What is CryEngine?
The CryEngine engine was developed by the German studio Crytek for the shooter Far Cry, which was released in 2004 and had a huge influence on the development of open-world games. The project allowed you to move across a vast territory without reloading, encouraged a free approach to completing missions, and also demonstrated stunning graphics.
Soon after the release of Far Cry, all rights to CryEngine were purchased by Ubisoft, which used the engine for several add-ons for the shooter. It also formed the basis of the Dunia Engine, on which all subsequent parts of the Far Cry series were developed, and was licensed by NCSoft for the MMORPG Aion: The Tower of Eternity.
Crytek, meanwhile, began creating the CryEngine 2 engine, on which the famous Crysis (as well as the Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars addons) were developed. Further iterations - CryEngine 3 (now owned by Amazon), CryEngine (4), CryEngine V - are a natural development of CryEngine 2. However, starting from 2013, assigning serial numbers to versions of the engine is considered conditional, since Crytek itself prefers to call it CryEngine, without any numbers.
Games on the CryEngine engine are developed not only by the studio that created it. Initially, it could be licensed by third parties for a fixed fee, and educational institutions could use it for free, but on a non-profit basis - only for teaching students. But starting in 2020, the engine and SDK (development kit) are distributed free of charge to everyone, but with the condition that Crytek pays 5% of profits for income exceeding $5,000/euro (starting from version 5.5, no royalties are paid on earlier versions).
What's good about CryEngine?
The engine features advanced video game development capabilities and support for the most advanced technologies, including DirectX 12, Vulkan API, VR, C# scripting, real-time per-pixel lighting, reflection maps, detailed textures, fog, specular surfaces, realistic physics, advanced animation and many many others.
CryEngine allows you to create games with almost photorealistic graphics. With the right skill, projects developed with its help surpass in picture quality any games on Unreal Engine 4 or Unity. In addition, the engine contains a functional realtime renderer that allows you to quickly experience a newly created level or scene.
Crytek has developed its own in-engine ray tracing technology that runs on AMD and Nvidia graphics cards and does not require the power of RTX graphics chips. Finally, it is definitely worth mentioning GameSDK - a tool on the basis of which you can quickly create your own games, including assets from the official Crytek website.
Crytek, Frankfurt am Main (Germany).
CryEngine 3 is a AAA game engine developed by Crytek. It develops high-quality games for popular modern platforms, such as PC, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3. Games of various genres and types are developed on this engine, including massive multiplayer online games (MMOG). CryENGINE 3 is one of the most advanced real-time 3D technologies available.
CryENGINE 3 is provided free of charge for training courses and research work on game development, 3D graphics, modeling, architecture, animation, cinematography. And also, from August 17, 2011, all interested game makers can download the full version of CryENGINE 3 SDK absolutely free of charge for non-commercial use, to develop their non-commercial games.
CryENGINE 3 provides the opportunity to develop on modern platforms such as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, MMO, DX9/DX10 with a Next-Gen-Ready system, with a powerful computing system, with high-quality graphics, AI and physics. The engine includes everything you need to implement AAA-class games, including special tools for professional developers, including CryENGINE 3 Sandbox - a level editor that offers to create maps in real time using the “what you see” system. That’s what you play” (WYSIWYP).
CryENGINE 3 SDK under Educational License – intended for internal, non-commercial use only; and is only available to educational institutions, not to individual student or group projects. In this case, all CryENGINE support materials are provided. Students and game makers can access a special educational community resource - www.crydev.net, where they can share their work, projects and help each other achieve great results with CryENGINE 3.
To register, university officials must provide legal documents to Crytek to verify their status. Crytek has always been loyal and supportive of education, as evidenced by its agreements with educational institutions to provide technology. Thus, students and educators can use CryENGINE 3 to gain a good understanding of new technologies to become the next generation of developers.
Just like the Educational SDK, Crytek offers Game Development SDK and Simulation SDK for professional game developers to create serious game projects. But we repeat once again - the full version of CryENGINE 3 is distributed absolutely free of charge and anyone can download it for non-commercial use. If indie developers want to license this engine to create a commercial project, then they need to contact Crytek and enter into a special agreement, under which Crytek will receive 20% of the profits from the sale of a specific project. A royalty license with 20% royalties begins with the commercial launch of the project, and during the development itself you do not need to pay anything for the engine.
World-famous games have already been created on the basis of this engine, for example, such as: “Crysis”, “Crysis Warhead”, “Crysis 2”, etc.
System requirements for the developer: Supported OS: XP, Vista, Windows 7 (recommended); Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz, AMD Athlon 64 X2 2GHz or better; RAM: 2 GB (4 GB recommended); Video card: nVidia 8800GT 512MB RAM, ATI 3850HD 512MB RAM or more powerful.
The Crytek studio is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) with additional studios in Kyiv (Ukraine), Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea) and Nottingham (UK).
At the beginning of March 2020, the Lumberyard game engine based on CE was released. And in mid-March 2020, CRYENGINE V was released, the fifth generation of the engine, which became completely free and open.
Official website: https://www.crydev.net Discuss on our forum" Online documentation: https://freesdk.crydev.net/dashboard.action https://www.crytek.com https://www.crymod. com https://www.cryengine3.com https://mycryengine.com
CryENGINE 3 is the first game development platform for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, MMO, DX9/DX10 that also is truly Next-Gen-Ready — with scalable computation, graphics and state-of-the-art AI and physics for all major upcoming platforms . It provides the complete game engine to create AAA quality next generation games, and includes the redesigned CryENGINE 3 Sandbox™ level editor, a production-proven, 3rd generation “What you see is what you play” (WYSIWYP) - tool designed by and for professional developers.
What's wrong with CryEngine?
The engine also has disadvantages. Thus, many developers note difficulties when working with it, arising from the complexity of the build, the presence of bugs in the editor, a modest selection of assets, restrictions for developing a network game, as well as the lack of good technical support and an active community, as a result of which they often have to solve problems by trial and error, without being able to consult with experienced colleagues.
For all its power, CryEngine is quite difficult to learn, so you need to have extensive knowledge of development to create games with it.
Who should use CryEngine (first)?
Based on the above, we can conclude that CryEngine is suitable for experienced teams who have enough money and time to create expensive, high-quality projects.
Young studios are better off paying attention to more accessible (in terms of development complexity) engines - for example, Unity. However, given that CryEngine is free, no one bothers you to start creating video games with its help by reading the training materials on the official website. But in this case, you need to be prepared to face possible difficulties in the process.
CryEngine 5.6 tech demo teases Crysis references
It's been a long time since Crysis melted computers, impressing with the beauty and realism of what was happening on the screen. With the next generation of consoles on the way, is it time to do it again? The tech demo released by Crytek for the new version of CryEngine 5.6 is not only exciting, but also makes obvious references to the glory days of Crysis.
The video begins, as you'd expect, with the graphical prowess of Crytek's recently released online action game Hunt: Showdown. Volumetric fog in real time, fully dynamic and global illumination in real time, physics of ropes, chains, fabrics and vegetation bending from touches, regional motion blur taking into account the movement of individual objects, and not the entire frame, depth of field, accurate combination of objects and volumetric rays.
The Land of Pain
The camera then passes through a series of portals that already pay tribute to previous Crytek games. Dynamic regional lighting indoors demonstrates both volumetric light and its reflections from surfaces, realistic soft shadows - in general, aspects that ray tracing today, as a rule, improves, although this technology is not involved here. However, Crytek has already demonstrated its achievements in this area, and on the Radeon Vega 56 video card.
The next portal leads to an area in the spirit of the ancient world of Ryse: Son of Rome. Finally, at the 2:15 mark, the viewer is sent into a magnificent jungle - both the environment and the musical accompaniment are very reminiscent of Crysis and its soundtrack.
There are other moments in the video that make references to the famous shooter: at the beginning, when the user interface is shown, the file path includes the user prophet - the name of one of the central characters of the Crysis series, the Prophet. In addition, the name CryEngine, heard twice in the video, is also voiced in a voice similar to the Prophet, and in the second case is accompanied by the familiar sound of the transformation of the protective properties of the suit.
Of course, all this could not go unnoticed by Crysis fans who are trying to find answers to what these rather obvious references mean? Maybe Crytek is preparing an updated edition of old games on a new engine or hinting at the development of a new game in the series?
Aporia: Beyond the Valley
But all this seems unlikely today, given the circumstances in which the studio is placed. The last game in the series, Crysis 3, released back in 2013, did not live up to the expectations of the publisher and intellectual rights owner Electronic Arts, and the developer, Crytek, has had difficult recent years.
Prey
To a clarifying question, the head of the Crytek press service, Jens Schäfer, answered dryly: “This is a pure technology demonstration of CryEngine.” Well... ever?
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
CryEngine 5.6 is already available to developers on the official website and through the engine control panel. Platforms supported are PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Oculus Rift. The latest version brings over a thousand improvements and includes proven features from Hunt: Showdown.
Sniper Ghost Warrior 3
The licensing policy provides for a 5% royalty on sales of products created on the basis of this engine and does not require any one-time payments. In doing so, Crytek provides the full source code for its powerful game development platform.
