Cry Engine 3 Unvield at GDC
I'm nerdgasming beyond words right now.
You guys know I love me some graphics tech. Somehow I missed the announcement by Crytek that they were showing off CryEngine 3 at GDC.. no clue how with the racket of graphics news I ready daily.
Anyways, just feast your eyes upon the video:
http://pc.ign.com/dor/articles/966296/gdc-09-cryengine-3-extended-trailer/videos/cryengine3_trl_gdc09_032509.html
Immediately I noticed that I hadn't gotten what I expected - a massive leap forward from CE2. In fact, based on this video, I don't see much that CE3 is doing that you couldn't do in CE2 already. Admittedly I'm reserving total judgment until I see a pure HD feed or read a spec sheet on the engine, but it's just first impressions.
Though it is wonderful to see such a diverse array of new environments in CryEngine. The cyberpunk cityscape, the castle siege, and most impressively, the tall trees in the forest.
In fact, the scene with the sunlight peeking through the tall trees is the one that I was most impressed with. You can definitely see ambient occlusion taking care of business in the shadows.
Hard to tell what new technologies are being implemented in this engine - if any - based on this video. The lighted orbs floating around the stone near the beginning did display some very impressive lighting/reflection tricks. Is that simply cube map based? I wonder if CE3 will support the bleeding edge research of real time Ray Tracing...
Looks like we should expect destructable geometry in the game. Look close at some of the grenade impacts. Whether this is actual terrain deformation or just altered geometry 'hotspots' is yet to be determined.
It seems the largest selling point of CE3 is the fact that it's supposedly completely scalable - PC,PS3, and X360 compatible to full potential. Though the clip flips between PC and PS3 clips, I'm still a bit skeptical as to how true this really is. Thought Crysis Wars did do an outstanding job of making the engine more flexible and scalable on PC, perhaps they were able to push this concept further.
But overall this concerns me. I have adored Crytek for years due to their passion for real time graphics, and for pushing the PC platform to levels unseen. I'm afraid that with this new push for 'unified scalability' that Crytek won't ride that bleeding edge with their technology anymore. Scaling to consoles that are 3 years old can only be a bottleneck, and this may prevent them from taking bold new risks in graphics advancement. Techniques like subsurface scattering and real time global illumination had never been done before Crytek stepped up and tackled them. I hope that my premonitions are not true, but I can't deny that I've got a hunch, that we've been down this road before.
I'm still very anxious to see what comes of this. Hopefully progression. Now I'm VERY excited for SIGGRAPH 09, there's a good chance I'll have the opportunity to get my hands on this engine and talk to dev's about it. And you can bet I'll ask them the tough quesions, and that you'll be able to read all about it here.
So, thoughts/opinions/concerns on CryEngine3? As a PC gamer and graphics enthusaist, I live for moments like this.
You guys know I love me some graphics tech. Somehow I missed the announcement by Crytek that they were showing off CryEngine 3 at GDC.. no clue how with the racket of graphics news I ready daily.
Anyways, just feast your eyes upon the video:
http://pc.ign.com/dor/articles/966296/gdc-09-cryengine-3-extended-trailer/videos/cryengine3_trl_gdc09_032509.html
Immediately I noticed that I hadn't gotten what I expected - a massive leap forward from CE2. In fact, based on this video, I don't see much that CE3 is doing that you couldn't do in CE2 already. Admittedly I'm reserving total judgment until I see a pure HD feed or read a spec sheet on the engine, but it's just first impressions.
Though it is wonderful to see such a diverse array of new environments in CryEngine. The cyberpunk cityscape, the castle siege, and most impressively, the tall trees in the forest.
In fact, the scene with the sunlight peeking through the tall trees is the one that I was most impressed with. You can definitely see ambient occlusion taking care of business in the shadows.
Hard to tell what new technologies are being implemented in this engine - if any - based on this video. The lighted orbs floating around the stone near the beginning did display some very impressive lighting/reflection tricks. Is that simply cube map based? I wonder if CE3 will support the bleeding edge research of real time Ray Tracing...
Looks like we should expect destructable geometry in the game. Look close at some of the grenade impacts. Whether this is actual terrain deformation or just altered geometry 'hotspots' is yet to be determined.
It seems the largest selling point of CE3 is the fact that it's supposedly completely scalable - PC,PS3, and X360 compatible to full potential. Though the clip flips between PC and PS3 clips, I'm still a bit skeptical as to how true this really is. Thought Crysis Wars did do an outstanding job of making the engine more flexible and scalable on PC, perhaps they were able to push this concept further.
But overall this concerns me. I have adored Crytek for years due to their passion for real time graphics, and for pushing the PC platform to levels unseen. I'm afraid that with this new push for 'unified scalability' that Crytek won't ride that bleeding edge with their technology anymore. Scaling to consoles that are 3 years old can only be a bottleneck, and this may prevent them from taking bold new risks in graphics advancement. Techniques like subsurface scattering and real time global illumination had never been done before Crytek stepped up and tackled them. I hope that my premonitions are not true, but I can't deny that I've got a hunch, that we've been down this road before.
I'm still very anxious to see what comes of this. Hopefully progression. Now I'm VERY excited for SIGGRAPH 09, there's a good chance I'll have the opportunity to get my hands on this engine and talk to dev's about it. And you can bet I'll ask them the tough quesions, and that you'll be able to read all about it here.
So, thoughts/opinions/concerns on CryEngine3? As a PC gamer and graphics enthusaist, I live for moments like this.
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Comments
Something else that REALLY bugs me? Looks like soft shadows aren't working correctly yet. At the very beginning look at the shadow of the rings on the ground. They're resampling at a much slower rate than the actual object is. And when the tree is shot down, take a look at that tree on the left side.
The more I think about it, the more I think CE3 is simply being built to port their games to console, and not so much for actual technology progression. Really hope this isn't the case.
Why? Because it's CryEngine 3, rather than 2.5? How is this not technology progression by having an engine without/with limited "pop" as you're flying/running/driving through a wooded area on a console?
This was GTAIV's biggest critique.
I don't care about versioning of the engine (it has only been a year and a half since CE2 was released) To the enthusiasts who build bleeding-edge gaming PCs, this won't bode well. However If they're able to take advantage of a brand new technology in the future for the PC platform yet scale it back for the consoles that can't utilize the new tech, then I'll be perfectly fine with it.
But pardon me, this is a PC website, ho-hum console gaming rite?
What I'm really getting at is that the PC is running out of developers who are willing to push the boundaries. To progress real time graphics.
Let's be honest - true progression of real-time graphics technology is not found on consoles. How can it be? Look back at all major buzz gernerated by new graphics tech. The majority - if not all of it - is the PC platform. ID's Doom 3 engine showed us what was possible with real time lighting and massive use of bump mapping. Source engine and real time interactive physics, subsurface scattering and the recently introduced ambient occlusion. Heck, even advance mapping (parralax, displacement) isn't done on the console platform, at least not without finding a way to dumb down the tech to be applicable.
The PC is the only platform that consistently has bleeding edge hardware on it's side. Unfortunately for us, the developers that are truly passionate about the platform are disappearing quickly. Ever since Epic started kissing up to consoles (cliffy B is chump number one), we're pretty much left with just Valve and Crytek who challenge the boundaries regularly. Crytek built their business model on pushing the PC's limits. Now it seems they're more concerned with the bland cross-platform compatibility. Doing so will limit what tech they push, and without them, the PC platform has little left.
If no one is left to progress graphics technology on the PC platform, everyone looses.
Its very unfortunate
But that crytec3 engine is calling me. Whenever that drops, im all over it!
While its a good idea, I just don't see it replaceing a realy good piece of local hardware for the hardcore gamer, at least, I kinda hope not, because the day I have no need to ever build a gaming PC again is a day I crawl into a deep dark hole and not come back out for a while.