Cryengine Vs Lumberyard game engine

The gaming community has been growing exponentially through the years. This is due to the fact that gaming engines, pcs and game consoles have been growing more and more powerful as time goes by. It is also partially due to more companies entering the gaming society creating a wider variety of game engines and pcs. This has made the price of these tools cheaper and more affordable for anyone. You probably know what a game console and what gaming pc is, but many never really know what a game engine is. The best way to understand what they are is to first understand what they do.

A game engine is the architecture that game developers use to make a game. In game engines, the components used can be reused to build the framework of the game. In simpler terms, a game engine is a dedicated software for creating and designing games. Game engines provide the developers with more time to focus on the key features and elements of the game such as character looks, facial expressions, and models and how entities and objects of the game will interact. This means that before game engines, the process of designing games was a lot more difficult. It meant that all games would have to be made from scratch making it consume a lot more time and a whole lot expensive.

Sometimes, new game engines have to be designed. This happens when the game being created is so different that there is no existing game engine that will work. A game engine allows developers to add things such as physics, rendering, collision detection, scripting, artificial intelligence and inputs. There are many game-engine making companies. Different engines have different strengths and weaknesses as each of them has their own style and user. Some are more geared toward non-programmers and beginners. In this article, we are going to look at the similarities, differences and features of these two popular game engines.

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The reason the Cryengine and Lumberyard are hugely compared is because one is a variation of the other. Lumberyard came about in 2016 and was released by Amazon as their own version of a revamped and extended Cryengine. Both Cryengine and Lumberyard use C++ as the programming language, so learning C++ should give you an advantage of using both of them. Not just that, even unreal engine uses C++.

Cryengine Game Engine

If you’re a gamer, then the Cryengine is not a new term for you. There are many games that have been made through this powerful game engine. It is designed by a German developer known as Crytek. Cryengine has been used to make many AAA games in the past and are constantly improving. If you are a gamer then you should have definitely come across cryengine logo when playing games in your PC or Console.

Cryengine is known for its aesthetically pleasing and high-quality, high-resolution games. Over time, they update their system so that new consoles are supported. Some of games made with Cryengine are: Sniper – Ghost Warrior 2 and Snow Warhorse. Such games are registered under a third-party license. Large game companies such as Ubisoft also use this game engine. Ubisoft maintains an in-house, heavily modified version of CryEngine from the original Far Cry called the Dunia Engine, which is used in their later iterations of the Far Cry series.

The Cryengine like all other game engines has slowly been improved through the many versions it has starting from Cryengine 1 to V. The version 1 was used for the first release of Far Cry. It was the first version of the game engine to be released by Crytek and was demonstrated at Electronic Entertainment expo. After its great reception, it was quickly made into a game. Later, Crytek released an improved version 1.2 which included better graphics and controls. A 1.3 version was released soon after and improved on HDR lighting.

The Cryengine 2 was used in the worldwide popular game known as Crysis. It was released in 2008 by Crytek. This version was first licensed out to an urban communication company and the purpose of this was to create a program where clients would be able to model exactly how a building would look like before construction. This licensing was done in 2009 but later changed ownership in 2011 when another company, the Simpsons, took over. Later in 2012, it was licensed by Ringling College which became the first educational institution to license Cryengine 2 for educational purposes.

The Cryengine 3 was released in 2009 and was being used for development of Windows, PS3, Xbox360 and Wii games. Later that year, a demo of a 3D version of the Cryengine 3 was released. The Cryengine 3 was slowly modified to create custom maps and mods. Crytek used this version to bring back the original Crysis game to consoles as they were first only made for PCs. In 2011, a play station and Xbox version of the game was made available to the public

The Cryengine 3.6 to 4 is unique and has little similarities with its previous versions. It added a support for Linux operating system and increased their platforms to consoles such as the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U.

The final version of the Cryengine to be released is the Cryengine V. It was released in 2016. This game engine version was unique because it allowed the users to view the source code such after paying a certain amount of money. Later in 2017, a 504 version was released to make some improvements on the 5.0 such as a Vulkan API render engine as beta, substance integration and new C# palettes.

Key Features if Cryengine

The Cryengine is a powerful game engine. It has the following key features.

Cryengine uses WYSIWYG editor

It has a ‘what you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) editor which is very convenient and efficient for game developers since testing during development is made very easy.

It Uses C++,C# and lua for programming and has a visual editor

As we know by now, to use a game engine, you have to have some bit of coding knowledge. The problem comes in when you know a language that is not supported by your game engine. Scripting in Cryengine can be done using C++, C # and Lua. Therefore, game developers can use the language they prefer.

Flow Graph is a visual scripting system that is embedded in the CryENGINE Sandbox Editor. The main advantage of the Flow Graph Editor is that users do not need to have any scripting or programming knowledge

Supports both 2D and 3D development

Many games today are in 3D. However, for Indie developers, 2D game development is essential. Cryengine is great for Indie developers since it is especially tailored for 2D game models. Cryengine game engine provides a smooth and great workflow for these game models and this is why almost all Indie game developers use it. Unlike newer game engines that work in pseudo 2D where a 3D world is represented in two dimensions, Cryengine works in actual 2D that is expressed in pixels. This is the reason we say it is tailored for both 3D and 2D game models.

It offers offline rendering

This is a key feature since not many game engines have this option. In fact, only a few high-end game engines have this feature. Offline rendering means that rendering can continue even when there is no internet connection. This is convenient as it protects the developer from losing progress in development. Learn Cryengine

Lumberyard Game Engine

Lumberyard engine is a cross platform engine that was developed by Amazon. The main and most obvious difference between the two is that Lumberyard integrates Amazon Web Services that allow developers to build their games on Amazon’s servers. It also supports the livestreaming platform known as Twitch. Like Lumberyard, the source code is made available to the developers although with a bit of limitations. These limitations include: user cannot publicly release the source code or incorporate it in their own game.

Lumberyard was released in 2016 together with a multiplayer hosting service known as Gamelift. This was done to attract as many gaming fans as possible to the system. Since this game engine is so recent and not fully developed, a beta version was released in 2018 to support multiple platforms such as Windows, PS4 and Xbox One. Linux and Mac are partially supported and full versions are currently in the workings. Virtual reality support is also in its beta stages and allows the game developer to build games supporting unique devices such as HTC Vive. Since the Lumberyard game engine is new, not many games have been created using it. The following are the games built by this game engine: The Grand Tour Game (2019) and Coffence (2018). The rest of the games have not been officially released yet.

The following are some of the key features of Lumberyard.

Lumberyard is a cross platform

Lumberyard supports all major operating systems in the world today. This list includes Windows, Mac and Linux among others. It can also be supported by either 32- or 64-bit machines which makes it every convenient for many. The only problem is that many alternative tools in Lumberyard are tailored with only one OS in mind: Windows. This means that when using another operating system with such tools will cause problems.

It has a server

Lumberyard game engine has an inbuilt server to support multiplayer game development. The server also allows games made by Lumberyard to be suitable for multiple game environments such as Android, PS3, HTML5, PS Vita and even the less popular Windows Phone. They are currently working on a Raspberry Pi version.

Supports multiplayer gaming

Due to Lumberyard’s versatile features, creating multiplayer games has been made quite easy. Lumberyard game engine has an inbuilt server to support multiplayer game development. The server also allows games made by Lumberyard to be suitable for multiple game environments such as Android, PS3, HTML5, PS Vita and even the less popular Windows Phone.

Lumberyard offers offline rendering

This is a key feature since not many game engines have this option. In fact, only a few high-end game engines have this feature. Offline rendering means that rendering can continue even when there is no internet connection. This is convenient as it protects the developer from losing progress in development.

Lumberyard is free you only pay for AWS

Lumberyard is total free, there is no revenue limit or royalty to be paid when you publish your game. You can make any game you want and publish them free if cost. There is one catch that lumberyard uses Amazon AWS services for many in-game features and AWS is not free. You have to pay for any AWS service you use.

Lumberyard has a rich documentation

Even though Lumberyard is a variation of cryengine. Amazon has made sure anybody who uses lumberyard shouldn’t face any difficulty. Lumberyard documentation is well arranged and easy to read. You must be able to get the any of it with regular use.

Lumberyard supports facial animation editing

When it comes to designing games, a lot of facial expressions are needed for the game characters. This game engine comes with a new powerful facial animation editor. This editor allows the developer to input real life expressions on their characters’ faces. This makes the game more realistic and more enjoyable.

Conclusion

Lumberyard is also not fully developed but is already showing so much promise. Creyengine on the other hand is powerful and has been used in lots of top-tier graphics games. It would also be unfair to compare these two powerful game engines because: they are very similar due to Lumberyard being a variation of Cryengine, and Lumberyard is very new and needs more time in the market for more people to learn and use.

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