Moving from Crysis - Cryengine - Sandbox Editor to Unity?

Hello Mates,

Well yes, I wish to know if other people here moved from the Sandbox 2 Editor to Unity...maybe we can share suggestions and advices

I am an amateur designer and I used the Sandbox Editor and the Flowgraph (the visual scripting system of the Cryengine) a lot but then when they launched the new Cryengine version I decided to change and started Unity but...

Sometimes, I find it hard : what a mess in Unity!! : no visual scripting, no door entity, no time of day, no AI provided, no huge objects and animation database, no simple AI path ...

In Unity, it's like you have to download millions of assets to retrieve all these great features of the Sandbox 2 editor ( which was issued in 2008!!!)
and because a lot of people are doing assets for the same function, then you don't know which one to choose...

So yes, Unity is a great tool for the price of its license but I hope one day, for consensual use, Unity (5??) will integrate all these functions to ease the creation process.

 

I hope not, most of the features you described are different for each game, Unity works to support any game and thus some things are not included.

 

No door entity, no time of day, no AI... Wut!?

I guess Unity should come with a door script and basic AI scripts etc as an example, but really what are the chances that its going to do exactly what you want it to do? That's why there are dozens of AI modules in the asset store, as everyone has a different view on how it should be done and how far to take it.

Btw time of day is DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay.ToString() unless I don't understand what you are asking?

The only thing on here I agree with is a good visual scripting system should probably be integrated with Unity, the rest I think suit the asset store more.


Edit: I just thought you probably mean a day night cycle system don't you... again too many ways of implementing it best left to the asset store.

Unity could spend ages coming up with hundreds of example systems, assets and scripts like this and would be mostly useless for most people, most of the time, other than as an example to lean from, and they do give example projects that contain some of these things.

 

I've used cryengine before, but I moved away from it because there was a door script, fully featured AI... yes, they work out of the box for a single player game, but its hard to change anything without source access at that time. There might be a door, but if I want to hook a mini game of lockpicking into it.. nope, won't do.
In unity, I have to do everything by myself, but that means that I have full control over everything. A door should be 2 minutes work or less.

 

Hi and welcome

I also move from CrySDK to Unity about one year ago and for me the biggest reason where not being able to public anything commercial (only AAA studios or big indie teams get license back then and probably now still) so I felt like waste of time since I want to make smaller games.

Also other reasons would be that Unity got Asset store, runs on Mac and is probably the best engine publishing for mobile platforms eg.

 

Well won't CryEngine come with a $10 subscription therefore being competitive in terms of costs with the current models offered by Unity and Unreal? I wonder if there is another reason for such a move? I am playing with Cryengine right now and so far (as a 3DS Max user) I am finding it friendly enough.

 

Let's have an engine where we just press a button and it makes the whole game for us! But the problem is, you could never get a good job as a game developer anymore. Make it too easy and the field fills up with more people, and then it's harder to compete in the field. One reason I hate visual scripting.

 

I think the problem you are experiencing is that the CryEngine was originally specifically created for the Crysis games so all the things you are talking about were included from day one. Unity was created for the purpose of being a canvas for any type of game so time of day, opening doors aren't exactly suitable for everyone. I would say Unity is an engine for hobbyists who enjoy implementing these types of things and professionals who can plough resources into obtaining those features, if you are a hobbyist who wants this type of stuff from day one you should probably stick with CryEngine.

I come from the professional stance and Unity provides everything the team needs to get what you speak of, but I can understand where you are coming from- and Unity could do with a few more example prefabs for the starting users.

 

Unity has a new bunch of sample assets with those things which are asked for the most (at least it seems so, if you read the forums), like a physics car, first person controller, third person controller etc.

 

Likewise cryengine doesn't have tonnes of what Unity does have. I'm pretty sure it's lousy out of the box for many things Unity is great at. But this is about migration so lets help with a few quick suggestions:

no visual scripting
http://u3d.as/content/hutong-games-llc/playmaker/1Az

no door entity
Solved by playmaker

no time of day
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/172763-Time-of-Day-Realistic-day-night-cycle-and-atmospheric-scattering

no AI provided
https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Navmeshes.html

no huge objects and animation database
That's the hierarchy and project views.

no simple AI path ...
https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/Navmeshes.html

More great useful stuff: https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/CreatingGameplay.html

And of course the superb http://unity3d.com/learn

 

Honestly, these threads are getting a bit old.

Yes, Unity does not have a built in sky system, automated doors, etc.

But so what? All of those things are added by third party features, as HippoCoder pointed out. I'd say that, yes you have to pay for them as opposed to other engines having them out of the box, but come on. If you're a serious developer, you'll be investing loads of $$$ anyway. Why not use an engine that let's you create anything you want as opposed to an engine that is geared for FPS games and avoid headaches and enjoy Unity's flexibility. There's no piles of stuff you won't use.

 

I love how when I'm using Unity, I feel the possibilities are almost endless, you don't feel constricted that the workflow is geared towards FPS, 2D, etc. You can make almost any type of game you want.

 

You're moving from modding to game development. That means you have to do things yourself. On the one hand, yes, at first it's pretty barebones, but on the other you can do things exactly as you want to. In CryEngine, systems, important ones, tend to be big black boxes which is a huge problem when you want to customize the way they work.

 

This has been the eternal struggle for many beginners in Unity pretty much since day 1. Unity's general philosophy is that they'll provide you with all the tools you need to make any type of game you can possibly imagine. There's just one caveat. They don't know what type of game you want to make and they won't make your game for you. A day night cycle to you might mean something like in Ocarina of Time or Skyrim, but to someone else it might mean something like in Majora's Mask, or something entirely different.

So anything specific to your game, you will have to implement yourself. This is why engines like Unreal and Cryegine are much more popular among high end artists: programming-wise you get a lot of good stuff out the box so they can focus on the art and have something playable really fast. That's because high end artists generally don't care how it plays, they just want to see their art running around and doing stuff as quickly as possible.

A lot of those artists might go into Unity expecting all that stuff to be done for them and then complain that Unity sucks because it's not doing that stuff for them (not talking about you OP, just in general). But in that case they're not really looking for a game engine, are they? They're actually looking for a modding tool.

To a lot of people this may seem like a weakness, but it's actually Unity's greatest strength. If you did want to modify the day/night cycle in Cryengine, I imagine you'd need source code access, right? Well in Unity you wouldn't...

 

My point exactly. I've tried countless numbers of game engines, they are either too complicated and I loose the fun of using them or they are too specific - FPS, RPG etc. I tried Unity Free - it's awesome. Very nice interesting and pleasant learning curve.

I just canceled my UE4 subscription and I'll be buying Unity Pro this week. Can't wait to buy it :mrgreen:

 

No door entity? I've been pretty harsh to Unity lately but come on!

I mean what kind of door do you want. Personally I like star trek doors that make a swish swish.

 

‘’ Well won't CryEngine come with a $10 subscription therefore being competitive in terms of costs with the current models offered by Unity and Unreal?’’

Well they had 25%royalty before like UDK was 30% so they where completive back then but problem was only AAA studios got license and no small indie teams, what make a difference now with the new subscription?

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and even some advices It is nice to see that you also have this experience.

Same for me Fredd, plus the fact that you need an internet connection to start it! in fact when CE3 was produced Crytek decided to separate the system in two: the FreeSDK (few assets and internet connection needed) and the Crysis 2 MOD SDK (loads of assets but less option about the SDK and no update so it got buggy sometimes) and I am not sure you can use all the provided game assets if you go public and got also big issue with FMOD never succeded to use a custom sound...

WHAT?? Yes, you're right!! That is a very recent announcement, very interesting but that doesn't solve the internet issue... Say if you create a map/scene with the free SDK do you need an internet access each time you want to play it?

Well, I do not agree. With the advent of virtual reality for the public market, 3D printing etc... we are entering the century of the "Makers", everyone will be able to create and should have easy access to these tools "Computer for the masses, not for the classes" as was saying Jack Tramiel (about the commodore 64) what will be the difference in terms of competition is the complexity of your imagination and your creativity....

Thank you Hippocoder, that's really kind. I tried playmaker recently and it seems indeed to be the closest thing to the Flowgraph. I will try your other links as well. With playmaker I was able to do this bloody door!

Ah,ah you're right, it's because I am really struggling right now (especially with AI)! But I do like the freedom of Unity...

The point is that I am working with virtual reality equipment, so FPS games engine system is very relevant in this case