Slashdot Mirror
Crytek Plans Free Version of CryENGINE 3
Develop reports that Crytek, makers of the Far Cry series, the Crysis series, and the game engines behind them, have plans to release a free-to-use version of CryENGINE 3, the software's latest iteration. Quoting:
"Unreal vendor Epic Games and Unity have both seen their user-bases mushroom overnight since launching versions of their own engines that, while tied to different royalty rates, are completely free to download and operate. Now the CryEngine 3 group has revealed it wants to tap into this thriving market. The firm's CEO Cevat Yerli told Develop that Crytek already gives away a CryEngine 2 editor to the mod community, but explained that Crytek's expansion strategy stretches beyond. 'We have a very vivid community of users and modders and content creators, and usually that's a great way of unlocking the engine,' he said. ... 'So far that's what we've been offering for free, and it's easy entry into the production environment. [But] we do want to make a standalone free platform that people can run independent of CryEngine that will also be up to speed with the latest engine.'"
Now I'm just a simple country hyperchicken, but it seems to me that 3d engines tend to age relatively quickly and FOSS tends to be less than cutting edge.
We are talking about Crytek of yes-but-does-it-run-crysis fame.
Making a graphics engine is hard and costs a lot of man hours (thus lots of $$$). There's not many people who can just start contributing to them (compared to other OS projects). The Open Source engines will always be at least a generation behind, simply because they're always going to be slowly implementing what's already been done in the commercial engines, while companies like Crytek are busy working on their next-gen stuff.
On the plus side, the Open Source engines (Ogre and CrystalSpace anyway) are good enough for people to make decent looking games if they wish to do so. Gameplay is what counts right? I'll take TES: Oblivion quality graphics (hell, Morrowind even) if the game play is great. Unfortunately making games is as hard as making the engines that they run on...
Yes, that means you, Mr. Indie Game Developer, can make your own Running Through Well-Rendered Trees simulators, and even skip the monotonous shooting parts that Crytek seems to stick in between your times of admiring the trees!
First one to open-source an older version wins!
Carmack's been winning for a long time, then.
Circumcision is child abuse.
You're misunderstanding that phrase. Whether something ran crysis was a potshot at how badly crysis was coded, not how advanced it was.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Actually, it feels like I'm seeing far more games running on the Unreal engine these days than I am on anything id have put out. Gears of War games, Mass Effect games, Bioshock games, loads of stuff from Square-Enix, god knows how many others... they're all on the Unreal 3 engine. By contrast, the only vaguely recent game I can remember on an id engine was Wolfenstein. And frankly, that looked pretty mediocre compared to the competition.
In fact, yes, looking at the "list of games that use this engine" on wikipedia, it's fairly clear that the Unreal Engine 3 is being used for a huge number of commercial games, while id's engines are starting to look distinctly niche and only seem to be used by developers with strong historic links to id.
Half Life was built upon a modified Quake engine, still one of the best games (second to Unreal)
Second t... to "Unreal?"
Sir, this indignity will not stand. I demand satisfaction. Headcrabs at 20 paces. Harrumph!