CryENGINE 3 Game Development Beginner''''s Guide pdf

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CryENGINE 3 Game Development
Beginner's Guide
Discover how to use the CryENGINE 3 free SDK, the
next-generaon, real-me game development tool
Sean Tracy
Paul Reindell
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
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CryENGINE 3 Game Development Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmied in any form or by any means, without the prior wrien permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotaons embedded in crical arcles or reviews.
Every eort has been made in the preparaon of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
informaon presented. However, the informaon contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its
dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be
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However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this informaon.
First published: September 2012
Producon Reference: 1140912
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84969-200-7
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Cover Image by Hazel Denise Karunungan ()

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Credits
Authors
Sean Tracy
Paul Reindell
Reviewers
Marcieb Balisacan
Michelle M. Fernandez
Christos Gatzidis
Sascha Hoba
Robertson Holt
Lee Chiu Yi Joanna
Adam Johnson
Morgan Kita
Acquision Editor
Robin de Jongh
Lead Technical Editor
Dayan Hyames
Technical Editors
Sharvari Baet
Manmeet Singh Vasir
Jalasha D'costa
Copy Editors
Insiya Morbiwala
Laxmi Subramanian
Project Coordinator
Leena Purkait
Proofreader
Clyde Jenkins
Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta
Graphics
Valenna D'silva
Adi Gajjar
Producon Coordinators
Nitesh Thakur
Manu Joseph
Cover Work
Nitesh Thakur
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About the Authors
Sean Tracy is Crytek's Senior Field Applicaon Engineer for the award-winning
CryENGINE. He is responsible for adapng the engine and its features to individual
licensees, as well as developing full technical and "vercal slice" demos for prospecve
and exisng clients. Describing himself as a "generalizing specialist", he also gives support
directly to CryENGINE licensees while designing and maintaining their workows, pipelines,
and development techniques.
Sean was recruited by Crytek in 2008 aer working as an electronics technician for the
Canadian military. He was recruited due to his role in founding and leading development
on the award-winning total conversion project—MechWarrior: Living Legends. Since then,
he has been featured in numerous gaming magazines and has been invited to speak at many
game-related trade shows, conferences, and seminars. He is an avid gamer with extensive
modding experience on tles, including Never Winter Nights, Baleeld, Doom, and Quake.
This is Sean's second book.
I would rst like to thank my beauful wife, Kristy, for her love and support
throughout the process of wring this book and for her ongoing support
allowing me to do what I truly enjoy for a living. I also want to thank her
for giving us a gorgeous baby girl who is the light of my life. I would also
like to thank my colleagues for taking the me to review the book with
me, as it's a pleasure to work with people with the same love for real-me

technology as I have. Finally, I'd like to thank Crytek and Packt for their
support in allowing me to write this book and for making one of the best
game engines on the market.
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Paul Reindell has been an Engine Programmer in the SDK team since June 2010. He is
responsible for UI programming, next-generaon features, and the development of new
tools for the CryENGINE 3 Sandbox, as well as for forum support for CryENGINE licensees.
He has also worked on projects for licensees and evaluators.
During his diploma thesis, Paul started as an Intern at Crytek in March 2010. He nished
his diploma theses successfully in June and started directly as a Junior Programmer in
the SDK team. During his academic studies, he created a mod prototype with CryENGINE
2 (GarbageWarz); and during his diploma thesis, he was able to connect CryENGINE 3
successfully with a Head tracking API. Before working at Crytek, he worked for three years
as a programmer at DENSO Germany besides his studies.
I would like to thank my family, who have been posive and uncondional
supporters. I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who always encourages
me more than anyone else.
I would also like to thank my colleagues, who have provided invaluable
opportunies for me to expand my knowledge and shape my career.
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About the Reviewers
Marcieb Balisacan is a game programmer, designer, and producer working in the
Philippines. Being from a computer science and mulmedia background, he has released
several games for mobile devices and social networks on the Web since 2006. His passion
for game development is equaled only by his passion for music and storytelling, all of which
he uses to share his love for the art of creaon.
I would like to acknowledge my newborn daughter, Nikita Lyric, who during
the me of this review, kept me awake and inspired me to move ahead.
Michelle M. Fernandez is a mobile game developer for iOS/Android plaorms, and
co-founder of MobiDojo (), which is based out of San Diego,

California. MobiDojo has released apps in the marketplace for iOS, Android, Nook, and
Kindle. Michelle has had numerous years working in the game industry, in the development
and e-commerce environment. She is a mentor for aspiring arsts and programmers trying
to break into the industry. She also extends her experse as a panelist at the University of
California, San Diego Extension—DAC and The Art Instute of California, San Diego—by
parcipang in sessions relang to game producon, design, and markeng.
Michelle is the author of Corona SDK Mobile Game Development: Beginner's Guide,
which was published by Packt Publishing. She has also wrien an arcle called How
to Create a Mini-Game in Corona SDK for Game Coder Magazine. You can also view
her personal website at .
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Dr Christos Gatzidis is a Senior Lecturer in Creave Technology at Bournemouth
University, UK at the School of Design, Engineering, and Compung. He has a PhD
from City University London, UK and an MSc in Computer Animaon from Teesside
University, UK; he has also previously published work in a number of academically
edited books, conferences, and journals. He is also the framework leader for the
Creave Technology collecon of degrees at Bournemouth University (which includes
the BSc in Games Technology and the MSc in Computer Games Technology courses).
Christos teaches a variety of units on these courses and uses game engines (such as
Epic's Unreal Development Kit) across all years of the undergraduate course, to cover
topics ranging from basic-level design fundamentals to more advanced scripng.
I would like to thank the authors of this book and also the great people
at Packt for producing this excellent guide in one of the most engaging
game development tools around today.
Sascha Hoba is an Engine Programmer for Crytek's award-winning CryENGINE. He is
responsible for implemenng new features, improving exisng ones, and keeping the
engine up-to-date with improvements made across all Crytek teams to increase the
overall quality of the engine. He also gives direct support to CryENGINE licensees
around the world, guiding them on how to use CryENGINE from a programmer's
perspecve and trying to nd possible soluons for special requests made by licensees.

Sascha was recruited by Crytek back in 2010 aer studying IT—Informaon
Technology—at university. He was recruited due to his experience in working with all the
revisions of CryENGINE since CryENGINE 1, back in 2004. He gained his experience as an
acve member of the FarCry and Crysis modding communies, where he always tried to
push the engine to its limits and solve individual problems on how to implement certain
features with the available CryENGINE SDK.
I would like to thank Sean Tracy and Paul Reindell for giving me the
opportunity to review this book, which has been quite an interesng
experience.
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Robertson Holt is a polymath autodidact with a formal educaon. He is the founder of
and
When Robertson is not engaged with these acvies, he's goong o with his two lile
pugs, living his fun-loving life in downtown Toronto.
I would like to thank Bob Edward Wilson and Yog Sothoth.
Lee Chiu Yi Joanna is an experienced game developer. She started her game
development career in game programming. She has programmed for an acon game,
KengoZero on the Xbox360, and for a Massively Mulplayer Online Game (MMOG),
Otherland, on the PC. She is now also a game designer and has a collecon of game
designs/wrings. Her interest in the mobile/web has led her to develop apps and games
for these popular plaorms as well. Do keep a look out for her apps/games when they
are launched! She is also currently translang and reviewing another book about another
interesng topic, Unied Communicaons. Just a note, she is not just a tech mouse; she
also loves food, traveling, taking photos, and spending me with family and friends.
I would like to thank my family and friends for leng me take me
away from them to review this book.
Morgan Kita is an AI Engineer working at Crytek in Frankfurt, Germany. He has
a background in Computer Science and Genecs. He started his career in the
biotech industry and later moved over to the games industry. He has experience
in various aspects of the soware industry, from databases and tools development,

to mulple aspects of games development, such as arcial intelligence and
mulplayer networking.
I would like to thank my mother and my brother for encouraging me to
follow my passion.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Introducing the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK 7
What is the CryENGINE? 8
Applying your vision 8
Far Cry by Crytek – rst-person shooter 9
Aion by NCso – massively online role-playing game 10
Crysis by Crytek – rst-person shooter 11
Crysis Warhead by Crytek – rst-person shooter 12
Crysis 2 by Crytek – rst-person shooter 12
CryENGINE 3 Free SDK 13
What's in it for me? 14
Do I need a full team to develop with the CryENGINE? 14
Learning by example 16
Time for acon – installing the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK 16
Come in stay awhile 18
Time for acon – load the sample map in the launcher 18
Visual Studio Express and C++ game code 20
Acquiring the sample source assets 20
Time for acon – installaon of the 3ds Max exporter Plugin 20
Time for acon – downloading and opening the sample assets 21
Time for acon – installing the Adobe Photoshop plugin-CryTif 22
CryENGINE 3 Sandbox 23
Time for acon – starng Sandbox and WYSIWYP 23
Geng around in the Sandbox Editor 25
Time for acon – manipulang the perspecve camera 26
Handling level objects 28
Time for acon – selecng and browsing objects 29
Time for acon – saving our work 32

Summary 33
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Table of Contents
[ ii ]
Chapter 2: Breaking Ground with Sandbox 35
What makes a game? 35
Reducing, reusing, recycling 36
Developing out of the box 36
Time for acon - creang a new level 37
Using the right Heightmap Resoluon 38
Scaling your level with Meters Per Unit 39
Calculang the real-world size of the terrain 40
Using or not using terrain 40
Time for acon - creang your own heightmap 41
Using alternave ways for creang terrain 47
Generang procedural terrain 47
Imporng a pre-made heightmap 48
Creang terrain textures 49
Time for acon - creang some basic terrain texture layers 50
Adding altude and slope 56
Adjusng the le resoluon 56
Creang vegetaon 57
Time for acon - creang some ora for your level 58
Time for acon - seng up me of day and its basic parameters 62
Adding Atmosphere 69
Summary 69
Chapter 3: Playable Levels in No Time 71
Building levels with enes and objects 71
Starng a level 72
Creang a spawn point 72

Time for acon - creang a spawn point 72
Landmarks to guide the player 74
Using roads in levels 74
Time for acon - creang a road object 74
Ulizing layers to organize level objects 79
Time for acon - creang and managing layers 79
Adding objects using the asset browser 81
Time for acon - adding brushes to the level 82
White boxing 84
White boxing using Construcve Solid Geometry (CSG) 84
Time for acon - creang construcve solid geometry 84
Adding characters with Arcial Intelligence (AI) 90
Time for acon - place a basic AI enty 90
Create an archetype enty 91
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[ iii ]
Time for acon - creang your own archetype 91
Exporng to engine 94
Time for acon - exporng your level to engine 94
Summary 95
Chapter 4: I'm a Scripter, Not a Coder 97
Scripng and the CryENGINE 3 98
Lua usage in the CryENGINE 3 98
Visual scripng with Flow Graph 98
Scripted events 99
Time for acon - making a Flow Graph to spawn the player at a specic locaon 100
Component and enty nodes 103
Composion of ow nodes 103
Using trigger enes with Flow Graph 106

Time for acon - adding a trigger to Flow Graph and outpung its status 107
AI scripng with Flow Graph 110
Time for acon - creang a patrolling AI 110
Debugging Flow Graphs using the visual debugger 114
Time for acon - debugging the patrol Flow Graph 114
Using breakpoints with the visual debugger 116
Time for acon - adding and removing breakpoints 116
Summary 118
Chapter 5: C++ and Compiling Your Own Game Code 119
Installing Visual C++ 2010 Express Edion 120
Time for acon - downloading and installing Visual C++ 2010 Express 120
Starng CryENGINE 3 with Visual Studio 122
Time for acon - starng CryENGINE with the debugger aached 122
Breakpoints, watches, and co 125
Time for acon - seng up your rst breakpoint 126
Create a new Lua enty and call C++ code to interact with it 129
Time for acon - creang a new enty 129
Time for acon - placing your enty into your level 132
How to interact with enes via Lua script 134
Time for acon - making the teleporter usable 134
Time for some real code 136
Time for acon - wring a new scriptbind funcon in C++ 136
Call the new C++ funcon from your Lua script 140
Time for acon - changing the teleporter enty to execute the C++ code 141
CryENGINE specic data types 143
Summary 145
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Table of Contents
[ iv ]
Chapter 6: User Interface and HUD Creaon with Flash 147

Adobe Flash as a very powerful UI design tool 148
Time for acon – creang a new Flash asset with Adobe Flash 148
Bringing your Flash asset into CryENGINE 3 158
Time for acon – bringing your Flash asset into CryENGINE 3 158
Time for acon – making funcons, variables, and movieclips accessible in
CryENGINE 3 159
Dierent alignment modes for UI elements 162
Dynamic alignment 163
Fixed and fullscreen alignment 164
Using the UI Emulator to display and test your asset 164
Time for acon – starng Sandbox and tesng your UIElement 164
Creang a new UI Acon for the new HUD 167
Time for acon – making the HUD work 168
Basic event handling from Flash to CryENGINE 3 171
Time for acon – creang a simple interacve menu 172
UI Emulator, UI Acons, and FreeSDK example menus 176
UI Acons – Flow Graphs to control the UI 177
UI Acon is a standalone, level-independent Flow Graph 177
UI Acon can have start and end nodes 177
UI Acon can be in a disabled state 179
UI Acons support multriggering 179
UIEventSystems and UI Emulator to test your UI 182
Time for acon – using the UI Emulator to test the FreeSDK demo menus 182
Summary 184
Chapter 7: Creang Assets for the CryENGINE 3 185
What are assets? 186
Understanding the CryENGINE 3 asset pipeline 186
Exploring the CryENGINE 3 asset le types 186
Following a workow for arsts 188
Working with units and scale in CryENGINE 3 188

Time for acon - seng up 3ds Max units to match CryENGINE scale 188
Matching grid and snap sengs between 3ds Max and Sandbox 191
Using real-world measurement reference 192
Creang textures for the CryENGINE 192
Time for acon - creang your own texture 193
Working with the CryTIF (.TIF) format 195
Creang and exporng custom assets 195
Time for acon - creang and exporng your rst model 196
Using a physics proxy instead of the render geometry for collision 204
Adjusng physical dynamics with user-dened properes 204
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[ v ]
Creang destrucble objects 205
Time for acon - making your object destrucble 205
Specifying physics and render dynamics with user dened properes 210
Breaking two-dimensional assets 210
Designing breakables with constraints 211
Using character assets 213
Following the character creaon pipeline 213
Creang your own characters 213
Time for acon - creang your own skinned character 214
Creang a character LOD (Level of Detail) 221
Bone aachments 222
Creang animaons for your character 223
Time for acon - creang animaon for a skinned character 223
.chrparams wildcard mapping 227
Creang animaon for rigid body assets 228
Time for acon - creang animaon using rigid body data 229
Summary 232

Chapter 8: Creang Real-me Cutscenes and Cinemac Events 233
Discovering the Track View editor 234
Creang a new Track View sequence 234
Time for acon – creang a new sequence 235
Adding tracks to the director node 238
Adjusng Sequence Properes 238
Animang a camera in Track View 238
Time for acon – animang a camera 239
FOV 243
Playback speed 243
Curve Editor 243
Triggering a sequence using Flow Graph 243
Time for acon – triggering a sequence 244
Using the Input:Key node to trigger a sequence 246
StartTime property 246
BreakOnStop property 246
Animang enes in Track View 246
Time for acon – animang an enty in Track View 247
Enty Visibility track 250
Animang scale 250
Enes and their tracks 251
Playing animaons on enes in Track View 251
Time for acon – playing an animaon on an enty in Track View 251
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Table of Contents
[ vi ]
Using Console Variables in Track View 253
Time for acon – adding a Console Variable to a sequence 253
The t_scale CVAR in Track View 255
Using Track Events 255

Time for acon – creang some Track Events for a sequence 255
Capturing video from CryENGINE 3 258
Time for acon – capturing frames from CryENGINE 259
Useful CVARs for high resoluon capturing 260
Summary 262
Chapter 9: Immersion through Audio Design 263
Introducing sound design 264
Understanding the CryENGINE sound event system 264
Seng up a project structure 264
Event grouping 265
Using categories 265
Adding events 265
Reviewing sound event system le formats 265
Using wavebanks 266
Geng your rst sound into the CryENGINE 266
Time for acon - creang an ambient sound event 266
Leveraging advanced parameters of ambient sounds 273
Time for acon - nesng ambient sounds and using other parameters
for sound events 273
Randomizing sounds 276
Time for acon - creang random sounds 277
Reverb volumes 279
Time for acon - create your own reverb preset 280
Adding sounds to parcle eects 283
Time for acon - add a sound to a parcle eect 283
Using the three dierent sound control overme funcons 285
Sound events and weapons 286
Time for acon - add sound to a weapon 286
Weapon sound workow ps 289
Summary 290

Chapter 10: Preparing to Share Your Content 291
Proling performance in Sandbox 292
Proling with display info 292
Time for acon – enabling and reading display info 292
Understanding draw calls 294
Visualizing triangle count 295
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Table of Contents
[ vii ]
Seng budgets 295
Saving a level's stascs 295
Time for acon – Save Level Stascs 296
Viewing textures and render targets in the Textures tab 300
Viewing physical triangle count and physics memory footprints 300
Reading the Detailed Dependencies tab 300
Enabling Debug Draw modes 301
Time for acon – enabling Debug Draw modes 301
Proles 305
Time for acon – using proles to break down frame-me performance 306
Opmizing levels with VisAreas and Portals 306
Time for acon – set up a VisArea 307
Ambient color of VisAreas and Portals 309
Blind spots 309
Using VisAreas and Portals vercally 309
Light clipping boxes and areas 309
Time for acon – create a light clipping box 309
Using a concave light shape 310
Linking to mulple light shapes 311
Acvang and deacvang layers 311
Time for acon – use layer switching logic 311

Limitaons of layer switching 313
Cinemacs 313
Packaging your content to share 314
CryDev project database 314
Time for acon – create a team, project, and share an upload 314
Summary 318
Appendix : Pop Quiz Answers 319
Index 323
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Preface
The complexity and diculty involved in making current generaon games is increasing.
Even the games industry itself is becoming a more compeve and demanding industry to
work, than it has been in the past. Project budgets are smaller, producon mes are shorter,
and milestones seem to come more oen, especially when working with a publisher. With
the increased me and experse required to engineer these games, many professional and
hobbyist developers alike have turned to middleware game engines, such as the CryENGINE,
to save them me, money, and frustraon, while manifesng their ideas into releasable games.
The CryENGINE is a comfortable t for most developers, because it allows users to create
their content quickly, iterate on that content, and to nalize it without leaving the comfort
of the CryENGINE's Sandbox Editor. I oen refer to the CryENGINE as a force mulplier,
since its tools make it possible for smaller teams to accomplish what used to take an
enre development studio, full of people. This book is an introducon to the CryENGINE
technology, and is comprised of achievable, small-scale examples, which can be applied
in almost any game genre. This book is not designed to cover exhausvely every feature
and funcon in the CryENGINE, but rather is designed to give you the knowledge and tools
needed to get you of to a smooth and painless start when making your own games with the
CryENGINE 3.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introducing the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK, covers the beginning to developing

your own games of any scale by learning to harness the power of the award-winning
CryENGINE® 3 game engine. In this chapter, you will learn to navigate and interface
within the CryENGINE® 3 Sandbox, the tool used to create AAA games, such as Crysis
1 and 2, as well as the soon to be released Crysis 3.
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Preface
[ 2 ]
Chapter 2, Breaking Ground with Sandbox, covers building your game worlds in real me
with CryENGINE® 3 Sandbox, as we share insights into some of the tools and features
useable right out of the box. In this chapter, you will learn how to create your own worlds
by following straighorward examples that use some of the important fundamental features
available to developers of the CryENGINE®. This includes tools and techniques related to
sculpng, molding the terrain, and placing vegetaon.
Chapter 3, Playable Levels in No Time, covers more advanced level design tools, which
are discussed in the chapter, as well as simple modeling techniques using the integrated
CryENGINE solids system.
Chapter 4, I'm a Scripter, Not a Coder, covers learning the method of visual scripng used
to create amazingly complex scripted events.
Chapter 5, C++ and Compiling Your Own Game Code, follows along with in-depth C++
programming examples, designed to expose powerful game customizaon opportunies
available to game programmers.
Chapter 6, User Interface and HUD Creaon with Flash, covers how to use Autodesk
Scaleform in conjuncon with the CryENGINE® 3 to create high delity 3D heads up
displays and menus for the player.
Chapter 7, Creang Assets for the CryENGINE 3, covers how to create your own custom
characters and objects for use within the examples.
Chapter 8, Creang Real-me Cutscenes and Cinemac Events, covers how to create your
own cutscenes, animaons, and videos using the power of the CryENGINE 3 engine to
maximize the output.
Chapter 9, Immersion through Audio Design, covers how to use the FMOD designer along

with the CryENGINE 3, to add sound and music to your game.
Chapter 10, Preparing to Share Your Content, helps you explore some of the key performance
and opmizaon strategies for levels, and helps you learn to share your content with others.
What you need for this book
 CryENGINE 3 Free SDK v 3.4
 Autodesk 3D Studio Max 2010
 Adobe Photoshop CS4
 Notepad++
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Preface
[ 3 ]
 Visual Studio Express 2010
 Adobe Flash CS 5.5
Who this book is for
This book has been wrien with the beginner and casual developer in mind. That being
said, however, the professional developer will sll nd valuable knowledge related to other
speciales within the examples of this book. For some of the examples in this book, the
reader should have some fundamental knowledge of some Digital Content Creaon tools,
which include Photoshop and 3D Studio Max. Though not a fundamental requirement,
having some basic knowledge of real-me graphics soware and, consequently, the
terminology used, will make the goal of these tutorials more clear. The freely available
version of the CryENGINE® 3 has been used for all the examples in this book, and Chapter
1, Introducing the CryENGINE 3 Free SDK will guide the reader to download and install the
CryENGINE® 3 Free SDK.
Conventions
In this book, you will nd several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instrucons of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
Time for action – heading
1. Acon 1
2. Acon 2

3. Acon 3
Instrucons oen need some extra explanaon so that they make sense, so they are
followed with:
What just happened?
This heading explains the working of tasks or instrucons that you have just completed.
You will also nd some other learning aids in the book, including:
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Preface
[ 4 ]
Pop quiz – heading
These are short mulple choice quesons intended to help you test your own understanding
Have a go hero – heading
These set praccal challenges and give you ideas for experimenng with what you have
learned.
You will also nd a number of styles of text that disnguish between dierent kinds of
informaon. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanaon of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: " If you now navigate to the level directory using
Windows Explorer, you will noce a new folder called
Layers. Inside that folder, you will
see a le named SpawnPoints.lyr."
A block of code is set as follows:
<Constraints>
<Align mode="fixed" />
<Position top="100" left="100" width="800" height="600" />
</Constraints>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the
screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Look in the
UI:Functons:MainMenu:AddBuon node of the mm_main UI Acon that creates the
buon with the @ui_SoundSengs capon".
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this
book—what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to
develop tles that you really get the most out of.
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Preface
[ 5 ]
To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to , and
menon the book tle through the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have experse in and you are interested in either wring or
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Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do
happen. If you nd a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the

code—we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save
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If you nd any errata, please report them by vising />support
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Preface
[ 6 ]
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Please contact us at
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We appreciate your help in protecng our authors, and our ability to bring you
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