- Note: Some information on this page is borrowed from the CryENGINE 3 website and Wikipedia
The CryENGINE 3 logo
CryENGINE 3 is Crytek's fourth commercial game engine to be released. It is a heavily tweaked version of CryENGINE 2 that allows for console support.
Crysis 2[]
For the developement of Crysis 2, Crytek realized that their CryENGINE 2 required simply too much processing power for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to handle. Thus, they set out at a very early stage of development to optimize the CryENGINE 2 for console use while still maintaining the signature physics engine and shine that the original retained. While not as graphically stunning as CryENGINE 2, the CryENGINE 3 sported support for consoles, and despite its inability to match up with the old engine in terms of looks, still topped the charts as the best looking game engine to date on seventh generation consoles.
Crysis[]
Crytek realized the potential complications of releasing the original Crysis for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 shortly after deciding to do so; as was the case with Crysis 2, the consoles simply could not handle the CryENGINE 2's huge demand for processing power. In response, Crytek switched the engine that Crysis used from CryENGINE 2 to CryENGINE 3 for its console release.
Technical Data[]
The engine features many advanced graphical, physical and animation technologies as well as many gameplay enhancements. These enhancements will make CryEngine 2 obsolete, and is said to lead the way towards a new kind of "realism" in gaming stated Crytek. CryEngine 3 is also set to support DirectX 11.
Screenshot of a forest map included with the CryENGINE 3 SDK
- Simultaneous WYSIWYG on all platforms in Sandbox editor
- Hot-update for all platforms in Sandbox editor
- Flow graph
- Integrated vegetation & terrain cover generation system
- Real time soft particle system & integrated FX editor
- Road & river tools
- Vehicle creator
- Multi-core support
- Real time dynamic global illumination
- Deferred lighting
- Natural lighting & dynamic soft shadows
- Volumetric, layer & view distance fogging
- Normal maps & parallax occlusion maps
- Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
- "Uber Shader" technology
- Eye adaptation & high dynamic range(HDR) lighting
- Motion blur & depth of field
- Character animation system
- Character individualization system
- Parametric skeletal animation
- Procedural motion warping & IK solutions
- Facial animation editor
- Subsurface scattering
- AI editing system
- Dynamic pathfinding
- Automated nagivation mesh generation
- Natural world effects
- CGI quality time of day system
- High quality 3D water
- Dynamic volumetric light beams & light shaft effects
- Streaming environments
- Integrated multi-threaded physics engine
- Interactive & destructible environments
- Rope physics
- Performance analysis tools
- Sandbox development layers
- PolyBump
- Offline rendering
- Resource compiler
- Data-driven sound system
- In-game mixing & profiling
- Dynamic sounds & interactive music
- Environmental audio
- High Speed Texture Rendering
- Key frame-accurate sounds in animations
- Sound moods