Life Reboot

Programming

Controlling an Animated Character in CRYENGINE using C++

Making an animated character move around the screen in CRYENGINE requires many thousands of lines of code and a lot of time and dedication. This series of articles will show you how to control a character animated in CRYENGINE Mannequin using C++ code.

General

CRYENGINE 3.7 Source Control and Perforce

In this article I will try to cover the issue of source control, particularly for a CRYENGINE 3.7 project. I will touch on what it is, why you need it, and briefly on how to implement a decent source control system.

CRYENGINE

CRYENGINE Flowgraphs - Blacklists and Substitutions

On a large project, such as a game built using CRYENGINE, structure, clarity and consistency can provide decent gains in productivity by reducing the time it takes to comprehend and perform simple tasks. Blacklists and substitutions for Flowgraph Nodes are one way to improve these parts of your project.

Math and Physics

Matrices, Vectors, Quaternions and CryEngine 3

This article will introduce you to matrices, vectors and quaternions and how you can use them for programming games using the CryEngine SDK. You will only need a basic understanding of mathematics, beginner level c++ and a general knowledge of the CryEngine SDK; in particular, the gamesdk.dll code which is written in c++.

CRYENGINE

CryEngine 3 System Event Dispatcher

Earlier this week I wrote about CryEngine listener classes in a brief overview. I intimated that they are an excellent way to write code against the CryEngine SDK and today I want to go into more depth.

CRYENGINE

Introducing CryEngine 3 Event Listeners

In this article I will introduce you to event handling within CryEngine 3 and give a brief overview of the many listeners you can utilise within your project.

Programming

Adding New Actions to CryEngine 3 FreeSDK

This tutorial will help you add new actions into CryEngine 3 FreeSDK projects without needing to make any changes to the base code provided by CryTek.

CRYENGINE

Joining StoneRage

A few weeks ago I decided to place my own projects on hold and join a team working on a game - specifically the StoneRage game. The developers seemed organised and were well advanced in terms of graphic and environmental production.

CRYENGINE

How to Make .PAK Files With Your Assets

Something that doesn’t seem to receive much coverage is what to do with all your awesome assets once you’ve made your game. You’re going to need to ship them to end users, and the best way is within a .PAK file.

general

Building A Cheap Motion Capture Studio

A while back I became interested in motion capture as a means to easily get basic animations into the game I am working on. Using reasonably priced software from Brekel and a cheap Microsoft Xbox Kinect camera you have the beginnings of a motion capture setup.

Programming

Dealing With The Difficulty

I’ve been working on my pet project for almost five months now and I must admit that some parts of the project are easier than others. I don’t actually get a choice about which parts I will try and deal with, but I do get a choice about the order in which it happens.

World Design

Creating Interesting Terrain

At first blush terrain might seem like a fairly easy thing to be able to create, and at it’s simplest it might well be. Toss a few mountains about, some rolling hills, a valley or two, a little water, and you’re done - or are you?

Programming

Overcoming Inertia

A few weeks have passed with very little development occurring. I have hit that most dangerous of problems, the lack of inertia.

CRYENGINE

Sunset Oasis

My first effort towards building a CTF style game went a little awry. I tried tinkering with the gameplay parameters and added in extra elements and came up with a hybrid that might be interesting when I get back to it. My big mistake though was to create a landmass about 8 times bigger than was really needed. Even using much of it for ocean, I was still left with these way too large spaces for the tight gameplay I wanted.

CRYENGINE

CryEngine3 and UDK3

I’ve been playing games for over 30 years now and I’ve seen them progress from simple text based games through all the iterations to give us the amazing looking games we have today. I have at times written my own games; most were very simple - due to the nature of the machines at the time.