thoughts on the Far Cry engine

[Mr.Kalashnikov]

I had never seen so much vegetation in a game before. The draw distance is amazing. Not to mention the water effects. I must have a top of the line computer right? No! My computer is at least 2 years old and this game looks great. I wish Half Life 2 was more like that. In HL2 they didn't even render the stuff that was out of the player's view, so if you noclip, you will see a lot of voids and null space in the roofs and other places that the player is not supposed to see, as if the level designers were trying to save on the amount of memory required per level, but Far Cry is nothing like that, they render these huge levels full of vegetation and everything runs and looks amazingly well. Sure, HL2 is better than Far Cry, but just look at the game engines! They should use the Far Cry engine for HL3

 

[jimbo118]

the cryengine is very impressive indeed...

 

[jondy]

as if the level designers were trying to save on the amount of memory required per level,

Heaven forbid!

But yeah, it's very pretty Have you seen the dx10 footage for crysis?

 

[Glo-Boy]

Far Cry engine for HL3

I highly disagree. I don't even think they should use the crysis engine for HL3. In fact, I wonder if they should even bother upgrading the source engine. Even if they upgrade it, I have a hard time believing it will be able to keep up with whatever games are out at the time of HL3's release.

 

[VictimOfScience]

The Cryengine was absolutely amazing when it first came out and really still looks good compared to everything else from this generation's engines. Its only the next generation ones from Epic and Crytek and such that will render it obsolete.

I am still not sure why it wasn't licensed out more. The outdoor environments were unmatched and even the inddor ones were quite remarkable too.

And good as it is, I don't think Source will stand up against the like of the Cryengine 2 or the Unreal engine 3 or the Offset engine. They can just push the hardware to unprecedented extremes. It will be interesting to see the next Id engine for the upcoming Wolfenstein game--I imagine it will be mind-blowing!

 

[JNightshade]

Yeah, the Cryengine was, and still is, my god. I've seen better graphics, but to this day, I have not seen a game that pretty- the colors! The water! The environments! It's amazing. Often I have to ask myself "why the hell didn't they make an Enemy Territory on the CryEngine?"

 

[Snowden]

Why the hell didn't they make an Enemy Territory on the CryEngine?

 

[Mr. Redundant]

I can't wait to see Farcry: Predator on the 360 next month
looking pretty tasty, hell I should get my xbox back from my bro in law and try Farcry:instincts.

 

[JNightshade]

Snowden, that's exactly what I was thinking! You summed it up perfectly!

 

[boglito]

A damn shame that not more games use the cryengine. It is by far the most impressive engine of its generation (speaking singleplayer, I have no experience with mp on cryengine) and really benefits from the increase in hw-power we have seen since it's release in early 2004.

A far cry 2 or far cry expansion should easilly be able to compete with other titles of 2006, but sadly the pc-market is not profitable enough and so it seems their focus is solely console.

.bog.

 

[Javert]

Useless without good games and developers to back it up. Which is why I'm looking forward to how Crysis will turn out. Will it be cool? Or just Far Cry 1.5.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

Which is why I'm looking forward to how Crysis will turn out. Will it be cool? Or just Far Cry 1.5.

CryTek really hasn't backed the community much for FC, thus they killed their first game by themselves. We shall see if they do it again...

They should use the Far Cry engine for HL3

By the time they want to make HL3 the Source engine will be sooo much better than the FC engine.

 

[Gargantou]

boglito, thingy is, CryTek don't have the right to Far Cry, and they're now under agreements with EA, that means that unless UBisoft sells the Far Cry rights to EA or gets bought up by EA, we won't see an actual Far Cry 2.
Or well, there is one in dev iirc, but it's made by the same people that made Far Cry Instincts afaik, though that is also a very good game.

 

[Uriel]

I liked FarCry and the new Engine will be amazing.
But I still come back to the Source Engine.

 

[StardogChampion]

The indoor environments looked pretty lame lighting-wise.

Unreal Engine 3 > all.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

The indoor environments looked pretty lame lighting-wise.

Unreal Engine 3 > all.

if we are talking about unreleased engines, gimme the project offset engine

was out at gamespot today, almost bought FC:I for the xbox, was 30 bucks brand new, and $25 used.... didn't nab it though as Predator for the 360 includes an upgraded instincts/upgraded FC CP and their FC:Evolution addon... pretty sweet.
I figure I can wait a lil more, even thought the features/gfx/map editor are pretty sweet looking.

 

[boglito]

boglito, thingy is, CryTek don't have the right to Far Cry, and they're now under agreements with EA, that means that unless UBisoft sells the Far Cry rights to EA or gets bought up by EA, we won't see an actual Far Cry 2.
Or well, there is one in dev iirc, but it's made by the same people that made Far Cry Instincts afaik, though that is also a very good game.

I think ubisoft could make far cry 2/far cry expansion for the pc, unless they only have license to publish the cryengine on xbox/x360.

.bog.

 

[A True Canadian]

I had never seen so much vegetation in a game before. The draw distance is amazing. Not to mention the water effects. I must have a top of the line computer right? No! My computer is at least 2 years old and this game looks great. I wish Half Life 2 was more like that. In HL2 they didn't even render the stuff that was out of the player's view, so if you noclip, you will see a lot of voids and null space in the roofs and other places that the player is not supposed to see, as if the level designers were trying to save on the amount of memory required per level, but Far Cry is nothing like that, they render these huge levels full of vegetation and everything runs and looks amazingly well. Sure, HL2 is better than Far Cry, but just look at the game engines! They should use the Far Cry engine for HL3

I agree that the Far Cry engine is very pretty. It really made Far Cry into what it is today, I just wish the gameplay was a bit more fine-tuned (some of the battles were frustratingly hard). But anyway, it is a shame that the engine wasn't licensed out to more developers. Many (myself included) still feel the engine could translate into the best Jurassic Park game ever made.

As for the Half-Life 2 engine, Source, I think you were right about the memory-saving part. Since Half-Life 2 is so linear to begin with, it doesn't make sense to detail the places where the player isn't even going to see. Additionally, the physics calculations that are being done all the time, eat up a lot of memory as it is. And that's the difference with the two engines right there. The Cryengine is really good at creating huge expansive worlds for hours of exploration, while the Source engine prides itself on physics interaction.

 

[Mr.Kalashnikov]

I just wish the gameplay was a bit more fine-tuned (some of the battles were frustratingly hard)

I must agree with you on that part. One third into the game I found out that there is a way to quick save the game at any point in time. Meaning that when you are in the middle of a big battle, you can kill an enemy, save the game, and try again from that point on if you get killed. That helped me a lot, but the game was still hard (in medium mode). My respects to you if you were able to finish the game without the quick save trick (ie: typing in the console \save_game 1 where 1 is the name of the saved game).

Additionally, the physics calculations that are being done all the time, eat up a lot of memory as it is. And that's the difference with the two engines right there. The Cryengine is really good at creating huge expansive worlds for hours of exploration, while the Source engine prides itself on physics interaction.

Far Cry also has ragdoll physics. I don't know if they used the Havok physics engine, but the physics are definitely there.

 

[A True Canadian]

Far Cry also has ragdoll physics. I don't know if they used the Havok physics engine, but the physics are definitely there.

Well, to be fair, nearly every shooter to come out in the last few years has ragdoll physics. The difference with that and Source is that ragdolls aren't the only things were the physics are utilized. Far Cry didn't have much of anything that was interactive using physics (aside from dead bodies and the odd object, like a shelf or some barrels). Source contains objects that are not only movable (unlike the cemented objects in Far Cry) but destructible. The destructible peices are movable too, that you can even pick up and pelt enemies with. This was what I was trying to say before.


Admittadly, because most of Far Cry was outdoors (with mostly trees and foliage) there wasn't any real need for this type of physics manipulation. Just like for Source, there wasn't any need for huge expansive levels due to the linearity of the gameplay.

 

[venturon]

What I don't understand is that FEAR had only marginally better visuals than Farcry (well, I thought it did) and ran about three times worse. Seriously. I didn't even like Farcry all that much (trigens = teh gay) but the engine is something quite special.

 

[clarky003]

Well I constantly keep finding myself dreaming about crysis, from what Ive read im creaming my pants already, yes it's premature but its justified.

 

[Evo]

Far Cry may be on a real puuuurty engine, and despite Source being equally as nice...Far Cry just edges it

UE3 ftw though!

 

[Asuka]

CryTek Engine > Offset Engine > Unreal 3 Engine (Out of the nextgen engines)

CryTek engine was simply amazing and their new engine is simply amazing x1000000000

Source Engine > F.E.A.R > CryTek > Doom 3 Engine (Current Gen engines)

I think thats all...

 

[AiM]

F.E.A.R. looked a lot better than Far Cry, at least from near-max settings I played it at. The color palette sucked rocks, but the game itself looked amazing. The game's graphics really shines when it comes to the effects, god the slow-motion explosions and soft shadows made the game gorgeous. Granted the engine ran like a sack of sh*t (very poor lighting optimizations...) but it nonetheless looked a lot better than Far Cry.

Meh I'd say Source engine edges CryTek engine, the optimizations done on that engine are bar-none the best ever on any engine. Not only that but the graphics itself aren't done in a glossy fashion that every game features nowadays, objects actually look realistic. To top it all off the engine supports the absolute best looking graphics in HL2: The Lost Coast. There aren't any games out on the market that look better than that level, it's absolutely beautiful.

 

[Asuka]

FEAR > CryTek it was a typo :/

 

[JellyWorld]

Fay Cry has the worst lighting I have ever in any game. I just installed it this morning, and played through the first level. In the first section indoors I was just looking at the walls and doors and I found my eyes hurting like crazy for no apparent reason. Something is very, very wrong with Far Cry's lighting. I've heard many people say that Far Cry's lighting was overblown, but I didn't realise it was this bad. Other than that it's quite pretty though.