CryEngine

So we are back for my final installment in the engine blogs, now I know I've talked about a few engines and some of the cool features or in gamemaker's case scandals, but I absolutely could not forget about an engine that was literally built for a game series that I hold closer to my little gamer heart, the CryEngine. Yes this engine is the last one I will be going over before I blog again another day (not anytime soon though I need a break).

 
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aseq4T81P7g

What is the CryEngine?

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/CryEngine_Nex-Gen%284th_Generation%29.png

The CryEngine was developed as a game engine by Crytek, a German game development company founded in 1999 by the Yerli brothers. Crytek is best known for the development of Far Cry and the Crysis series as well as pushing the limits on PC specifications on the most modern graphics and gameplay.

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Crytek_logo.svg/250px-Crytek_logo.svg.png

 CryEngine is developed to be an extremely powerful engine designed to be used on PC platforms and consoles, including the next-gen consoles, PS4 and Xbox One. This engine's graphical capabilities with its state of the art lighting, realistic physics, advanced animation systems and much more surpass that of Unity and UDK, with only Unreal Engine 4 being just on par. Similar to UDK and UE4 this engine has an intuitive and powerful level design features built into the engine. Currently there have been 3 iterations of the engine with a 4th created with the development of the game Ryse: Son of Rome. In addition, there is a modified version of the CryEngine that Ubisoft Montreal has in house for the development of the Far Cry games, called Dunia. 

Engine Features 

Source: http://www.crytek.com/sites/default/files/game_teasers/bigteaser-ce2.jpg

Throughout the engines many iterations more features have been added and improved the following are just a few things that can be achieved in this engine. This features not only make this engine an industry standard but also makes it a strong competitor for game engine dominance.

• Simultaneous WYSIWYG on all platforms in Sandbox editor

• "Hot-update" for all platforms in Sandbox editor

• Material Editor

• Flow graph

• Track View Editor

• Procedural Placement Tools & Cover Generation

• Integrated vegetation & terrain cover generation system

• Real time soft particle system & integrated FX editor

• Road & river tools

• Vehicle creator

• Fully Flexible Time of Day System

• Streaming

• Performance Analysis Tools

• Visual Budget System

• Multi-core support

• Sandbox development layers

• Offline rendering

• Resource compiler

• Natural lighting & dynamic soft shadows with penumbra

• Irradiance Volume

• Deferred lighting

• Real time dynamic global illumination

• Eye adaptation & high dynamic range(HDR) lighting

• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion

• Color grading

• "Uber Shader" technology

• Blend Layer

• Normal maps & parallax occlusion maps

• Motion blur & depth of field with sprite-based bokeh

• High quality 3D water

• Dynamic volumetric light beams & light shaft effects

• Volumetric, layer & view distance fogging

• PolyBump

• High Speed Texture Rendering

• Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO)

• Tessellation & Displacement Mapping

• Screen-Space Reflections

• Particles Motion blur & Shadows

• Character animation system

• Character individualization system

• Parametric skeletal animation

• Procedural motion warping & IK solutions

• Facial animation editor

• Subsurface scattering

• AI editing system

• Dynamic pathfinding

• Layer Navigation Mesh

• Automated navigation mesh generation

• Tactical Point System

• Integrated multi-threaded physics engine

• Deformables and soft body physics

• Interactive & destructible environment

• Rope physics

• In-game sound mixing & profiling

• Data-driven sound system

• Dynamic sounds & interactive music

• Environmental audio

• Key frame-accurate sounds in animations

• Sound moods

• Stereoscopic 3D support for all platforms with minimal performance loss and zero quality impact

 Engine Iterations 

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Cryengine_tree.svg

There are a few iterations for the CryEngine that have been modified, improved and adapted.

Version 1

Source: http://www.crytek.com/sites/default/files/game_teasers/bigteaser-ce1.jpg

 The 1st installment of this game engine was originally developed for Nivida as a technology demo that was later turned into the first person shooter game, Far Cry between 2001 and 2004. It was the 1st "per pixel shading" and "high dynamic range" engine on the market. It was most know for its sandbox editor and real-time lighting, among others.

For more information on the 1st installment of this engine click Here.

Version 2

Source: http://www.crytek.com/sites/default/files/section_teasers/tunnel_CE2.jpg

The 2nd edition of this engine greatly improved many of the features showcased in CryEngine 1 as well as introducing some state of the art features such as CryEngine s's sandbox world-editing system. This iteration allowed for the creation of high quality surface descriptions that allows for the quick extraction of normal maps, displacement maps, unoccluded area direction and accessibility.

For more information on the 2nd installment of this engine click Here.

Version 3

Source: http://www.crytek.com/sites/default/files/section_teasers/newyork_CE3.jpg

 CryEngine 3 is one of the most highly advanced development software that surpasses all expectations for the creation of games, simulations, animations and interactive applications. Crytek sets the precedent for engine support with the 3rd iteration  of the CryEngine to offer developers maximum support.  In addition,  CryEngine 3 has the fastest high-end renderer in the world which was specifically designed for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

For more information on the 3rd installment of this engine click Here.

Version 4

On August 21st, 2013 Crytek announced the development of the new CryEngine, which would not carry and iteration number as it is said to be completely different from the previous versions. Support for Linx and next gen consoles such as the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U are to be added.

Dunia

The Dunia engine was developed by engine designer Kirmaan Aboobaker while working at Crytek, and was based off the CryEngine 1. It was heavily modified by Ubisoft Montreal when they developed Far Cry 2. There are currently to versions of the Dunia engine and it is used for Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4.

Gamemaker

What is gamemaker?

Gamemaker, originally named Animo, is a trademarked game creation system created by Mark Overmars and published by YoYo Games, a software and game publishing company based in Scotland. It is written in the Delphi programming language and functions as both a game engine and an IDE, otherwise known as an Interactive Development Environment. This engine was designed for those with little to no programming experience or skill to be able to effectively create games without be limited due to their lack in programming abilities. This is due to the fact that Game Maker centers itself on a drag-and-drop system that allows developers to literally drag and drop what they need in order to complete their games. The interesting about gamemaker is that it also includes a sandbox scripting language known as game maker language that can be utilized to make more advanced games that could not be created using just the drag and drop features.

Development history

While gamemarker is a popular engine when it was originally released in 1999 it was a program for creating 2D animations. It was later renamed gamemaker and originally did not have DirectX support, a separate runner to run games independently from the IDE, syntax highlighting, nor the ability to compile games into executable files

What can it do?

As it Gamemaker has greatly evolved from its original 2d animation purpose it slowly added more and more attractive features that have drawn in developers. First of all, like unity, Gamemaker includes a feature compiler that can compile a developed game into any number of executable files for numerous playforms including windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Android, IOs and HTML 5. It also as the capability to render in both 2D and 3d and uses either Direct3D for windows and OpenGL for Mac. Furthermore, it also features interface plugins or ‘extensions’ which can give Gamemaker more functionality. 

The Development experience

Gamemaker makes it easy to bring a game from a concept from a concept to a deliverable with its interactive IDE with all the resources conveniently located in one place. The engine also feature a shader support network, uses box2D physics, openAl for audio, and features networking support. Finally it features one of the most important tools for developers who are constantly going through iteration after iteration of their game, version control.

Controversy

Gamemaker has undergone a few controversies over the years that have affected its reputation in the industry:

Reverse Engineering

 

• ·         Multiple decompiles for various versions of the software have been written 
•  Used to obtain editable files to produce executables 
•  One allowed users to publish apps to IOS without the company’s consent 
•  Resulted in a law suit

Logo Controversy

 

• ·         YoYo Games hosted a competition for a new logo in 2009, the winner was Albert Zak 
•  The decision was highly criticized for the product’s userbase 
•  Became an internet meme

Digital Rights Management

• ·         In a version released in early 2013 some developers would import their games and found all of the legitimate image type resources to be destroyed 
•  There would be a symbol of a pirate on top of the image 
•  This was a result of a fault in their digital management software implementation which was used as their method for combating pirated copies of Gamemaker 
•  It took a few weeks to address and fix this issue

2013 April Fools’ Day Joke

• ·         On March 30^th in 2013, Mike Daily, someone, announced that YoYo Games was being purchased by Valve 
•  The joke drew so much criticism from the community and led to widespread arguments within the community 
•  It resulted in a huge loss in the user base of Gamemaker

Hacking Scandals

• ·         On March 18^th in 2013, the Gamemaker community forum was hacked unknowingly for an unknown period of time 
•  The hacker stole countless member’s accounts and password information 
•  The same hacker hacked GMC again in an attack involving their twitter feed and IRC chat link at a later date

Gamemaker Vs Unity

While gamemaker was released long before unity they pretty do the same thing; each have their own interactive IDE, their own scripting languages, and support for multiple platforms and graphics APIs. Unity however implemented many features before gamemaker and fully supports 3D which is much more attractive to developers. Currently both programs have all the same features and while game maker is cheaper to license at $800 as opposed to Unity Pro at $1500, it is only available on windows unlike unity that is available for both windows and mac.