CryEngine 3 - Possible?

[MinxinG 50]

Well, I really hope that Rocket have a side project for CryZ, but if not him... who is up to do it?, Im getting really close to mCryEngine language... :P aka Lua, Gmod helped me out, and now Im starting to understand how CryEngine works, but it might take a bit time, but well, I have plenty of time :3

Edited July 24, 2012 by MinxinG

[Strogg 23]

The biggest problem i could see is that, despite Arma II's flaws it is very good at generating Maps, I don't think the crysis one could create a map that big with no loading screens, and if it could only around 1% of gamers would have the hardware neccisary to play it.

This is really dependant on the leeway the developer has with the engine code (if any), and their own creativity. Roundabout methods might be a bit more intensive, but its the dev's job to balance visual quality with the practical demands of the type of gameplay. There are plenty of tricks to making things look nice while decreasing the amount of memory they use, or in generating/rendering the map in varying chunks to simulate a seemless, sandbox environment (in reality this is what all games really do, they segment the in-game experience as best they can to minimize resource use at any one time), and being able to efficiently conduct the whole mmo concert from the server. Obviously it won't look as pretty as conventional FPS games, but there is no question that the engine can pull it off.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Strogg

[CarloNord 29]

I heavily doubt that Rocket's going to move to the Cry engine anytime soon, it would be really nice, however, is there a way to implement an inventory system within CryEngine? What about handheld/throwable lights? I have almost no idea what the capabilities are of this engine, so don't freak, but does it do everything he wants it to do, and it has to do it well. You have to think economically as well, they charge for that engine, according to previous posts a good 20% in royalties as well.

There's really two factors the way I see it.

1. Does it do everything I need it to?

2. Do I make less or more money?

There's a third but is dependent on work ethic and other stuff. The third factor being time, as building it on a new engine from the ground up may take time.

[Strogg 23]

I heavily doubt that Rocket's going to move to the Cry engine anytime soon, it would be really nice, however, is there a way to implement an inventory system within CryEngine? What about handheld/throwable lights? I have almost no idea what the capabilities are of this engine, so don't freak, but does it do everything he wants it to do, and it has to do it well. You have to think economically as well, they charge for that engine, according to previous posts a good 20% in royalties as well.

There's really two factors the way I see it.

1. Does it do everything I need it to?

2. Do I make less or more money?

There's a third but is dependent on work ethic and other stuff. The third factor being time, as building it on a new engine from the ground up may take time.

Rocket could design the game however he wants, but in this case he would be following the mmofps schema of Day Z, with the added bonus of being able to implement all the features he wants to and being able to optimize it for Day Z's purposes. In comparison when it comes to modding games there are limits to what you can do (a lot of which is make-shift), unless the game is released with heavy modding in mind or the modder has the game's source code. Working with another engine to make a standalone title would give rocket a lot more freedom to make the game exactly how he wants it to be, rather than trying to mod into the framework of another game

20% is an okay deal for a low-budget indie developer (its not like they the money to support a studio like bungie), but if they feel strongly about it they can always build on the unity engine or code their own engine from scratch, but its much easier just to use engines like cry or the UDK. Making 80% off a standalone title is better than making nothing off of a mod.

War Z took the initiative on this front, but something tells me its going to be a flop.

[CarloNord 29]

Rocket could design the game however he wants, but in this case he would be following the mmofps schema of Day Z, with the added bonus of being able to implement all the features he wants to and being able to optimize it for Day Z's purposes. In comparison when it comes to modding games there are limits to what you can do (a lot of which is make-shift), unless the game is released with heavy modding in mind or the modder has the game's source code. Working with another engine to make a standalone title would give rocket a lot more freedom to make the game exactly how he wants it to be, rather than trying to mod into the framework of another game

20% is an okay deal for a low-budget indie developer (its not like they the money to support a studio like bungie), but if they feel strongly about it they can always build on the unity engine or code their own engine from scratch, but its much easier just to use engines like cry or the UDK. Making 80% off a standalone title is better than making nothing off of a mod.

War Z took the initiative on this front, but something tells me its going to be a flop.

First off, if a buggy mod got BI almost 1 million sales? I think a standalone game with the graphics and abilities of the CryEngine would rip up the market ladder. I personally think that Moving off Arma's engine is the best way to go, it'll be able to push him to serious heights.

Now, as for The War Z, I've been actually trying to look up information on it, but I can't seem to find anything different from the PCGamer spotlight. As for it being a flop? I don't know, it looks alright. They've got the stuff to pull it off, but what it's really going to take is dedication. It kinda reminds me of Dead Frontier, it's not the worst game, and you can't really complain because it's free, but that's the same base idea of The War Z. Where they differ from DayZ is that in DayZ, you're not safe until you make it safe, it's all by the player, for the player. Where as in The War Z they've got NPCs and forts. It looks to be A decent MMORPG but I'll know nothing till I've played it, I'm sure alot of fame is coming from it's name seemingly resembling DayZ though.

But anyway, moving to a new engine specifically designed for the game is the best way to go. Even more so when you consider roughly 25-30 million has been made off CO sales due to DayZ.

[Strogg 23]

I agree lol, thats what I was saying (in regards to moving to a new engine). He has a huge player base, he would have a small fotune overnight after releasing a standalone.

[timmoboy 39]

Looks like everyone in this thread are experts at programming and developing games...

Rocket can you please explain to them why CryEngine isn't the best option for DayZ? I'm not an expert but I believe the RV engine is the best one out there for DayZ and especially if he'll make it stand alone using it.

Just because CE3 has *oh so fancy graphics* doesn't mean it will handle 100+ players, lots of AI and huge maps at the same time!

I could be wrong but please shed some light for us Master Rocket! Or someone with great knowledge.....

Edited July 24, 2012 by Timmooboy

[CarloNord 29]

I agree lol, thats what I was saying (in regards to moving to a new engine). He has a huge player base, he would have a small fotune overnight after releasing a standalone.

Oh, ya I knew you agreed, it's just it's 3 in the morning here and I'm too damn tired to formulate sentences correctly so sometimes it may seem like I'm just blazing off in a totally wrong direction or simply not making sense.

[Sol (DayZ) 132]

I support this thread.... most specifically the OP, and less specifically people making unfortified comments about an engine they know nothing about.

~Sol

[CarloNord 29]

I support this thread.... most specifically the OP, and less specifically people making unfortified comments about an engine they know nothing about.

~Sol

Don't worry, we love you too.

Edited July 24, 2012 by CarloNord

[chhopsky 25]

I support this thread.... most specifically the OP, and less specifically people making unfortified comments about an engine they know nothing about.

~Sol

I think you know nothing about development or business.

[FlesHBoX 23]

I can't believe I stayed up reading this entire thread... Hell I registered just to post this.

I think that there is a very large amount of confusion here about what exactly the engine does. It's not just the pretty. Yes CE3 and UE4 are probably the most beautiful engines available for development on right now. They have impressive graphics capabilities and built in optimization that are able to leverage the most out of your graphics hardware. I don't think anyone will argue that point. The art assets, however, can look any way you want them to. CE3 and UE4 can both look almost identical to ArmA2 (but without the stupid graphical problems like bad lighting, fake DoF, clipping issues, etc...) Building on CE3 or UE4 does not require building a game that looks like crysis or any other game that exists for that matter. In fact, I would be willing to bet that there are a lot of games built on CE and UE engines that you don't even realize because they don't look like crysis/far cry/unreal. I think that graphically the arma engine is decent, but certainly lacking, and what I've seen of ArmA3, I'm not holding my breath for massively good looking content, though that may just be their poor art department at work.

What everyone seems to be missing here is that the engine is also physics calculations, world control, input control, network code, ai, etc... This is where a vast majority of my issues with ArmA come from. Items clipping through the world into oblivion is all too common. Massive clipping and hit box issues abound. The very poorly optimized network code leads to glitchy players/enemy ai movement. The controls are, quite frankly terrible when they start to behave in unexpected and undocumented ways. I'm sure that veterans of the game have gotten used to them, but getting used to bugs does not make them any less buggy. To be honest, the entire control scheme is overly complex. As far as physics, I'm pretty sure source had better phsyics about 5 years ago.

Overall, the engine is very sub-par, but playable. I love DayZ, despite the many issues brought about by the terrible platform it is built on.

I also think that most of the people commenting in this thread don't have any real working knowledge of CE3 or UE and are under some fairly mistaken assumptions about these engines and game development with these engines.

1. It will take forever to move to a new engine - The longest part of the process would be creating new art assets, which is something that will have to happen regardless of the engine chosen eventually for a standalone version of DayZ. CE3 and UE both have just about the most impressive workflow tools that are available. They have been designed from the ground up to be fast to work with.
   Code changes can be implemented and tested from within the game engine itself. Heck, with UE you can have a live version of the game running on an xbox while you are editing code on a PC, make a change and see it happen in real time on the xbox. The scripting language for UE is incredibly natural for anyone who has coding experience, so other than some syntax adjustments and the like, adjusting to these other engines should not take long for any coder who is worth their salt.
   Further, the scripting in these systems is far far superior to any other engine available. Almost everything about the engine is adjustable and usable through scripting. This all means that the development cycle for CE3 and UE3/4 are insanely fast. Entire games have been built form the ground up on these platforms in a matter of months.
   If you want to get really down to earth, Notch built an entire 3d game from the ground up without an existing engine in a weekend. Granted it was not very impressive, but a skilled coder can do it.
   
2. Oh noes, my computer will melt under the weight of CE3/UE! - False. Both of these engines run on the XboX and PS3, both machines are quite far behind anything remotely recent on a PC. Further, Crytek has actually dumbed down cry engine 2 and 3 to be less graphically intense. In fact ce2/ were developed specifically to be good performers on the lower powered consoles. I can't speak to UE4, but then, no one can since the first game on taht platform has yet to even get any real game play footage outside of what is most likely scripted events (fortnite, which conceptually looks quite interesting) UE3 is so well optimized that before the PS3 was released epic was demoing some absolutely amazing tech on the PS3 hardware that is almost archaic by today's standards.
   Oh yeah, I almost forgot... UE3 runs on your cell phone... If your computer can't handle that then this topic doesn't concern you anyways.
   
3. It wont FEEL like DayZ - If Rocket went CE3 or UE3/4 and that happened, then you can blame Rocket, not the engine. Try looking for other games built on these engines other than the standard run n gun quake style shooters and tell me if you think they feel like crysis or UT. They don, because the people developing the game on top of the engine wanted it to feel a specific way so they coded that way. In fact, it is very likely you could create a game that felt a lot like Quake or UT or Crysis on the ArmA engine if you wanted to. The feel of the game is at the code level of the game, not the engine, unless the engine is worthless and limiting.
   Here's a list of games on UE3 that you might not have guessed;
   Borderlands
   Batman: Arkham City
   The Night World
   Hawken
   XCOM: Enemy Unknown (this one has procedurally generated structures and items on the map and is a turn based)
   Q.U.B.E
   Jazz Jackrabbit
   Dungeon Defense
   Moonbase Alpha (hows that for slow and lumbering?)
   Zero Hour: America's Medic (this only only looks slightly better than ArmA... and well, isn't really a game, it's a simulator, so it's also uber realistic... Okay, I know nothing about it aside from the fact that it uses the Unreal Engine)
   Oh yeah, maybe you've heard of Lazy Town, the Kid's Show? Yeah they use Unreal Engine in the show.
   So do realize that the look and feel of how a game plays has about 10% to do with which engine you are using and 90% to do with the guys building the game
   
4. Rocket couldn't afford it - I call B.S. on that one. big name companies are probably throwing cocaine and hookers through his window trying to get in on the hype. If anything he would make out like a bandit! Imagine having the backing of a AAA studio providing things like art assets and coding. As long as Rocket stayed in control of the project, I think it would be quite awesome and quite profitable for him.
   Even if he DOESN'T hook up with a big studio working in UE is very very easy to do without spending any real money. I haven't read up on Epic's crowdsourcing policies, but they have them, so it wouldn't even be new territory. Epic wants everyone using UE because the more games with their name on them, the more money they get. Crytek is actually the bigger problem here. Their SDK version is very limited and any real commercial project would need to go through their actual licensing process which is somewhat painful. UDK is a much more open system and Epic seems to be a lot more focused on smaller developers and supporting the community than Crytek is, but modifying the engine itself, if necessary requires a fulll license with both. This would most likely not be necessary for something like DayZ though.
   
5. It would take so much work for the developers to finish - This goes back to how easy it is to work with CE/UE. The only real issue is art assets, but since both CE and UE can import from just about any modeler, it becomes a lot less of an issue, particularly since the indie dev community is so massive. There are TONS of incredibly talented people out there, at least in the UDK community. I'm quite sure that a lot of them play or have at least been intrigued by DayZ and would be willing to work with Rocket. He seems like a nice enough, level headed guy, I'm sure art assets would be pretty easy to come by and look gorgeous. Terrain, like has been posted in this thread is very easy to create within the engine itself that just about anyone can create something decent, and someone with some skill can produce something awesome.
   
6. CE/UE can't handle a MASSIVE map like 225 sq km - This is quite honestly an ignorant statement. 225 sq km is only about 60 sq miles. That's about the size of vanilla WoW and probably smaller than the city you live in. DCUO is built on UE3, runs on the PS3 brilliantly as well as my two year old laptop and handled thousands of players in a single phase (how they refer to servers since all players can switch phases on the fly).
   Both CE and UE have streaming technology where a series of smaller maps are essentially stitched together into zones. As a zone is needed it loads, if it is not needed it is not loaded. If the ArmA engine indeed does load the entire map, that is likely one of the biggest places where problems can show up since it has to load everything on the entire map, regardless of whether it has any pertinence to the player. After playing it, however, I am not sure I think that it is. I have seen enough evidence that there is at least some area specific data that is not being sent to the render engine.
   Having discrete zones has a lot of advantages as well. In a map the size of chernarus on a server with 40 players max you are not going to have players in all regions of the map, that would be basically impossible. At this point, the engine is tracking this massive single map and everything that is happening on it, even though most of what is happening is irrelevant to the players. Now given the massive amount of bandwidth that a DayZ server requires I am guessing that there is a TON of superfluous data being sent to each player. In contrast, a minecraft server with 50 players, where the map size is capable of being orders of magnitude larger and literally every voxel has to be tracked for changes by the server does not require this kind of bandwidth. To bring that into perspective the standard recommended view distance on a MC server is 10 chunks. That's a 10 chunk radius around each player that could potentially get loaded. Each chunk is 16x16x256, for a total of 65k voxels per chunk. In just the single row of chunks un front of the player you have more than half a million voxels to track for just one player. If the server had to send data about everything on the entire server, even if the map were only 225 sq km it would probably crash the internet ;) and likely the server as well.
   The biggest hurdle for a large map size with these engines is not the end user's machine but the server needing to know where the players are and where they are going in order to pre-cache the necessary data for any changes in the next zone. This is something that UE3 does very well of late and I am willing to bet UE4 does amazingly given the massive desire in the UDK community to create utterly massive worlds with the engine.
   

Ultimately it is his choice whether he sticks with the new ArmA3 engine or decides to switch to another. Personally I think that moving to a different engine, while most likely would cause a lot of hurt ArmA 1337 butts, would be better for the game in the end. I also think that if he is going to switch to a different engine, UE3 is probably the best option since that is what the current UDK is at which means starting development on it is easy and free.

Yes there are going to be a ton of DayZ copycats cropping up in not long, especially since it seems to have received a massive bump in popularity lately. Will those games be any good? I'm sure some will be stellar and some will be horrible. Do I think that DayZ could still be the best? Yes. DayZ is a game that I've developed in my head for years, longing for a real survival situation. It fills a niche that no other game has managed to fill. I think that the design and concept are almost spot on with what I want out of a zombie game. I also wish that it had some elements just not possible with the current engine.

What ever direction he decides to go, I am in absolute love with this game and will gladly plunk down my cash. Hell, I spent $200 during the steam summer sale in the last week and I'm absorbed by this free, alpha mod on top of what is, essentially, one of the most clunky engines out there right now... He's done something right, so I am right there. It would certainly be easier to plunk down my cash if I knew the engine was going to be a robust and power engine from a company whose primary puspose in life is building the best game engine possible.

Edited July 24, 2012 by FlesHBoX

[Strogg 23]

Looks like everyone in this thread are experts at programming and developing games...

Rocket can you please explain to them why CryEngine isn't the best option for DayZ? I'm not an expert but I believe the RV engine is the best one out there for DayZ and especially if he'll make it stand alone using it.

Just because CE3 has *oh so fancy graphics* doesn't mean it will handle 100+ players, lots of AI and huge maps at the same time!

I could be wrong but please shed some light for us Master Rocket! Or someone with great knowledge.....

Nope, just a humble modeler with some experience using the UDK.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Strogg

[arkenz 11]

Well switching to UDK or CE 3 will remove all these clippings, wrong hitboxes, the fact that you can't get out of a house strafing (like you would do in any other FPS to make sure there are nobody outside, but here you have to FACE the entrance and get out like a retard because of the wrong hitboxes with buildings), and a lot more problems... (work with the inventary and backpack is a pain in the ass).

But whatever he choses, I'll be behind him for sure!

Edited July 24, 2012 by arkenz

[JopiMan 1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuOx2FjBNww

Yes please.

[TractorFiend 58]

Yeah UE or CE please. The ArmA engine is terrible and the netcode sucks.

It's like eating some shit, when you've got a nice chocolate cake sitting right next to you.

[kerbholz 5]

Well switching to UDK or CE 3 will remove all these clippings, wrong hitboxes, the fact that you can't get out of a house strafing (like you would do in any other FPS to make sure there are nobody outside, but here you have to FACE the entrance and get out like a retard because of the wrong hitboxes with buildings), and a lot more problems... (work with the inventary and backpack is a pain in the ass).

But whatever he choses, I'll be behind him for sure!

How many times (in RL) have you left your room/house strafing? If you want to "make sure there are nobody outside" walk out straight and use Freelook.

[ShaddnArakh 7]

How many times (in RL) have you left your room/house strafing? If you want to "make sure there are nobody outside" walk out straight and use Freelook.

OMG. How many times (in RL) have you expected to be shot at when leaving your house?

On-topic: undead labs on CE3 looks awesome. Yes please.

[kerbholz 5]

OMG. How many times (in RL) have you expected to be shot at when leaving your house?

[...]

Same as strafing out the door: zero times. ;)

[ShaddnArakh 7]

Same as strafing out the door: zero times. ;)

Well then imagine that someone wants to shoot you and think, whether you want to walk out the door and stand there looking around like an idiot.

[kerbholz 5]

Well then imagine that someone wants to shoot you and think, whether you want to walk out the door and stand there looking around like an idiot.

We're getting a bit off-topic here, so this'll probably be my last post, just one (serious) question: what's the advantage of strafing out?

[duddbudda 33]

it's impossible to fit through a <75cm gap with a >1m rifle raised ahead of us

so for the love of fuck, download st movement and stop pretending goddamn fixable shit demands DayZ use a different engine

or just lower your weapon when you're indoors

re: DayZ can never change anything because sores codes

when DayZ goes standalone it will have access to RV's source code, because that's how BIS do things

and someone, please, show me CE3 syncing 50 players on a map with 5km draw distances

[bezki 31]

do you want killstreaks added to your killcam. wtf. good luck making 225 squarekilometer terrain with the ce3.

[GexAlmighty 54]

I for one would love for the game to move over to a different engine, in fact Arma2 and DayZ probably run the worst engine for any FPS on the market at the moment imho. I think the source engine would suit this game to the core if i had the choice. but the cry engine is also fantastic.

unfortunately Dayz being a mod means they would have to totally re make arma, OR re make DayZ as a standalone and this will probably never happen, despite my best wishes

Edited July 24, 2012 by GexAlmighty

[cyberfly 0]

Why not go with the Source engine from Valve?

DayZ could be a L4D2 mod.

The game al ready has a lot of things you could use like: zombies, health packs, painkillers, weapons and so on.

Edited July 24, 2012 by cyberfly