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CryEngine 3 for cinema (possibly arch Viz too)


cmiller3030
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Free version for CryEngine will be available this summer according to some videos...

I was integrating CryEngine2 Mod sdk to my workflow (ArchiCAD->3DSMax->CryEngine) using MaxScripting and it takes about 3 minutes to setup a model for visualisation if you have your environment ready (~30 minutes). Rendering pictures takes basically no time and videos rendering equals to your animation lenght, completely real-time.

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  • 3 months later...

I am beginning some research on realtime, but I am a bit confused with CryEngine3. Has it been around for a few year, or is it coming out this summer?

 

Or is it that you can finally acquire CryEngine3 this summer, even though it has been out for awhile?

 

Also, I always assumed when I began looking into this I would wind up looking at the Unity engine, but it seems that CryEngine may be the superior of the two. ..maybe Unity is cheaper to produce on than CryEngine, and that is why you hear about it?

 

I am not a gamer nor realtime developer, so sorry if these questions sound a bit newbie.

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I used Cryengine2 for some visualization projects for licensees. It's the best solution in my opinion because it gives the workflow of game-development which is very structured. Most of the new arch-viz tools are a bunch of marketing videos.

 

For example Twinmotion states brush based terrain painting as new and innovative. I used it forst back in 2005 for a battlefiels 2 level and its a common tech to paint terrains in game-dev.

 

If used properly you can archieve more in less time with engines like Cryengine. There is all in. Camera, efficient asset management possibility to use baked lighting, advanced shaders and so on.

 

At the moment I use Lumion3d and Leadwerks Engine at Pure3d. Both are lacking some features but have their own advantages. In Lumion I like the movie creation part, in Leadwerks the power to have even 16 square kilometer scenes with lots of assets running smoothly plus the ability to deliver stand-alone versions to my clients.

 

Me and my partners are looking forward to CE3 this summer but I think the new licensing model will only apply for game-devs. Not for arch-viz. We will see...

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  • 3 months later...

I've used Unity and Quest3D. I have found Unity easy to set up and its free. I looked at Cry Engine some time ago but it was quite expensive.

 

The downside of all these game engines is that you have to model low poly and they only support standard materials.

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I am already building a smaller game (or rather game-world at this time) inside. I am very satisfied, even at this stage of release. I am used to it since workflow hasn;t changed at all from CE2 that shipped with Crysis 1.

 

It's definitely user-friendly enough for Archviz, apart from bit problematic import at this stage.. (you need to model very clean).

The low-poly isn't really issues, since CE allways handled them very well, your whole scene can go up to few milions of poly no problems.

 

If anyone has question, just ask me.

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Glad to hear your having some success. Im free this weekend so im going to have a bash at it.

 

Yeah the low poly clean modelling thing shouldn't be an issue, i have always been a little obssessive about clean geometry and such. Stems back to my time doing animation i think and its stayed with me.

 

Whats your game about? I would love to have a look if you can share?? I've always wanted to get in to game development but not had the opportunity as of yet. Im slowly trying to pick up C++ when i have time lol. This free cryengibne could be my opprtunity.

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You will like it ;- )

 

Here is my first try, I made it the same day CE3 SDK came out :- ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZyCKDODvRU

I've imported few of my basic medieval assets into example level, played around with athmosphere, lighting. It's all very user-friendly and easy.

Of course, now I have much better assets made, I try to allways slip some time and make something inbetween.

 

Haha I am trying to teach myself C++ too in free time, being taught by my younger brother :- )

In few days there should be first update for engine ready, I would wait and download that.

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Is that your house asset place in the SDK harbour tech demo? looks great.

 

Its going to take a while to get used to the stricter pipeline involved with a game engine. Its amazing how much we take for granted with pre rendered images.

 

I will post something here once i have something worth seeing lol. Thanks for the info.

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The pipeline isn't much harder from general Max workflow, the process is very straigh-forward and fast, you can export and import with whole materials set-up under 1 minute per mesh (which only has limit of 60 000 triangles).

 

Take a look at his guy's work, he's a pro in CryEngine ;- ) Here is the single arch-viz project he did in it. Stunning work, same as the rest of his.

 

'Summer Cottage at the Lake'

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My interest in the Cryengine 3 was piqued when I notice that they're planning to address visualization directly in the future ("Vizualization - Coming Soon"): http://mycryengine.com/ Do you suppose that they're developing their own Lumion-like visualization product (which is developed by the same company that develops Quest 3D game engine)? I've been pretty interested in Lumion, but if Crytek is getting into the visualization industry, that could be well worth waiting for.

 

I've been testing Lumion 3d and I really like it from a workflow standpoint. It's very easy to import a 3ds Max model in and create an animation. But, I want a little better image quality from it. A Cryengine based visualization product could possibly deliver that better image quality.

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My educated guess would be they bring few useful tools, facelift interface and whole package, and offer licence terms.

 

I highly doubt they will venture deeper, definitely won;t be anything similiat to Lumion or Twinmotion, even that won't be any soon.

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To effectively use CryEngine or any other engine, you need to understand that if you think it's a simple export of the building, you are going to run into so many roadblocks you'll end up ditching the real time idea.

 

This industry, if it ever wants to fully adapt to real time, needs to learn from the video games industry about how to effectively model environments with modular pieces and texture optimization. The video game industry has been going this for many years, they've got it figured out.

 

MadMaximus's work is indeed amazing, but what's his frame rate? Just looking at that wire frame would give any real time pipeline engineer a heart attack.

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Well, he mentions he builds some environments simply for show, but yet maintain 20fps average (but this of course I guess excludes the "vray" scene, which was simply shader possibilities showcase).

 

I think you all should try the CE3 in free time since it's free now. It isn't really that hard compared to other engines, and the workflow definitely isn't so strict. No need for super optimisation or normal-mapping of everything, of course it helps, but isn't absolute requisitary, like it used to be in iDtech and Unreal, and many other more traditional engines.

 

But I agree with what you say generally.

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Ahh, 20 FPS is pushing the lower limits for the industry. 30 FPS is the average, with some companies like Activision pushing more for 60-90 FPS. 15 FPS is where humans see loss of motion. What's his computer specs? If he's getting 20 FPS on a high end machine, that's probably around 5-7 FPS for the rest of us. Granted, this isn't necessarily for a first person shooter game, but 30 FPS should always be the target.

 

Just looking at his wireframe, you can see so many areas that could be optimized with minimal to no loss of image quality. I agree that CryENGINE can push a lot of geometry through, but that's no reason to ever skimp on optimizations. When you try to push this to a client, and the only way they can run the real time is with a space computer, there's very few that will invest in it.

 

I, personally, think the lack of optimizations or the attitude towards optimizations is what hurts many firm's or a person's interest in real time. It's tough though, because we don't build the grand environments of games and our environments are more focused. All of our poly's are in one compact area. But that should also really push us as artists to really optimize our scenes.

 

Does CE3 come with any test scenes? I know the UDK builds come with several Gears 2 levels and you really see where Epic games did a fantastic job at keeping quality with optimizations.

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You really missunderstand him, the "vray" scene is the only unoptimised, it wasn't made to be real-time, simply a comparison of quality. Check the rest of his work, he knows how to optimise pretty well, I don;t think his talent is the only thing that gave him job at crytek :- ). He knows the engine upside-down.

 

Yes, the CE3 comes with the "Forest Level", it's pretty basic, but it works. The only optimisation Crytek did was awfully size-down textures for consoles :- D it's nowhere near Unreal.

I didn't know UDK came with Gears levels.. ? Mine had Unreal Tournament map. Might check.

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  • 4 months later...

Pricing is individual per project. But for now, there is free non-commercial SDK out. Indie-pricing is no the way, with similiar to UDK model (20perc. royalties).

 

Lumion is a better product for archviz though. Cry Engine, after all, is a game engine first. But the lightning is more powerful right now with CE3 compared to Lumion. They might catch up though.

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