CRYENGINE 3.8.4 is here and we’re bringing all the updates we teased last week (Visual Studio 2013 and 2015, Height Map AO, Rendering Performance Profiler), improvements to Designer Tool, UV Mapping Editor and Character Tool and many more tweaks.

Character Tool

It’s now easier to specify and create animation events when setting up characters. We also added and improved a lot of tooltips and warnings, mostly related to the properties within chrparams. Users previously had to create text files by hand, but we added the ability to create new animation events files from within the properties panel of chrparams files, when no animation events file is specified.



Height Map based Ambient Occlusion

CRYENGINE 3.8.4 will provide an extremely efficient yet approximate large scale ambient occlusion solution for outdoor environments. In combination with Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO), Height Map Ambient Occlusion (or short Height Map AO) provides additional shading cues to the eye, yielding enhanced scene depth perception.



Volumetric Fog: Sun Radial Scattering

Voxel-based Volumetric Fog has only one fog color and anisotropic factor, so it's difficult to control the balance of halos around the sun and overall scattering. This new feature enables artists to produce halos around the sun by using Voxel-based Volumetric Fog. As of 3.8.4, the Fog has Radial color, Radial lobe and Radial size parameters.




Rendering Performance Profiler

The new unified rendering pipeline profiler gives an overview of where the main performance bottlenecks are and shows the GPU times of the most important rendering passes. It combines the information from several of our previous profilers and presents it in a clearer interface.



Visual Studio 2013 and 2015

We now partially support VS2013 and VS2015, but for this release some plugins or features may not be available because third party dependencies may not have made libraries available that are compatible with these Visual studio versions. Anybody who wants to test this experimental feature in the upcoming update will need to actively enable it by following these instructions.

Designer Tool and UV Mapping Editor

Extrude is one of the most frequently used features in Designer Tool, but it only allows one polygon to be extruded in a direction normal to itself. To overcome this limitation, Extrude Multiple has been added to support extruding multiple polygons in individual normal directions, an average direction or an x/y/z direction.



The UV Mapping Editor also has two new features that significantly simplify edge sewing (SmartSew) and border selection (Loop Selection).



Last but not least, here is a short sample of the new things we’ve implemented for 3.8.4.

New: Dynamic distance shadows.
New: Supersampling support in game launcher.
New: Temporal AA is working with dual stereo rendering and VR now.
New: Improved vegetation shading, addressing issues with shading discontinuities and overly strong specular on foliage planes.
New: Added Flow Node inputs to FogVolume for easily setting values of the entity.
New: Updated WAF support for VS2013 and VS2015.
New: Exposed CVar for game to specify cursor (r_MouseCursorTexture).
New: Added technical documentation on Time in CryAnimation.
New: Reload Actionmaps during editor runtime.
New: Added release configuration support.

Thanks for reading!
The CRYENGINE team.

CRYENGINE 3.8.4 is here and we’re bringing all the updates we teased last week (Visual Studio 2013 and 2015, Height Map AO, Rendering Performance Profiler), improvements to Designer Tool, UV Mapping Editor and Character Tool and many more tweaks.

Character Tool

It’s now easier to specify and create animation events when setting up characters. We also added and improved a lot of tooltips and warnings, mostly related to the properties within chrparams. Users previously had to create text files by hand, but we added the ability to create new animation events files from within the properties panel of chrparams files, when no animation events file is specified.



Height Map based Ambient Occlusion

CRYENGINE 3.8.4 will provide an extremely efficient yet approximate large scale ambient occlusion solution for outdoor environments. In combination with Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO), Height Map Ambient Occlusion (or short Height Map AO) provides additional shading cues to the eye, yielding enhanced scene depth perception.



Volumetric Fog: Sun Radial Scattering

Voxel-based Volumetric Fog has only one fog color and anisotropic factor, so it's difficult to control the balance of halos around the sun and overall scattering. This new feature enables artists to produce halos around the sun by using Voxel-based Volumetric Fog. As of 3.8.4, the Fog has Radial color, Radial lobe and Radial size parameters.




Rendering Performance Profiler

The new unified rendering pipeline profiler gives an overview of where the main performance bottlenecks are and shows the GPU times of the most important rendering passes. It combines the information from several of our previous profilers and presents it in a clearer interface.



Visual Studio 2013 and 2015

We now partially support VS2013 and VS2015, but for this release some plugins or features may not be available because third party dependencies may not have made libraries available that are compatible with these Visual studio versions. Anybody who wants to test this experimental feature in the upcoming update will need to actively enable it by following these instructions.

Designer Tool and UV Mapping Editor

Extrude is one of the most frequently used features in Designer Tool, but it only allows one polygon to be extruded in a direction normal to itself. To overcome this limitation, Extrude Multiple has been added to support extruding multiple polygons in individual normal directions, an average direction or an x/y/z direction.



The UV Mapping Editor also has two new features that significantly simplify edge sewing (SmartSew) and border selection (Loop Selection).



Last but not least, here is a short sample of the new things we’ve implemented for 3.8.4.

New: Dynamic distance shadows.
New: Supersampling support in game launcher.
New: Temporal AA is working with dual stereo rendering and VR now.
New: Improved vegetation shading, addressing issues with shading discontinuities and overly strong specular on foliage planes.
New: Added Flow Node inputs to FogVolume for easily setting values of the entity.
New: Updated WAF support for VS2013 and VS2015.
New: Exposed CVar for game to specify cursor (r_MouseCursorTexture).
New: Added technical documentation on Time in CryAnimation.
New: Reload Actionmaps during editor runtime.
New: Added release configuration support.

Thanks for reading!
The CRYENGINE team.

Hello everyone,

We have added partial support for Visual Studio 2015, implemented a new Height Map based Ambient Occlusion solution for outdoor environments, developed a Rendering Profiler to help users investigate where they are spending their rendering budget, and added a few more fixes we’ll announce when CRYENGINE 3.8.4 is available for everyone.

Height Map based Ambient Occlusion

CRYENGINE 3.8.4 will provide an extremely efficient yet approximate large scale ambient occlusion solution for outdoor environments. In combination with Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO), Height Map Ambient Occlusion (or short Height Map AO) provides additional shading cues to the eye, yielding enhanced scene depth perception.





Rendering Performance Profiler

The new unified rendering pipeline profiler gives an overview of where the main performance bottlenecks are and shows the GPU times of the most important rendering passes. It combines the information from several of our previous profilers and presents it in a clearer interface.

We’re replacing our previous tools with two Profilers, one for artists and designers who only want an overview of the scene budget:


And a profiler specifically targeted towards programmers, where we give the full scene breakdown costs:


Visual Studio 2013 and 2015

We are working on VS2013 and VS2015 support but for this release some plugins or features may not be available because third party dependencies may not have made libraries available that are compatible with these Visual Studio versions. Anybody who wants to test this experimental feature in the upcoming update will need to actively enable it by following these instructions.

Thanks for reading and all the best,

The CRYENGINE team.

Hello everyone,

We have added partial support for Visual Studio 2015, implemented a new Height Map based Ambient Occlusion solution for outdoor environments, developed a Rendering Profiler to help users investigate where they are spending their rendering budget, and added a few more fixes we’ll announce when CRYENGINE 3.8.4 is available for everyone.

Height Map based Ambient Occlusion

CRYENGINE 3.8.4 will provide an extremely efficient yet approximate large scale ambient occlusion solution for outdoor environments. In combination with Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO), Height Map Ambient Occlusion (or short Height Map AO) provides additional shading cues to the eye, yielding enhanced scene depth perception.





Rendering Performance Profiler

The new unified rendering pipeline profiler gives an overview of where the main performance bottlenecks are and shows the GPU times of the most important rendering passes. It combines the information from several of our previous profilers and presents it in a clearer interface.

We’re replacing our previous tools with two Profilers, one for artists and designers who only want an overview of the scene budget:


And a profiler specifically targeted towards programmers, where we give the full scene breakdown costs:


Visual Studio 2013 and 2015

We are working on VS2013 and VS2015 support but for this release some plugins or features may not be available because third party dependencies may not have made libraries available that are compatible with these Visual Studio versions. Anybody who wants to test this experimental feature in the upcoming update will need to actively enable it by following these instructions.

Thanks for reading and all the best,

The CRYENGINE team.

What this update lacks in amount of features, more than makes up for in fixes and optimizations. We already gave you a brief introduction to the UV Mapping Editor, one of the main stars in 3.8.3 but not the only big feature.

Character Attachment Merging (Shadows)

In CRYENGINE characters consist of many attachments, tied together via the skeleton. While this approach provides a lot of flexibility, it makes the rendering quite expensive as each part needs to be rendered individually. We optimized shadow rendering in a way where all attachments are merged into a set of large meshes which can be rendered with one draw call each.

UV Mapping Editor

The UV Mapping Editor provides easy and more powerful ways to define UVs of a designer object, very similar to what you could build in most DCC tools. We understand these tools can be difficult to learn, and simpler ones can’t accomplish the level of polish CRYENGINE users are accustomed to.

You can read the longer list of fixes and implementations here. For now, take a quick look at some of the important changes:

•New: Improved occlusion and indirect shadowing quality.

•New: Added two new Lightstyles (49/50) to simulate large and small open flame variations.

•Fixed: SplineDistributor can be hidden now.

•Fixed: New level - on creation, make an objectives.xml. Removes warnings in editor log.

•Fixed: Cubemap generation when SVOGI is in use.

•Fixed: CUIEntityTag first-frame flickering.

•Tweaked: Changed Vegetation Tool "UseSprites" checkbox to be unchecked by default. Sprites are no longer supported.

•Tweaked: only brushes need to notify the NavMesh of upcoming changes of their AABB.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,

The CRYENGINE team.

What this update lacks in amount of features, more than makes up for in fixes and optimizations. We already gave you a brief introduction to the UV Mapping Editor, one of the main stars in 3.8.3 but not the only big feature.

Character Attachment Merging (Shadows)

In CRYENGINE characters consist of many attachments, tied together via the skeleton. While this approach provides a lot of flexibility, it makes the rendering quite expensive as each part needs to be rendered individually. We optimized shadow rendering in a way where all attachments are merged into a set of large meshes which can be rendered with one draw call each.

UV Mapping Editor

The UV Mapping Editor provides easy and more powerful ways to define UVs of a designer object, very similar to what you could build in most DCC tools. We understand these tools can be difficult to learn, and simpler ones can’t accomplish the level of polish CRYENGINE users are accustomed to.

You can read the longer list of fixes and implementations here. For now, take a quick look at some of the important changes:

•New: Improved occlusion and indirect shadowing quality.

•New: Added two new Lightstyles (49/50) to simulate large and small open flame variations.

•Fixed: SplineDistributor can be hidden now.

•Fixed: New level - on creation, make an objectives.xml. Removes warnings in editor log.

•Fixed: Cubemap generation when SVOGI is in use.

•Fixed: CUIEntityTag first-frame flickering.

•Tweaked: Changed Vegetation Tool "UseSprites" checkbox to be unchecked by default. Sprites are no longer supported.

•Tweaked: only brushes need to notify the NavMesh of upcoming changes of their AABB.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,

The CRYENGINE team.

Hello all,

CRYENGINE 3.8.1 took the spotlight as our big update of the year so far, but today we bring you a few fixes and improvements for a smoother development process, and even more eye candy.

New Depth-of-Field

We feature an all-new DOF solution that fixes many of the edge bleeding artifacts of the previous implementation, while being more bandwidth-friendly and thus efficient at the same time. Also, our motion blur implementation uses a more sophisticated sample weighting scheme now which improves the quality of silhouettes at better performance. The motion blur amount is controlled now using real-world shutter speed settings!

Old DOF implementation (note the ghosting/silhouette around the characters)


New DOF implementation


Volumetric Fog

We’re bringing more improvements to the voxel-based volumetric fog we introduced in 3.8.1. Voxel-based Volumetric Fog uses volume textures as a view-frustum-shaped voxel buffer to store the incoming light and properties of participating media. You will see a noticeable upgrade in the overall visual quality; particularly, flicker and ghosting artifacts were greatly reduced. Furthermore, optimizing and changing the process of the volumetric fog also contributed the improvements.


New feature: Octree

Octrees are a fairly well known search-optimized structure to store arbitrary data as long as it’s organized in a 3D space. These are used in a wide range of cases (most typically for rendering or physics simulation purposes) and we now provide you with a C++ template to implement your own octrees in a consistent and convenient way.

Procedural Vegetation Import Fix

The previous export/import of procedural vegetation was working properly in the Editor but didn’t apply the correct vegetation objects in the launcher. Now the correct vegetation objects are applied accurately on each layer when exporting to the game.

We also refactored the Visual Studio auto-detection in WAF, allowing solutions to be generated for Visual Studio 2013 and 2015. Thanks to our community member ‘sunnlok’ for his support with this in 3.8.1!

Last but not least, here’s a small sample of fixes we’ve implemented that are a direct response to your feedback on the forums, so thank you very much for that and keep them coming!

Fixed: Fixed non-HDR skyboxes when reverse depth is enabled.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) Not displaying cursor in "Done" status in Cylinder and Cone tools.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) Missing some polygons in a designer object from 3.5.8 when loading the designer object in 3.8.1.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) ResetXForm tool which didn't work on multiple selected objects.

Fixed: Procedural vegetation objects are no longer spawned on wrong layers.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,

The CRYENGINE team

Hello all,

CRYENGINE 3.8.1 took the spotlight as our big update of the year so far, but today we bring you a few fixes and improvements for a smoother development process, and even more eye candy.

New Depth-of-Field

We feature an all-new DOF solution that fixes many of the edge bleeding artifacts of the previous implementation, while being more bandwidth-friendly and thus efficient at the same time. Also, our motion blur implementation uses a more sophisticated sample weighting scheme now which improves the quality of silhouettes at better performance. The motion blur amount is controlled now using real-world shutter speed settings!

Old DOF implementation (note the ghosting/silhouette around the characters)


New DOF implementation


Volumetric Fog

We’re bringing more improvements to the voxel-based volumetric fog we introduced in 3.8.1. Voxel-based Volumetric Fog uses volume textures as a view-frustum-shaped voxel buffer to store the incoming light and properties of participating media. You will see a noticeable upgrade in the overall visual quality; particularly, flicker and ghosting artifacts were greatly reduced. Furthermore, optimizing and changing the process of the volumetric fog also contributed the improvements.


New feature: Octree

Octrees are a fairly well known search-optimized structure to store arbitrary data as long as it’s organized in a 3D space. These are used in a wide range of cases (most typically for rendering or physics simulation purposes) and we now provide you with a C++ template to implement your own octrees in a consistent and convenient way.

Procedural Vegetation Import Fix

The previous export/import of procedural vegetation was working properly in the Editor but didn’t apply the correct vegetation objects in the launcher. Now the correct vegetation objects are applied accurately on each layer when exporting to the game.

We also refactored the Visual Studio auto-detection in WAF, allowing solutions to be generated for Visual Studio 2013 and 2015. Thanks to our community member ‘sunnlok’ for his support with this in 3.8.1!

Last but not least, here’s a small sample of fixes we’ve implemented that are a direct response to your feedback on the forums, so thank you very much for that and keep them coming!

Fixed: Fixed non-HDR skyboxes when reverse depth is enabled.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) Not displaying cursor in "Done" status in Cylinder and Cone tools.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) Missing some polygons in a designer object from 3.5.8 when loading the designer object in 3.8.1.

Fixed: (Designer Tool) ResetXForm tool which didn't work on multiple selected objects.

Fixed: Procedural vegetation objects are no longer spawned on wrong layers.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,

The CRYENGINE team

Hey all,

And welcome to CRYENGINE 3.8.1 (out now for all subscribers on Steam), the most feature-packed release since we launched the Engine-as-a-Service model in May of last year. So without further ado, let’s dive right in and take a look at some of the great new features the team has been busily working on in the past months!

CRYENGINE 3.8.1 is now available

New API: OpenGL Support
Starting with 3.8.1, we are shipping a fully-featured OpenGL rendering implementation with CRYENGINE, which goes hand in hand with Linux support for your games (see below).

New platform: Oculus Rift Support
You asked about it, and we listened: Just in time for the announcement of Crytek’S new VR title “Robinson: The Journey” at this week’s E3, we are putting support for the Oculus Rift HMD (Head-mounted display) into EaaS users’ hands. We've included a small demonstration level, aptly titled the "VR_Demo" level. This showcases some information on how you can approach setting up your levels for VR, some of the implications and the immersive benefits of using VR.

New platform: Linux
As previously announced, we are adding Linux support for your Game.exe. While you will still need Windows to use the Sandbox Editor, you can now release your commercial games on Linux as well as on PC- and of course, there are still no royalties whatsoever!

New feature: Voxel-based Volumetric Fog
With today’s release, we introduce an all new voxel-based volumetric fog system. The system supports illumination from deferred lights, respects clip volume boundaries and works consistently with transparent objects including particles.

New feature: 8-weight GPU Vertex Skinning
Skinning of complex animated meshes that use more than 4 vertex weights (up to 8 weights) can now be performed directly on the GPU which can significantly reduce the CPU load.

Improved: POM Self-Shadowing
This is another topic we had a lot of feedback on from our users on the forums, so we are happy to report that POM self-shadowing is back and working efficiently with deferred shading, allowing the sun to cast shadows from the heightmap used for POM (Parallax Occlusion Mapping).

GameZero
The GameSDK project is a full blown game example. It demonstrates how most of the CRYENGINE features can be utilized, but its size and complexity can be overwhelming for first-time users. GameZero offers a minimalist approach to CRYENGINE. It allows first time users to get a quick overview of using the engine’s core functionality. It can be used as starting point for creating several types of games.

Added: Support for 3ds Max 2016, Maya 2016 and MotionBuilder 2016
Keeping our DCC-import pipeline up-to-date, we have added support for 3ds Max 2016, Maya 2016 and MotionBuilder 2016.

And much, much more!
Beyond these highlights, there are hundreds of further additions, improvements and fixes- please find the full release notes on our Documentation website.


E3, as Achieved with CRYENGINE

This week, the eyes of game developers and gamers alike were once again focused on Los Angeles and the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). To make sure that you didn’t miss any of the CRYENGINE-powered games being shown in the onslaught of news, we have prepared a small list for you!

Crytek – Robinson: The Journey
Assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet in Robinson: The Journey, a brand new virtual reality game from Crytek. Keep an eye out for more news in the future!

Battlecry Studios – Battlecry
What happens when you combine the creative mind between some of gaming’s most memorable settings with the power of CRYENGINE? You get a remarkable looking world for your fast-pcaed, brutal melee combat to take place it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAcL5yk8uo

CI Games – Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3
Our friends at CI Games are back with a sequel to their popular Sniper: Ghost Warrior franchise. Check out their new dev diary for details on their ambitious plans to bring realistic sniper combat to Eastern Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B-nY52j8yU

Sony Santa Monica/ The Chinese Room – Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
You won’t have to wait much longer to experience this game’s eerie take on 1980s Great Britain- Sony just announced that it will be coming to Playstation 4 on August 11th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MSeTa2_7E

Warhorse Studios - Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Warhorse Studios used E3 as an opportunity to show of several new features that are soon coming to the Alpha of their ambitious open-world medieval RPG, such as sword-fighting and horse riding- take a look for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSy1gNyjSXk

As always, we are grateful for your support and feedback- keep it coming, and enjoy CRYENGINE 3.8.1!

Thanks,
The CRYENGINE Team

Hey all,

And welcome to CRYENGINE 3.8.1 (out now for all subscribers on Steam), the most feature-packed release since we launched the Engine-as-a-Service model in May of last year. So without further ado, let’s dive right in and take a look at some of the great new features the team has been busily working on in the past months!

CRYENGINE 3.8.1 is now available

New API: OpenGL Support
Starting with 3.8.1, we are shipping a fully-featured OpenGL rendering implementation with CRYENGINE, which goes hand in hand with Linux support for your games (see below).

New platform: Oculus Rift Support
You asked about it, and we listened: Just in time for the announcement of Crytek’S new VR title “Robinson: The Journey” at this week’s E3, we are putting support for the Oculus Rift HMD (Head-mounted display) into EaaS users’ hands. We've included a small demonstration level, aptly titled the "VR_Demo" level. This showcases some information on how you can approach setting up your levels for VR, some of the implications and the immersive benefits of using VR.

New platform: Linux
As previously announced, we are adding Linux support for your Game.exe. While you will still need Windows to use the Sandbox Editor, you can now release your commercial games on Linux as well as on PC- and of course, there are still no royalties whatsoever!

New feature: Voxel-based Volumetric Fog
With today’s release, we introduce an all new voxel-based volumetric fog system. The system supports illumination from deferred lights, respects clip volume boundaries and works consistently with transparent objects including particles.

New feature: 8-weight GPU Vertex Skinning
Skinning of complex animated meshes that use more than 4 vertex weights (up to 8 weights) can now be performed directly on the GPU which can significantly reduce the CPU load.

Improved: POM Self-Shadowing
This is another topic we had a lot of feedback on from our users on the forums, so we are happy to report that POM self-shadowing is back and working efficiently with deferred shading, allowing the sun to cast shadows from the heightmap used for POM (Parallax Occlusion Mapping).

GameZero
The GameSDK project is a full blown game example. It demonstrates how most of the CRYENGINE features can be utilized, but its size and complexity can be overwhelming for first-time users. GameZero offers a minimalist approach to CRYENGINE. It allows first time users to get a quick overview of using the engine’s core functionality. It can be used as starting point for creating several types of games.

Added: Support for 3ds Max 2016, Maya 2016 and MotionBuilder 2016
Keeping our DCC-import pipeline up-to-date, we have added support for 3ds Max 2016, Maya 2016 and MotionBuilder 2016.

And much, much more!
Beyond these highlights, there are hundreds of further additions, improvements and fixes- please find the full release notes on our Documentation website.


E3, as Achieved with CRYENGINE

This week, the eyes of game developers and gamers alike were once again focused on Los Angeles and the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). To make sure that you didn’t miss any of the CRYENGINE-powered games being shown in the onslaught of news, we have prepared a small list for you!

Crytek – Robinson: The Journey
Assume the role of a young boy who has crash-landed on a mysterious planet in Robinson: The Journey, a brand new virtual reality game from Crytek. Keep an eye out for more news in the future!

Battlecry Studios – Battlecry
What happens when you combine the creative mind between some of gaming’s most memorable settings with the power of CRYENGINE? You get a remarkable looking world for your fast-pcaed, brutal melee combat to take place it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAcL5yk8uo

CI Games – Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3
Our friends at CI Games are back with a sequel to their popular Sniper: Ghost Warrior franchise. Check out their new dev diary for details on their ambitious plans to bring realistic sniper combat to Eastern Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B-nY52j8yU

Sony Santa Monica/ The Chinese Room – Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture
You won’t have to wait much longer to experience this game’s eerie take on 1980s Great Britain- Sony just announced that it will be coming to Playstation 4 on August 11th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MSeTa2_7E

Warhorse Studios - Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Warhorse Studios used E3 as an opportunity to show of several new features that are soon coming to the Alpha of their ambitious open-world medieval RPG, such as sword-fighting and horse riding- take a look for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSy1gNyjSXk

As always, we are grateful for your support and feedback- keep it coming, and enjoy CRYENGINE 3.8.1!

Thanks,
The CRYENGINE Team