Lumberyard: Amazon's CryEngine-based engine with free source code

Hi.

Tone it down or thread ban. This isn't the place for child like text. Also, the networking has been rewritten from the ground up. Not only this, several mmos have been made with it, and networking is an independent component, so you can use any networking you like (if talking about Cryengine), as various successful asian MMOs demonstrate.

This thread is an open discussion, if anyone has a strong disagreement, they can word it in a way that isn't inflammatory.

@ShadowK thanks for keeping cool.

Unfortunately that's very much the case for some larger studios at the moment. Unity is still used for prototyping but then development shifts to inhouse or other engine. This can be addressed by looking at solving the bigger problems that surround development, and I don't mean services. I think Unity will have realised this though and simply are busy enough with 5 at the moment

Personally, I'm OK with how Unity is - it's still the best fit for my game. I'm just saying - it could be a whole lot better helping me manage my assets in game, and helping me prepare them for high performance. It isn't so hot at big world games. It can do them, but the quality suffers (IMHO) if you do not have hired hands.

 

Are you sure ? It would be a no go for some possible game as i don't use these software but alternatives like Modo or Gimp 2.

 

They should let the art department redesign the entire interface including flowgraph interaction, material editor, etc. The engine is fast and efficient and can output really high fidelity, but it feels like a Russian tank with 16 gears.

 

You made a prototype three years ago in a completely different version of cry engine, I don't see your point, if I told you I released a game in cry engine 4 years ago, would that make my arguments anymore valid?

I never mentioned anything about not understanding/understanding the .FBX pipeline. You can't import animations from any DCC except the subscription based version of MAX and MAYA (not MAYA LT).

They only support Max and Maya exporting to our supported proprietary formats (.CGF, .CHR, .SKIN, etc).

You said that you personally don't care about 2D, but we are discussing the general merits of LumberYard, becuase in your first post you were hyping up all the things you thought were good about it, I merely offered a general argument as to what its lacking and against your initial post which only focused on the things you perceive as positive, that's why I mentioned not having 2D support.

Yes I saw their road map, the forum support staff have been copy pasting all over the forum there.
I never said I can't use lumberyard did I? That's a bold assumption on your part, I said that there is no reason to use it over other free engines out there.(unity unreal).

 

You can import FBX files from any DCC but you cant import animations. and they only support Max and Maya import/exporting to thier supported proprietary formats (.CGF, .CHR, .SKIN, etc).

 

Yes it would actually, they said they're working on a FULL .FBX pipeline.. Once's it's in, the DCC becomes irrelevant..So I'm talking animations / materials the whole shebang..! They SAID in black and white they are doing it. Plus a roadmap apparently of all the stuff that has been requested so far.

It wasn't a "gentle" argument by any means, but I've said on numerous occasions what I disliked about CryEngine. For a start making you use an outdated version of scaleform you had to E-bay to get flash for..

Everyone was getting cool toys like SpeedTree and CE didn't care. It's not really the engine I ever had an issue with, it was CryTek after some of the crap they pulled not only with licensing but with customer support (which didn't exist). I vowed I'd never use CE again. But as Amazon actually seem to be listening and trying to improve the product, I must admit I'm fairly excited.

Look it's gorgeous looking, runs well with a realtime GI solution and has an amazing pre-built shader set. The art workflow is simple (if you had Maya or Max) which will change, the physics system is awesome. No matter how backwards the engine is to use (which it is) you can't deny the engine was powerful as hell and had a mega slurry of tools suited to most 3D games..

CE was always at the forefront of technology / toolsets and they were good at it, but as an indie proposition and / or a business setup it was horrible.

If you want 2D, then Unity is without a doubt the one to go for. Even Unreal's 2D tools (from what I've heard) ain't anything to shout about.

P.S it's not really changed that much since I last used it TBH..

 

My intention was not to cause a flame war, I am just here to discuss things politely, which I think I did but if you think otherwise then I apologize. I try to tell it how I see it, but I guess that is not a good thing here?

To your other point, yes they rewrote the networking but it still has the same problems, I did write that.
Several mmos have been made with cry engine, not lumbryard, there are no released games with lumberyard.

Sure, but most indie developers will not have the resources or expertise to rewrite the networking for mmo, infact not many indie will be able to make an mmo anyway. My point is that they are claiming it is ready out of the box to make multiplayer games with large worlds when it is not.

Using the cry engine SDK which is what most people here will be used to, is not the same as using the full source code, go and ask the developers of star citizen how easy it is to re write cry engine for large multiplayer worlds.

Archage started with cry engine 1/2 and they had access to the full source of cry engine 3 and crytek developers to help them and that game still has terrible network performance.

 

If you want polite discussion, then don't ever do this kind of thing:

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Either way, as far as I know, main reason to use CryEngine is visuals - their realtime GI solution. For example:

Basically, if you're looking to objectively identify "the most superior engine", that ain't gonna happen, because every one of them will have both advantages and disadvantages. You'll use different engine when you need different kind of thing. So with that in mind, I wouldn't say "no reason to use this instead of other engines". Maybe no reason to use it in your project, but it'll probably be the perfect tool for someone else's game.

 

You guys noticed how Epic and Unity rally's and keep developers closely by keeping us on a loop. Unity does live training and is pro actively involve in all things game dev. Now look at Autodesk Stingray, and you quickly realize how important keeping us informed is. Is like a woman, if you don't touch it once in a while, will seek love and affection elsewhere.

 

Let's see how things will go in the next months.

It seems they are also targetting indie PS4 developpers
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnN5tbqqY_Y

The engine is not build for mmos , perhaps Mobas or FPS PvP from what i read on the forums.

Star citizen is more complex than many mmos on server side. If they took UE4 they would had the same big challenge. They successfully made possible to use larger maps with the engine and i am sure rendering capabilty and tools of CryEngine really helped them.

Anyway if you want to make a solo fps or tps game with real time GI, you should be ready to go if you are not a beginner and if you are someone enought active to find examples and tutorials by yourself and there is no royalties.
But there is some features from UE4 i would like and some tools like the visual shader editor.

 

Off topic but honestly if you are not giving some attention to "your woman" there is a big problem somewhere.

And yes interacting with the community/industry is a big part of how Unity retains its position.

 

Can we be a little less sexist? It's a game dev forum. I'll assume language barriers for the "it" comment anyway keep on topic all.

 

I must say I really admire Unity staff and mods for their patience…. allowing this non stop stream of threads discussing competitors. Kudos for your patience.

As for me - Unity is perfect for what I do, the pricing is good for what I get, so I don't see any reason to check other engines out...

 

We help them bringing all information and point of views on what competitors are doing
They don't need to try the engine we said a lot already.

 

Hi, I should not send that, but I just wanted to make an example. Did not mean to offend anybody. Sorry about that.

 

If someone would have come to my store when it's full with customers (assuming I had a store) and talk about how good the competitor is - I would definitely kick him out : )

 

Did I just finally hear Irrlicht AND Ogre on Unity forums, brings back oooooold memories....

 

Unwatch Thread.

 

You took it for a spin?

 

Not that old, any news on SDL?

 

Someone else should release a branch called CryMeaRiver and have Justin Timberlake endorse it..

Jus' sayin.!

 

Hey what do you know. It actually was painless. It just simply... launched. Although I must say it is very odd to be logging in with my Amazon account. Just seems a bit bizarre. But I will get used to it.

Anyway, time to check out the sample projects.

EDIT:
Oh joy... straight to another World Editor Thingy. Whatever happened to the days of simply code? Just simple libraries filled with hundreds and thousands of methods.

I will give it a chance though. At least 15 mins before dinner & Diablo time.

 

Looks pretty good but those Amazon Tier Services are very expensive. One doesn't want to get too involved with those type recurring expenses without dependable recurring revenue which still leaves Unity or UE4 as the go to engine for most (indie) people.

 

Looks interesting.

But i need to be effective.

I am more effective in C# than i ever was with C++. yes C++ is awesome, but sometimes you just dont need those "over complications".
I am more effective with thorough documentation.
The asset store is REALLY important. Makes me able to prototype faster which is often a part of my job.

Maybe i will take a look in a year or two and see how far they got. But at that time we are probably doing awesome stuff in Unity 6.X

 

You only pay for what you use, and pay nothing if you use nothing.

Even with Unity or UE4 you still have to pay someone for online services, even if you're hosting your own (and you can with LY, no charge).

 

Well tried their webserver free for a year once and when that trial ran I I was still billed about $10 - $15 a month for virtually no traffic.

If your game needs a backend server than it needs a backend, we saw what happened the Parse, but comparison shop.

 

Hmm... for some reason although the Editor makes me think of a NASA Command Station it actually is not terribly overwhelming. Just seems to have a lot of "stuff" you can do. Probably only need about 10% of of the stuff for a given project but maybe not.

All I want is to find the dang code in here. Just show me the damn code!! lol

Like the sample with the little canister robot it all looks cool and working in Editor everything is incredibly responsive fast as heck actually.... but folks... where is the code? Like that little droid only controls with the WASD keys which I hate. So first thing is to code up Arrow key movement.

@ShadowK quick brain pick... where is the code for a given object? Yes I could dig through the docs. But I am guessing you already know how to access the code for a selected object.

 

Traditionally you pay for Elastic IP, (non-ephemeral) storage, traffic and other services plus actual server uptime on a usage basis. The trial iirc means a micro-server (lowest tier) is free for 12 months. Dunno about any other AWS trials but maybe you were using storage (which costs even if you put nothing in it) or backups...it does need watching, and bills:usage analyzing.

But this is for tailored services anyway from what I can tell, with their own pricing tiers.

Reliability and trust that the provider isn't going to shut down are big deals (See Parse). I've had a server running on AWS for 3 years, only one minor blimp when AWS had issues a short while ago (server restarted fine). I have a lot of trust in AWS, it's industry strength stuff, which is well worth paying for - the hard part is monetizing what you use yourself, but that goes without saying.

Heck, don't take my word for it - ask Unity who they use

 

I noticed even in plugins support, that he who tends the most is always in demand. Just look at all the visual scripting that were created after playmaker and we come back to the same water hole. Is nice to know your time invested will not be in vain. I've seen very powerful scripting tools go down the drain, because the developer was to lazy to invest in tutorials. for example.

 

Well if you really want to know uhh I'm going to undo all my praise for CE in seconds here:

1. Create your object in scene
2. Goto GameSDK / Entities
3. (Open up another .ent copy / paste)
4. Change names for .LUA ext and the entity you want to change make sure the path is pointed to something like MyScripts
5. In your Entities > myscripts create your .LUA file
6. Code away (Entity name / phsyics for example then funtion's for your entity):

Yourentity:OnINIT()
self.OnReset();
self.angles = blah!
self.pos = blah blah!

end

 

Hire a billion engineers and have them each write a line of code

 

From Cryteck news, something is coming at GDC. Perhaps CryEngine 4 or a new offer and plans ?
They really need to bring more support and communication with the indies and beginners. Also support full Fbx and image formats without CryTiff.

How much will you pay each of them ?

 

Gotta be fun if they ever close down a dev's account because he sent back one to many item ordered on amazon ^^.

You know those "forum games" where people collaboratively write stories? The next person in the thread continues the story where the last one left it. Try coding games that way x].

 

I wish we had such good water system in Unity.

 

If they come with some insane version of SVOGI... wait, I almost forgot the problem is Crytek, not CryEngine hence why 'Amazon' is the only reason Lumberyard is worth some of our attention.

Hopefully Unity 6 lightning is the culmination of Enlighten.

 

Yep.

I believe Unity will bring a fast real time GI solution instead, Enlighten will be optionnal.
Today i just can't work with Enlighten because the baking is too much slow, while it is perfect for mobile small scale games.

 

Even for small scale games baking can be a chore. Admittedly, some of the fault lies with my hardware but even on my windows machine it's a slog.

 

$16

Might work with scripting, but coding would probably not produce a desirable result.

 

If these guys are serious about succeeding and becoming an authority to be reckon with.
They would:
A. Aggregate user's complaint and ideas from forums like this one.
B. Put those suggestion at the top of their list and treated like The Manhattan Project.
C. Let the community set the course of events and not that guy who graduated from Harvard and does not know nothing about the world of games.

 

I got an invitation to a private developers meeting in Montreal from Amazon, they wanted me to work for them in a new studio they are creating here in Quebec. One of the few things they mentioned was their deal with CryTek and CryEngine. They have not only the cash but also the mandpower and the knowledge to make it a huge success. And they stated they want to get a chunk of Unity community.
They completely wiped the network framework and implemented an easier and better network layer.
Their CryEngine version will differ quite a lot from CryTek CryEngine in the future. Just look at the gazillions changes and fixes they've made to the engine already.

 

Okay, I spent a good 45 minutes digging around in the full level canister robot example thingy. Unfortunately, I never did find the code (I have no menu option GameSDK or even Game/SDK or anything else that looks like a way to view/edit the code).

In the end I'd say this thing actually hides the coding to a great degree. I guess I just don't get this modern development style. It just makes no sense to me why anyone would want to open something like this up and see all of this stuff. I think that is the part I don't click with. It just seems so insane. ha ha

I'd be happiest with a manual (or even website if it has to be) and a code editor. Nothing else. Something where I can just jump in and start developing in minutes (maybe even seconds). Overall, I have to say I like Unity better than this thing. In fact, I can definitely appreciate the simplicity of the Unity Editor now. lol

I might revisit it again at the end of the year. I kind of doubt it will be any better (for me) because this seems to be the way these modern dev tools are going. If anything they will probably add a few more buttons and options to the editor.

I've pretty much decided at this point that idea I was talking about earlier (checking out Panda3D, OpenAL and other "pieces" out there) is probably the right path for me. Of course, I will still mess around with Unity and be here because this community is one of the best around IMO!

I'll just spend this year checking out the various options out there and see if I can just find the "old school" style of development that I am looking for. Heck, maybe I should just go back to Direct X. I guess that is always an option. That was just incredibly simple & straightforward. Or even Allegro. I mean that stuff is just use Visual C++ (or Notepad and compile with gcc for Allegro or at least it used to be). Just have the API docs handy and start coding. I mean there is nothing to look at and figure out. You just do it. But... I am thinking with all of the projects going on out there I can possibly take something from here and there and hook them up and have a full development "kit" that will be more comfortable for me.

It will be interesting to find out at least.

Oh! I must say I could actually see what folks mean about lighting finally. When playing around with the samples I noticed they really looked spectacular even though everything was low poly. The water was really fantastic too.

 

You have to extract and open the template C++ project that comes with the build and compile your own GameSDK.
PS: I've used Allegro about 15 years ago. I still have the sources of one of my first games on it.

 

Allegro was awesome. I used it back in the DOS days. I am thinking by this point it must surely have support for 3D game dev. I will definitely check it out. Do you still use Allegro? Is is still gcc? Ah nevermind it was DJGPP! Been a long time. Forgot that.

Anyway, I will check out the site and see what it can do. Make that the first stop on my quest.

 

I take it you had to sign an NDA for some of what you just typed?
If not, then you must've had a hard time containing yourself like you were waiting for the bathroom.

 

I gave him a LUA example..

@GarBenjamin it's in the CryEngine (Lumberyard) oh whatever folder.. It's not actually in the sandbox editor itself..

It's been a while since I did scripting in CE though, ahh just use flowgraphs for now.! Or read the actual docs ..

Funny enough, I used Notepad++ last time I scripted in CE..

 

It's way overkill for my needs. After doing some research I am leaning towards Open ToolKit. Basically seems to be just a bunch of code wrappers around OpenGL and OpenAL that works with C#. So in this way, it would be a minimal change. Basically just nothing more than programming in C#. So that is the first one on my list. Then I'll probably check out Allegro. I used to like it a lot long ago but they stuck with DOS when I had moved to Windows and I never checked it out since.

Anyway, thanks man. I think I have my path mapped out now. Probably just a lot of wrapper writing and framework building in my near future.

 

I think there's no reason to believe that.

Enlghten solution probably cost quite a bit, so I'd expect unity team to insist on trying to force enlighten everywhere for the next few years. They were quite adamant about removing beast in the thread where people complained about enlighten's slowness.

Just try libsdl. As barebones as it gets, and is nice to work with at the same time.

Unless something major happened, irrlicht used to be fairly low-level too.

 

Oh, their web tools management and the service I got were excellent in quality and easy to use. I'm just saying it's more expense than most people will want to pay. I'd pay it again though if I needed too but I don't even expect to need to consider that again till this fall.

The real reason I won't consider them yet though is lack of mobile publishing options but I expect they'll close that pretty fast because of the potential for revenue on successful cross platform games. Ultimately, the big screen TV is the place you want to watch movies, play games with friends, and listen to music...