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Round up of Crysis 2 and CryEngine 3 News
Written by Mocib2
Thursday, 18 February 2010
April issue of PC Gamer US will be equipped with an expanded, enhanced look at Crysis 2 featuring exclusive PC screenshots. The April 2010 magazine will be in the shops on the 2nd of March. Check out the cover image below.
The March issue of Edge magazine (out now) has a great preview article about Crysis 2 and Edge's visit to Crytek Frankfurt studios. Posted below is yet another bullet point list of things of interest, as gathered up by Ali Cat.
Crysis 2 is a multi-platform title, did consoles force creative constraints on the gameworld? This topic is discussed with executive producer Nathan Camarillo in the latest issue of Xbox World 360 magazine, which is out now. Full sneak peek on the magazine article at Computer and Video Games.
A new CryEngine 3 technology paper by Anton Kaplanyan (Crytek) and Carsten Dachsbacher (VISUS/University Stuttgart) titled "Cascaded Light Propagation Volumes for Real-Time Indirect Illumination", an updated version of the SIGGRAPH 2009 one, was published recently on Carsten's personal university page. The paper will be presented at i3D 2010 in Washington DC on February 20. We have extracted a few example screenshots from the paper. Get the download link for the PDF and view the screens below. Thanks to crysuki for the tip!
Update: Video and slides added!
PC Gamer US April 2010 Issue Cover
Information from Edge #212
- The demo was on an Xbox 360, using a controller. No PC footage.
- Part of Crysis 2 is being made by Crytek UK.
- Set 3 years from the original in 2023.
- World's other major cities (like London and Rio) have been destroyed.
- Crysis 2 is not like other post-apocalyptic movies/games. It will have its own unique take.
- Demo starts exiting a subway in downtown Manhattan isolated by rubble in a battle.
- An alien frigate sweeps across the street, it's shot down by helicopters and it smashes through a skyscraper leaving a hole created in real-time.
- The alien craft is intact and now everyone in the area is alert to be first on the scene to examine it, including you.
- Previous objective was "Find a way to Nathan Gould's apartment".
- Crynet Systems Infantry are after you and the aliens.
- Crytek realises the AI for the aliens in Crysis 1 was weak. "They just floated around the environment," Camarillo admits and have changed that.
- Tactical Mode creates a new HUD which gives you readouts and markers "telling you who you are looking at, how they died and what it'll take to kill them".
- Every discarded weapon can be analysed from a distance, also civilian bodies.
- A whiteboard in the studio read "Eight hours average play time, 48 action bubbles, ten minutes each" which Edge thinks they didn't intend them to see.
- The size of New York is comparable to the island in Crysis 1. They are more interested in detailed pockets than seeing the whole city. "It's constrained freedom".
- The combat has evolved.
- Punches and pistol whips are more effective.
- You can lean using the Xbox 360 controller.
- There's a cover system, where you snap to objects and use lean to pop out and shoot in first person.
- Another section of the white board lists enemy types: "Stalkers, Grunts, Shadows, Screamers, Spotters, Changelings and Heavy Ticks".
- The sound design changes according to the suit mode you have enabled.
- Tactical mode allows you to hear the finest sounds (gravel underneath your feet) and distant conversations from the enemy.
- Strength makes your footprints thud like lead hitting the ground.
- Suit modifiers include directional bullet trails, X-Ray vision and bullet deflection.
- Weapon names: FELINE submachine gun, JACKAL auto-shotgun and HAMMER.
- "this is no longer a game in which you have to find or create the fun, but one in which the fun finds you.".
- They realise the mistake in showing too much of Crysis 1 before it was out and they won't be doing that again.
- Now they know what is good about it because of people playing Crysis 1 they have designed it around that.
Some Screenshots Extracted from the PDF and PPT files
Indirect Illumination ON (indirect lighting is exaggerated for illustration purposes)
Indirect Illumination OFF
Computing many complex lighting phenomena for arbitrary dynamic scenes in real-time is still an illusive goal. With this technique it is possible to do several new phenomena for real-time applications in a very small and constant time budget, such as:
1. Single-bounce diffuse global illumination.
2. Indirect shadows, which is ignored in the majority of existing techniques.
3. Multiple bounces are possible with our approach.
Also some additional applications to the light propagation volumes:
1. Indirect illumination of homogenous single-scattered participating media.
2. Local glossy reflections of indirect lighting.
The proposed approach is a battle-tested completely real-time solution for arbitrary dynamic scenes and lighting conditions.
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