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CryTek For Free: CryEngine 3 SDK and Editor
Samfer writes with this excerpt from Operation Reality Gaming:
"[...] sometime this summer, likely around August, we will see the appearance online of both a Crysis 2 editor and a CryEngine 3 SDK (software development kit). This not only means that people will be able to make full blown new levels for Crysis 2 but that the CryEngine 3 will also be made publicly available for the development of non-commercial projects to the community at large. To quote, 'This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC.'"
Giving the engine for free is a massive swing to what I believe is the future of gaming. Gamers are too far gone now to be "enchanted" by games and want to know how it all works, and how they can change it to suit them better. Fallout 3 is the first game I came across that was fully supported by the community with mods, skins, and improved game play with patches to fix bugs. Having 12 people working on a game and patches is weak compared to having hundreds of intelligent and willing contributors all working for a common goal. Let the players have the keys to the car, you will be amazed at the way we can drive.
p.s. Get Off My Lawn, I've been playing Crysis 2 on my Regan-era iPaq since last year in glorious 16-shade greyscale LCD.
Call me when they port over Quake 3 to the Apple Newton like John Carmack promised at Quakecon 2001. He must be too busy porting Rage to the iPhone still.
moox. for a new generation.
Congrats. It's been a long time since I saw goatse.
When I'm promised goatse, I demand to see goatse.
Half the fun of clicking blindly on Slashdot links is knowing that goatse could pop up at any time. When all I get is a broken image, it's like the sacred oath between troll and victim has been broken.
...but under what license will the sourcecode be released?
I've seen this described as Crytek taking on the likes of the UT3-engine, though I find there's one very important difference:
The UT3 engine can currently also be used to sell commercial games: Up to the first 50k of sales, it's completely free for developers. After that, Epic will take 25% of the earnings.
The cool things is that this 50k only works for the share that people get -after- the app stores get their cut. Have a look at their site to see their licensing agreement.
Not related to Epic in any way; Just a happy 'customer', and hopefully a published indie developer in the near future.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
This is kind of pointless. You can release everything but if you don't have a license to release a commercial games for independent developers no indie developer is going to take the trouble of using your engine. To be a great engine you need to have widespread acceptance, for that you need studios to use your engine. For studios to use your engine you need to have the people walking in for interviews use it. For those to use it your forums and community need to be abuzz with help and praise for your engine (because lets face it, community is run by indies and a few studio mods). And Indies will not touch an engine which does not have a commercial license available. The best you get will be some hobbyist or student trying it out a bit but for widespread adoption, get a nice cheap commercial indie license.
I'll add support in my map generator for your engine... :)
and i gnore the stupid comments here... some people here suck because they are paid by companies that suck to write comment that suck on websites that suck (slashdot)...
They're not giving away the source code, just the SDK...
Ogre is not an engine, just a renderer. You still need input handling, audio, artifical intelligence (if you want bots) and more.
I'm sorry but Ogre3D or any opensource engine doesn't come even CLOSE to UnrealEngine3 or Cryengine... But it also all depends on the license the freeversion of CryEngine will ship with, if it's just as interesting as the UDK it might be VERY interesting, only CryEngine doesn't run on Mobiles, whereas UDK does...
I bet he feels dumb for posting this article now, eh?
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Enjoy Norton Antivirus because that's the best you'll ever get on your crap platform.
Linux gamer here, playing Portal 2, Wesnoth, Trine, Minecraft, Spiral Knights.... don't mind me, just chilling with my penguin.
So not GPL nor APL nor BSD. Not interested.
The gaming world at large is devastated by this news.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
That's what I meant -- rendering engine. In Ogre3D, input handling is practically bundled (OIS). AI is not and can not be universal; that piece of the puzzle is definitely game code, not engine code. Audio is easily integrated.
It may not be a complete solution, but for rendering (which is one of the hardest pieces of the puzzle) it's surely good.
Fantastic! Now everyone will learn how woeful this engine is to work with :)
Epic didn't start out with that, the 'free' unreal 2 engine had a very explicit "You shall NOT create games!" in the license. The basic commercial engine license was 150k back then.
No hate for the unreal engine, I love it, I learned a lot from it. But just wanted to point that out.
I'm sorry but Ogre3D or any opensource engine doesn't come even CLOSE to UnrealEngine3 or Cryengine
Crappy stuff can be made with any of those. So can good stuff. I'm talking about erosion of market because major stuff is available in all engines for free. Open source engines are mostly missing fancy editors, since they work primarily with rendering.
Since you are obviously knowledgeable with all three systems, when you work with them, what major thing is missing from Ogre3D? What major thing do you think Unreal Engine 3 and CryEngine include that cannot easily be done with Ogre3D? Feel free to be subjective, if you need to be.
Can you also say a few words on flexibility of UE3 and CE when developing a new idea?
But it also all depends on the license the freeversion of CryEngine will ship with, if it's just as interesting as the UDK it might be VERY interesting, only CryEngine doesn't run on Mobiles, whereas UDK does...
For most stuff on mobile, you don't need a 3D engine. In fact, 3D games I have played on mobile are all far less compelling than 2D, but fancy, stuff I have seen. What game do you find compelling that uses 3D on mobile, and that its design depends on 3D and could not be done with 2D?
The first time I read it it seemed like they were giving away the engine source, due to the line "including C++ code access", the emphasis on "complete version of our engine", and the fact that they mention the "sample game code" as a separate bullet point, but the more I read it and think about it the less likely that seems.
I'm starting to think the emphasis was given due to the fact that you can download and use this SDK and engine without purchasing a Crysis 2 license (which is actually very uncommon and a good step on its own), and that's why it only contains "sample Crysis 2 game code". i.e. until the source code was released, you couldn't release a standalone Q3 mod even if you replaced all the assets. The people playing your game also had to have a license to run the quake3.exe binary at that time.
You need very good artists (3D modelling, animation) to get anything out of CryEngine, except stomach ulcer for the programmers due to the complete undocumentedness of the code.
Regular characters in Crysis2 have 20+ animations running at the same time (breathing, walking, look IK, foot IK, etc), all blended with each other. That's not going to fly for an amateur project where the artist is happy to get a half-assed walk cycle going. For those, Ogre3D is much better with its full source available and very nice documentation, and much easier access due to not having every trick in the book and then some implemented.
Open source engines are mostly missing fancy editors, since they work primarily with rendering.
No, Ogre3D is a rendering engine, while CryEngine is a game engine that happens to have an industry-leading rendering engine implemented. You can easily add a fancy game engine with very much the same capabities of CryEngine3 (except for the rendering stuff) on top of Ogre3D. In fact, there's a rather good business opportunity there.
I think it's sad how companies are engaging in every manner possible to prevent people from tinkering around with their purchases. This is yet another example of this exact trend....
Maybe you should consider how you come up with your throw away accounts? I've noticed than anyone posting a link with slash in the name is posting goatse
> The gaming world at large is devastated by this news.
And a good thing also.
But seriously, releasing things under non-Free licences seems to be very 90ies and while it's nice that they are making an effort, it's mis-guided, imo.
What a silly comment. You don't need any of that to use CryEngine. Sure you might not be making the most out of it but who cares really? You can still get a lot of handy features out of it.
I'm not understanding why people are constantly comparing Ogre3D with CryEngine. They're not the same thing. One is simply a Rendering Engine (Ogre3D) and one is a complete package that encompasses all aspects of gaming (CryEngine).
I say this as an Epic fanboi (Except for cliffyB.. he's a smacktard because he says dumb things)..
Myth (by Bungie before they turned evil^H^H^H^Hinto a M$/console tool) came out with their map/tag tools, I know it shipped with Myth 2 (1998), but I was pretty sure it was available for Myth 1 as well at some point, and there ended up being some pretty sweet mods for Myth 1 & 2.
Actually, going back and poking some more, Marathon even had an official toolset released and map contest.. (circa 96)...
I really did love Bungie before they put out Halo... sigh... anyway
You are correct though, there a ton of people modding even Wolf3d before Doom or Quake was on the scene.. .
Does 'Adventure Construction Set' count as an officially-supported-mod-platform? And heck that's just my personal game-modding experience.. I know for a fact some of hte older/more-crusty types did a ton of stuff before me..
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Also, you're forgetting by doing this, they are increasing the pool of persons that are familar with working on the engine.. in theory increasing the number of smaller startups..
Successful small companies become bigger companies.. == more games == more sales == more commission/shares for the Engine company.
It's a business move, and one I can agree with.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
What a silly comment. You don't need any of that to use CryEngine. Sure you might not be making the most out of it but who cares really?
If you're not using 90% of the features of the engine, why use it at all? I'd prefer using something that's easier to understand.
You can still get a lot of handy features out of it.
Yes, your development will still suffer, because the engine is so complicated as soon as you step one millimeter out of the Sandbox editor (I know what I'm talking about, I've been using CryEngine3 for a while now).
I'm not understanding why people are constantly comparing Ogre3D with CryEngine. They're not the same thing. One is simply a Rendering Engine (Ogre3D) and one is a complete package that encompasses all aspects of gaming (CryEngine).
Yes, I've made that distinction in another reply to this thread. Ogre3D comes with several aspects of a game engine, though, like animation/particles and user input (via an external library though). Further, some integrations exist that would belong into a game engine, like physics.
So, nitpickers are making me say "Ogre3D + additional libraries typically used with it"? :-)
Sure, those few generic classes for AI can be taken off the shelf. Is that among the things that CryEngine offers?
There are numerous libraries typically combined with Ogre3D to provide it physics and audio. AI can be written relatively easily, and reusability is limited. Networking can be difficult to reuse.
What a silly comment. You don't need any of that to use CryEngine. Sure you might not be making the most out of it but who cares really?
If you're not using 90% of the features of the engine, why use it at all? I'd prefer using something that's easier to understand.
That's right!
You can still get a lot of handy features out of it.
Yes, your development will still suffer, because the engine is so complicated as soon as you step one millimeter out of the Sandbox editor (I know what I'm talking about, I've been using CryEngine3 for a while now).
Nice to hear from someone that actually used the engine to confirm my suspicions :-)
Business move is smart, indeed. How useful to other developers - this remains to be seen.
But seriously, releasing things under non-Free licences seems to be very 90ies and while it's nice that they are making an effort, it's mis-guided, imo.
Equally seriously, what world are you living on? That sentence doesn't even slightly describe reality. If you hadn't mentioned APL and BSD in your previous post I'd assume your were Richard Stallman.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Rendering engine means nothing without good artists. Otherwise, insightful -- here's a cookie :-)
Yes, but the artist can't do much when the technology doesn't support it. For example, I was pretty much blown away when I read what a wrinkle map does. Ogre3D is nowhere near to supporting that detail in animations.
Thanks for the cookie ;)
I think Crysis is all about hype. Yeah the game looks stunning, but the gameplay is truely some of the worst I have had the displeasure to play. I much more enjoyed Prototype. I mean if I am in this city I should be able to go where I want, and not be stuck to a linear path. Not even bringing into play the fact that I have to spend a half clip of ammunition to take out 1 enemy. That's just dumb. It totally makes the game about finding ammo. If I wanted that I'd just play Resident Evil.
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Prepare to have your mind blown: you can open-source the majority of your game while still having a proprietary engine. You can let people re-use your code, just not theirs.
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Giving the engine for free is a massive swing to what I believe is the future of gaming.
The "future" of gaming is content, not the engine. The content can be locked up even if the engine is open. Also considering the miss to hit ratio of community mods game publishers have little to worry.
I think you're exactly right about content vs. engine. While this is a move in the right direction by Crytek, it would be even better if they released it as Free or Open Source software. They're already planning to make the source available to anyone, so it seems they're not trying to hide anything. If they released it under a copyleft license, they wouldn't even have to worry that much about competitors gaining an unfair advantage, since improvements couldn't be made proprietary.
No real use to the community, especially not in the sense that Carmack releasing the Q3 and other engines was.
What community is that? I expect the game-playing community will be quite happy with what comes from this. As will many in many of the game-making communities. The open source community may not get too much from this, but whoever said it was for them?
As for the stupid, rabid, open-source-or-die community which you represent perfectly, you can go die in your hole or irrelevance. Nobody cares about you.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Interesting! Thanks for the info! I'm pretty sure if one sat for a while and thought about it, one could come up with a way to easily implement wrinkle maps with Ogre. On the other hand, there may be many such tricks in CryEngine.
In the end, it all comes down to this: how much of those tricks does one need for most games?
What game do you find compelling that uses 3D on mobile, and that its design depends on 3D and could not be done with 2D?
Have you actually seen the latest games for the latest smartphones/tablets?
Yes, but I have not seen any 3D game that makes me want to really play it. I find the 3D aspect interesting professionally, and from a technological perspective, but I don't find it adding entertainment value.
Yes I'm a 2D fan myself, I really like 2D platform games and adventure games and don't think 3D adds anything to it, but when I have to create a new game the customers expect 3D these days,
I disagree that customers demand 3D on mobile. In fact, I disagree that they demand it on desktop, for many game concepts. Despite what my personal tastes say about it, tons of people play stuff from casual vendors such as Big Fish Games especially from the "Hidden Object" category.
Does 3D add significant value and (more importantly) improved visuals to puzzle games, to hidden objects? Do you think people wouldn't play Torchlight if it were 2D? 3D games we already very strong back in 2000, yet Diablo II was mostly 2D.
I don't think people's tastes are all that radically different today. Games can be improved by 3D, but it might be unimportant, and it may significantly hinder the visuals of the games if they have the same budget. A game with 2D sprites, background et al can take advantage of excellent renderers in 3D modeling packages and only then be touched up in Photoshop to improve the look. A game with 3D environment has to have great texture artists, great modelers, great shader writers and display the entire good looking 3D environment quickly on even poor machines.
It all depends on what your market is.
so it's very nice if you have an engine that works on all platforms and you don't have to change your workflow constantly.
I agree with this one completely!
It does depend, however, on how complex is it to implement your ideas with an off-the-shelf game engine, and sometimes it may even be so with an off-the-shelf renderer. Just sayin'. :-)
I'm pretty sure if one sat for a while and thought about it, one could come up with a way to easily implement wrinkle maps with Ogre.
Yes, since Ogre is fully open source, you can implement everything that is technically possible. The question is just how much time you can invest. At some point it's just as easy to create a rendering engine from scratch.
On the other hand, there may be many such tricks in CryEngine.
There are a lot. You can find a brief overview at mycryengine.com. The character stuff is also very impressive.
In the end, it all comes down to this: how much of those tricks does one need for most games?
Yep, if you don't have a team of graphics and animation artists sitting at the office and working on characters all day for a year or more, you can't use most of those features anyways. Additionally, they don't add anything to the game concept itself. As an indie developer, an innovative game concept is the key to success, not having perfect water or skin rendering.
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Good-bye