CRYENGINE now available

They have released it on steam with the $9.90 a month

 

Does it support custom shaders yet?

 

lol ok....Unrealengine and now this....Unity is gonna have a hell of a day when this starts spreading around

did some reading on it and it seems preeeeetty solid, everythig is pretty much there.

 

Yeah, but it's also kind of a terrible engine to work with. Unity's primary competition is still going to end up being UE4 in any space outside of "simple 2D games" where they're competing with a rapidly advancing Game Maker.

 

Funny thing is I was going to make a thread about this as I saw it the second it came up but realized it wasn't worth it..figured someone else would do it for me and was just waiting for the thread to pop up.

 

Seems like it's really focused on graphics. I'd never choose it over Unity... especially when comparing it with Unity 4.6/5.0.

 

me too waited a bit but no one mentioned it.
i found it nice that they offer it for $8.33 a month with 6 month subscription, 8 bucks for such an advance technology. this is a great times for indie developers indeed.

 

PC only, perhaps future Linux

No mobile yet.

Cheap, no revenue share but you can't just cancel and still use the tools

"What will happen to my project if I cancel my subscription?
Stopping the subscription means that CRYENGINE and its Tools are no longer available in your account. "


Not yet impressed.

 

Wait when did that get released?

 

Unreal had two big motivating factors that encouraged me to try it out. Namely access to the source code and retaining access to the engine after cancelling. Crytek's license features neither of those.

It isn't worth my time let alone the $9.90 it would cost to evaluate it for a month.

 

CryEngine won't make a dent in the indie space until they have tutorials and docs that are on par or exceed Unity's or UnrealEngine's.

And good god! They should send some of those mods to take a course in Public Relations/Speaking!

 

Rephrase: comparing it with what they're saying the new features will be in 4.6 and 5.0, and with what I'm expecting for those releases.

 

I don't think Unity needs to be too concerned by this (not compared to UE4 anyway).

You can only develop for Windows, there's no source code access, you can only install on one machine at a time and you aren't allowed to develop simulations or "serious games."

The subscription price is good, but unless I'm reading it wrong you have to fork out quite a bit of money per game (and piece of DLC) if you have more than 200 sound files in your project. Admittedly that's quite a lot, but it's a potential risk for any large scale game. If you have more than 200 sound files and you release on Windows, with one piece of (non-cosmetic) DLC then it's almost as much as Unity Pro, without even factoring in the engine subscription.

The whole thing has always seemed very much like a half-hearted reaction to the UE4 announcement, and this "out of nowhere" release, coupled with bizarrely being released on Steam rather than downloading it from their own website, hasn't done much to change that. UE4 vs Unity is a potentially difficult choice with each offering their own advantages and disadvantages, but I don't think many people will really consider CRYENGINE to be honest. The "Engine as a Service" idea seems more like an experiment on their part, rather than a core part of their business, unlike the strategies of Epic or Unity Technologies.

One thing they could do to get people on board, since you lose access to the tools without a subscription and you don't get the engine source, is give everyone a free month to try it out. If it does have any major advantages over UE4 or Unity then that would be a good way to show them off.

 

I don't think 200 sound files are a lot...
At the moment for my third person game I have about 80 sound files only for shoes and weapons. That doesn't include talking, music, ambience, car horns, motor sounds at different gears...

 

I don't think they need to worry at all!

So let me get this straight you have a limited version of a hard to use notoriously buggy engine, that now you have to pay for but gives you no advantage over the FreeSDK bar they finally figured out the licensing model and some PBR shaders?

Well back onto to Unity Vs. UE4, seriously Unity get the out of the box graphics and the AAA core functions / bugs out the way and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank. You don't even have that much left to do, stick in a Material editor / cut scene editor and maybe a blueprint equivalent if you need to.. Tidy around the edges (Shadows / post) and that's about it.

It might not be as simple as it sounds, but there is no reason Unity can't clench this.

Looks like the CryDev base will shrink further.

 

It is little more than an attempt to gain some attention. It might have even worked had they released under this license prior to Epic. But since Epic not only beat them to the punch but with better features and a superior license, it won't help them in the slightest.

Their limitation that you cannot make "serious games" will pretty much exclude anyone wanting to take game development seriously. Both as a hobby and as a business.

 

I believe by "serious games" they mean this sort of thing: http://unity3d.com/company/sim (military training simulations, medical educational tools etc).

EDIT: see here for a Crytek post on the matter: http://www.crydev.net/viewtopic.php?p=1216197#p1216197
They probably should clarify it better in the licence agreement though, since the meaning of the term "serious games" isn't well known and can be easily misunderstood.

 

The official link

IMO, CryEngine is way behind in terms of documentation and tutorials, and their C++/Lua scripting and API documentation is pretty confusing and not very clear.
They will need to get their documentation up to par if they want to gain any large market share.

It's an interesting move that its through Steam though... will definately raise awareness about the engine.

 

I'm cautious to agree to any license containing the phrase “serious games” in quotation marks.

 

Ahah !..

 

That thought did cross my mind, but their license didn't clarify what it meant and it already made mention of military use and simulations. Since those are already covered, "serious games" must mean something different.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about "simulations" and "serious games" language. They want to avoid lawsuits if someone were to hook it up to a capable physics simulator, e.g. hooking it up to the Wolfram cloud computing infrastructure to do serious things and they want big business and government to pay big bucks if they were to develop it further along those lines and such contracts will no doubt exclude CryTek from liability.

 

I'm trying to figure out what the "catch" is. The first is as billsmugs said; you don't actually have a license to use CryEngine's audio engine, so you need to do that separately by emailing the company, and if you have more than 200 sounds, it's $1500 minimum, more than that if your revenue is high. I feel like there's some other catch lurking there with the middleware that they use as well. If they can say "JUST $20 AND NO ROYALTIES FOR THE WHOLE ENGINE unless you use sound" then it makes me worry that there is something else buried in the license that stops you from actually releasing commercially.

 

i completely missed this thread cause of the title

to make it easier to find please change thread title to something like "CRYENGINE now available on Steam" or "CRYENGINE subscriptions now available on Steam"

 

the steam version may have different licensing (growing number of game development companies have created a lower priced steam specific license that so long as u use it to create games for steam and for stuff for steam workshop we give u like a break and better terms)

"Is it really royalty free?
Yes, the monthly subscription fee is all you have to pay, there’s no royalty share required when you commercialize your game projects.
"

"What is Wwise?
Wwise from Audiokinetic is the world-class audio engine and integration tool that we’ve chosen to include with CryEngine. Used in AAA games across console, desktop and mobile platforms, Wwise provides a complete audio integration pipeline that we’ve deeply integrated into CryEngine. You can learn more about Wwise here. Wwise ships with CryEngine in Evaluation mode, allowing for projects with under 200 sound files and for non-commercial use. You must upgrade to a commercial license to ship your game.

How do I upgrade my Wwise license?
There are two ways to upgrade your license of Wwise. If your project uses under 200 sound files, you can use the Wwise Free Limited Commercial License. You can start the process by creating an account at the Audiokinetic website, and then you can request your Limited Commercial License key by creating a project here. Be sure to fill out the form completely, as it will need to be approved.

The other method is for projects that go beyond the 200 sound file limit of the Limited Commercial License. For these, please contact Audiokinetic directly to request a full commercial trial or purchase a full commercial license. Licensing price details can be found here.
"

here is the EULA
http://www.cryengine.com/get-cryengine/eaas-eula

audiokinetic pricing
https://www.audiokinetic.com/licensing/pricing/

i guess pricing starts at $750 and up... but do indies really need it or could they do without it...

 

@ IM you seem to be overshadowing the actual issues with the engine, or do you just believe their distribution methodology is what Unity should follow?

 

It's not based on revenue but on production budget and it's $750 not $1500 for each platform if your budget is below $150,000. And it's not Crytek you talk to, but Audiokinetic.


Have you guys looked at the features page? Some of it hasn't been updated since before PS4 and Xbox One, lol.

 

Unity 5 has all I need. You'll all find out why the fat aquatic one isn't moving from this pond soon enough.

 

here i created another thread (cause i originally didnt find this one which should tell u where i stand )
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/248626-Unity-Wake-Up!-CRYENGINE-Subscription-Available-On-Steam

personally im sticking with unity, but unity must innovate as well not just on game engine but how they market and sell unity. so i honestly think they need to get their unity indie on steam asap. else they losing eye balls people on steam many will not come here... they are on steam its strange but steam is like black hole onto themselves a universe. right now if on steam they could be luring people since its free and they could be getting people who would use the source engine to do mods and would just do them using unity since it would be lots easier and that way bring them into unity pro eventually when some of the lucky mods becomes full games. i mean lots of reason to have unity free on steam and even unity pro subscription on steam and even more reason to have unity pro steam only subscription that means u can only create on steam with this special price we give u if adobe and others are doing it unity needs to have business people looking at it and finding out how to make money on that ecosystem....

i would also do steam integration with steamworks and steam workshop (free plugin) for steam version of unity cause u want to make it easy, hey they did google, apple, microsoft store plugin why not steam...

im chatting with them over at cryengine and the wwise licensing is nightmare! watch out its not that easy... bit of scam i think they should have resolved the thing before bringing it on steam.. cause if u go to wwise u cant figure out what u need and how much its going to be. so people maybe in for a surprise when they have to pay through nose for what they will need to license from wwise

 

Hmm interesting, thanks for that tidbit. They really need to decide if they want to support indies or not because at the moment it seems the latter of the two.

As a core engineering technical feat it can't be matched, as an actual engine for people to use uhh!.

 

yeah the engine is cheap. c++ / lua sucks and is slow like dog (i know i did luaplusjit (which combines lua, plua plus and lua) cause lua and worse luaplus which lots of the companies use instead of lua cause of the c++ interface is extremely slow since its based on lua and not luajit) but programmers can do, the problem is the licenseing is not designed for indie. i mean it could easily be same or more than unity and no c# (ok javascript also but i wont admit to unity supporting it and dont even mention boo, i mean who would name their first language boo, honestly no parent in their right mind...)

 

That's reasonable. I think the 200 sound limitation is so you can't create a high quality synthesizer or the like.

 

A much more restrictive than Unity Free, windows only engine. Interested? Nope!

 

That isn't taking into account the amount of engine breaking bugs, lack of documentation, lack of platform support, lack of well really any support, pigeon holing toolset, lack of basic features like .FBX import into the sandbox editor, massively over complex. Even my made in a shed engine supports .OBJ and mat imports right in the editor and is easier to set things up in code. This is just a small list of issues, the amount of devs who spent months making a game to only be ignored and never get a license. I'd like to know how EAAS is going to change all of this?

 

I'm really hoping Unity5 can handle a lot of transparent vegetation with good performance dynamic g.i.
I understand cryengine has alot of advanced rendering techniques to achieve this, but does Unity5 have them as well?
Its a feature of Unity that I would really like to see to keep me from even bothering with cryengine and unreal4.
Could 64bit, multi-threading, billboard transition lod's from the Advanced foliage shader solve all our problems?
It would be a dream..to make forest environments in Unity5 that look and perform as good as cryengines..
(currently on unreal4 but their lionhead lpv dynamic g.i. work in progress is a bad unusable mess at the moment,
although I hear Enlighten has its own issues)

 

Oh cool I didn't know this was out. I'll be skipping it though. I wish Crytek luck with their new venture though maybe some indies will have good luck with the new terms

 

Possible audio licensing issues.
No Mobile.
Windows only.
No source.
Possibly annoying asset workflow.

No. Just no.

 

He has alpha access! GET HIM!

 

Meh..

Not interested at all.

 

Noodles? What flavour?

 

Don't forget a native Geometry Brushes equivalent with export option.
I know ... I know ... that's Unreal and not CryEngine...

 

I can't help noticing a certain tendency of double standards when assessing other engines...

Back when UE4 came out, many where quick to point out that this still is a bad offer and Unity much more favorable because of the 5% royalties ("do the math"). Now CryEngine is running a no-royalty model, but this seems to be completely irrelevant as an argument.

Browse thorugh any of the comparison threads and you'll find that one of the most often listed nuisances in Unity are "tons of bugs that never get fixed". But, of course, CryEngine is the "notoriously buggy" engine.

Oh, and they give you "nothing new except for some PBR shaders". I just wonder why everybody is highly anticipating Unity5, then? Because it finally has a 64bit editor? Global illumination? Working physics? Very convincing!

Don't get me wrong, I like Unity, and it definitely is the easier engine to use. Just saying, if you want to come to a certain conclusion, you'l' find the corresponding arguments...

Oh, by the way, CE has had Geometry brushes for ages (they're called "Solids"), you can export them as obj or store them in the engine's mesh format right in the editor.

 

Let me just refer you to another quote of mine, BTW I spent a lot of time with CE.!

It lacks even basic import tools and yes I know about the RC32 pipeline (It's not really as solution is it now?), the engine in many instances was a complete mess. Unity is a little bit buggy, Unreal 4 is a little bit buggy they both have quirks that you report and they do get fixed (if it's serious). CryTek do none of that, an engine breaking bug? Well you're stuck, kiss goodbye project.

Some people poured their heart out making games only to be ignored by CryTek when granting a license! You're saying that CryEngine is a good choice? Because it seemed to me before EAAS you couldn't trust them and to be perfectly honest it'd be a miracle if they suddenly changed.

We all know Unity 4.0 is from the stone age in many regards and has its quirks and sure it took UE4 to boot them in the right direction, which isn't exactly the way it should of been. Even Unreal 4 is "Unfinished" in a lot of scenarios, but NONE of this compares to CE.

You only have to spend 5 minutes on their forums to find a lot of similar messages.

 

I can't recall myself stating that CryEngine is a good choice. I never would, because that always depends on what you're looking for.

The asset pipeline in CE is awful, the lack of communication and attitude towards indies appalling, and if you want to do someting other than an outdoor FPS for the PC platform you most certainly should be looking somewhere else. However, I notice many comments (here as well as on the UE4 and CE forums) that just extrapolate the past to the future. Granted, that the company's attitude will change might be as likely or unlikely as that Unity5 will be fulfilling its promises at launch. But I still don't see a reason to jump to conclusions here.

Unity, UE and CE are all great engines. I'd probably choose Unity if I was heading for a mobile project right now, and UE4 for an indoor game or something similar. My current game has an outdoor, first-person setting (no shooting though..) and I find CE a great match here (dynamic lighting, time of day, ocean, clouds, rivers, roads and much more), and I find the sandbox editor a joy to work with. But, of course, that's just a personal opinion.

 

Normally I'd agree, an engines and engine at the end of the day. But in the instance of CE is not worth the TOD if you plan to make a releasable game of any type, no pun intended. (Unless you're rich and have access to source).

Which is about the easiest thing to add to any engine. CE is a great renderer, but a poor engine. I've had a look at it, nothing has changed... With steam, it's made a whole new world of issues.

 

No matter if the Cryengine deal is good bad or anythign in between i think the fact that it exists can only do good for pushing the idea of high quality, widely available, relatively cheap game dev engines forward. Unity forced the big boys to put themselves out there and change their models, somethign ClicknPlay, Games Factory, Game Maker and GarageGames could never do, its amazing and great. The took the challenge and are push back on Unity, to the benifit of us all.

 

Yeah its hard to make an outdoor scene look bad in that engine. Actually, I suspect it is hard to make any scene look bad in that engine. Crytek are pure graphics wizards. They have cranked out so many tech papers that have helped propel the industry forward

As far as I can tell, Artists seem to have been using it pretty well over the years (a quick visit to Polycount will confirm that for you). So it seems to work okay for portfolio pieces.

I have no interest in using it myself but it does put out very nice Art portfolio work.

 

Random thought.

In its current state, any marketing Cry does will probably just result in more Unity users.