was missing some features somehow and Humgen wasn't working for the cross-legged pose. I settled on Make Human and it worked out but I need to figure out what went wrong. The skeleton and wings were models from my C4D days. I did post processing in Affinity Studio.