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Myst III: Exile Digital Press Kit

This is a press kit for Myst III, intended to be given to journalists in order to help them write articles about Myst III. This kit contains 4 notable pieces of media:



The "Press Kit - English" CD

The files on the press kit CD are in a folder labeled "E3 DPK 2001". However, due to the dates on the disk and it's contents, it's clear that this particular artifact wasn't handed out at E3 2001, which took place in May 17–19, 2001. Evidence includes:

Therefore, I believe that this disk contains the files that were handed out at E3 2001. However, it's not likely that this particular configuration of disks was used at E3 2001 itself. My theory is that these press kits were mailed out in preparation of the EU release (7 September 2001) or the Xbox/Playstation 2 ports (22 September 2002).

This disk also contains a copy of the desktop themes from the "Making Of" CD, also with small differences, which is discussed later.

There is a wide range of content on this disk. The root folder mostly contains files such as the manual and some quick reference material to aid members of the press in writing articles, and a folder called"Logos" contains print-ready logos for Presto, Ubisoft, and several variants of Myst III's logo (along with a document outlining some guidelines for utilizing the logo).

"Myst Product Line Overview" contains two formats of the same file: a timeline of the current Myst media that existed at the time, with very small summaries of the first two Myst games as well as the three novels.

"Creator Biographies" contains biographies of two Ubisoft employees and four Presto employees, and"Headshots and Team Photo" has a collection of photos of Presto employees.

"Game Trailer" contains copies of the same three trailers as the "Making Of" CD. Notably, though two of these trailers are in lower resolution, the "Game Trailer" here is actually a higher resolution than the "Making Of" CD's version.

"Live Action Blue Screen Shoot" contains 17 pictures taken during the production of the live action cutscenes, including photos of Maria Galante as Katran and Brad Dourif as Saavedro. These photos have last-modified dates ranging from 31 Dec 1999 to 22 Aug 2000.

Finally, there are two folders dedicated to screenshots. "Web Ready Screenshots" is a collection of small screenshots intended for display on web pages, as evidenced by their small filesizes and dimensions (none of these images are larger than 671 x 768 or 388 KiB).

However, the "High Res Screenshots + Covers" folder contains a variety of high-resolution files that haven't been previously released to the public, in a high variety of file formats. The original formats are retained in this mirror, but you can find this folder's contents converted to jpg here. Here are some notable examples:

    (2200 x 3000, 2.91 MiB)  
    (3600 x 3600, 9.36 MiB)  
    (3600 x 3600, 8.18 MiB)  
    (2048 x 1107, 2.09 MiB)  

Two of these files contain multiple layers in order to perform small corrections: this is how JannaninLagoon_roto.psd looks with it's original sky, and this is the box art without it's color corrections.

Interestingly, several of these files have the same four-letter tags as their counterparts inside Exile's data files, such as ENCH.PCT, which is an unfinished version of Exile's ENCH-30 node, with different lighting and lacking the gondola's cable assembly. In most cases, these renders have slightly different lighting or geometry than the in-game versions:

Furthermore, the file BirdPrintCGW.psd actually contains multiple layers, possibly giving us a glimpse into Exile's render process. Seperate layers exist for the sky/ocean, the tree, and the bird. A touchup layer also exists to hide some seams.

Therefore, I believe these renders may have been made during production, before geometry and lighting were finalized.


A complete copy of this disk's files can be explored here:   Press Kit - English  
  Press Kit - English (Disk image)  


The "Making Of" CD

This CD's contents are identical to the "Making Of" CD that came with the Myst III Collector's Edition, although it has different art printed on the disk. The manufacturer and manufacture date of both CDs are the same. This disk also contains Myst III desktop themes for Windows, which I discuss further in the final section. But the most significant content on this disk are the movie files: this disk includes three trailers (gametrailer.mov, theatrical.mov, and tvtrailer.mov) and a "Making Of" video.


Here you can explore all the files on this disk:   The Making Of  
  The Making Of (Disk image)  

The pamphlet

The pamphlet is an 8-page plastic booklet measuring 26cm x 14cm. The page numbers inside the pamphlet consider the cover to be page 1, and so the content begins on page 2.


A composite scan of the entire pamphlet can be found here:
    (3330 x 15307, 41.4 MiB)  


The game disks

The disks included are PC only CD-Roms, as opposed to the more common PC/Mac compatible releases (which exist in both 4-CD and 4-DVD configurations.) This set bears many similarities to other post-launch 4-CD releases of Myst III, including the UK Collector's Edition (manufactured on 24 July 2001) and the Myst Trilogy box set (manufactured on 25 July 2001), both of which were manufactured by the same company as this set. Other similarities to these retail sets include:

However, since this is a PC-only release rather than a PC/Mac release, the files on these disks are different from the files on PC/Mac dual-compatible retail releases.



The desktop themes

This kit includes themes intended to be used with Microsoft Plus, a software package for Windows 95 through XP that expanded theme support (among other things). Although Microsoft Plus is now deprecated, the actual wallpapers/cursors/icons/sounds are still useable on modern machines; they simply need to be manually assigned.


Here is a copy of all of the theme files, which are normally inaccessible without having Microsoft Plus installed:
  Exile theme files for Microsoft Plus  

The installer also replaces the Windows 95/98/ME startup/shutdown screens, shown here in both their raw format and in the stretched format that Windows displays them:
    (320 x 400, 0.09 MiB)  
    (640 x 400, 0.11 MiB)  
    (320 x 400, 0.08 MiB)  
    (640 x 400, 0.1 MiB)  
    (320 x 400, 0.08 MiB)  
    (640 x 400, 0.1 MiB)  

There are also three extra wallpapers included, in four different resolutions each. The third extra wallpaper (called "desktop 4") is the only difference between the "Press Kit" themes and the "Making Of" themes: the "Press Kit" CD included these four files in 8-bit CMYK rather than 8-bit RGB. This has been corrected on the "Making Of" CD, giving them a modified timestamp of 2 Feb 2001 rather than 15 Jan 2001, and smaller filesizes.


Here are copies of all five wallpapers (the 2 theme wallpapers and the 3 extra wallpapers) in their highest included resolution:
  "Desktop"  (1280 x 960, 0.33 MiB)  
  "Explorer"  (1280 x 960, 0.35 MiB)  
  "Desktop 2"  (1280 x 960, 0.43 MiB)  
  "Desktop 3"  (1280 x 960, 0.39 MiB)  
  "Desktop 4"  (1280 x 960, 0.29 MiB)  


Here are screenshots of both themes at their highest supported resolution:
  "Desktop" theme  (1280 x 960, 0.62 MiB)  
  "Exploration" theme  (1280 x 960, 0.84 MiB)  


Cover dimensions: 30cm x 17cm x 1.8cm when closed, 69.2cm wide when open.
Other pictures and scans:
    (2848 x 2134, 1.13 MiB)  
    (2848 x 2134, 1.1 MiB)  
    (2848 x 2134, 1.09 MiB)  
    (2848 x 2134, 1.24 MiB)  
    (2848 x 2134, 1.11 MiB)  
    (2848 x 2134, 1.14 MiB)  
    (7903 x 3573, 30.64 MiB)  
    (2840 x 4251, 14.58 MiB)  
Tags:
myst3 game software press-kit


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