Crysis Archives - Digital Urban

CityEngine 2009.2 Released

Andy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Procedural Inc. has announced the CityEngine 2009.2, the latest version of its software for the fast creation, visualization and analysis of large 3D cities. The software is used by high-profile companies such as Foster+Partners, Microsoft, Navteq, Boeing, IBM, Thales, Blizzard, Square Enix, etc. and was awarded Killer Technology 2009 by 3D World magazine.

Personally, we really like the integration into game engines – the example of Crysis is notably impressive:

Key Highlights of CityEngine 2009.2

– Large Data Set Support (over 500‘000 buildings on 64bit)
– Map Projections (over 80 projections are supported)
– Accuracy Enhancements (enabling high precision at global scale)
– 3DS Export (plus advancements of Collada and FBX export)

Other improvements of CityEngine 2009.2 include selection-sets handling, interactive editing extensions, GUI refinements, better ATI-support, advanced python scripting and many more details providing a good user experience. For more information, see: http://www.procedural.com/cityengine/whats-new.html

Pricing and Availability
A free 30-day trial version is available for download at http://www.procedural.com. The software can be purchased via Procedural Inc.’s website, or by telephone order at +41 76 720 3303. The CityEngine retails from a starting price of $ 3,450.

Those wanting a cheaper route, complete with integration with Crysis via 3D Max take a look at the developing Procedural Buildings Generator or for the completely free package, Suicidator for Blender.

These are interesting times in the field of procedural cities…

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CryEngine 3: Global Illumination Demo

Andy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Crysis showed what was possible in terms of using game engines for architectural visualisation. The third version of the engine has just been demoed at SIGGRAPH 2009 –

Take a look at incrysis.com for more footage and information, we cant wait to give it a try…

Thanks go to Ben for emailing us the link, work, interviews and deadlines have annoyingly got in the way this week of the blog, considered our hands slapped for missing the Crysis update and a whole day yesterday without a post…

The post CryEngine 3: Global Illumination Demo appeared first on Digital Urban.

CryEngine 3: Global Illumination Demo

Andy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Crysis showed what was possible in terms of using game engines for architectural visualisation. The third version of the engine has just been demoed at SIGGRAPH 2009 –

Take a look at incrysis.com for more footage and information, we cant wait to give it a try…

The post CryEngine 3: Global Illumination Demo appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crysis Physics Engine

Andy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Our previous post featured tweaking the physics in Grand Theft Auto, the Crysis Engine is far more flexible, allowing for any number of simulations to be set up. The movie above by V1nc3nc0 provides a series of physics test running in real time on a AMD Athlon X2 6000+ @ 3.0 GHZ NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 4 GB Mushkin Ram rig.

Crysis can also render out simulations allowing more complex interactions to be put in place, as the buildings movie below illustrates:

Finally you cant have any post on simulation in crysis without including the infamous
Lego Map:

Crysis LEGO map from Robert on Vimeo.

The post Crysis Physics Engine appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crysis Physics Engine

Andy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Crysis can also render out simulations allowing more complex interactions to be put in place, as the buildings movie below illustrates:

Finally you cant have any post on simulation in crysis without including the infamous
Lego Map:

Crysis LEGO map from Robert on Vimeo.

The post Crysis Physics Engine appeared first on Digital Urban.

CryEngine 3 Preview

Andy — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:38:00 +0000

In the midst of attempting to import objects into the CryEngine 2 – see our post on ‘A Return to Crysis? SketchUp and 3D Max Progress‘ we missed the sneak preview of the CryEngine 3 at the Games Developers Conference.

As the specs state: CryENGINE® 3 is the first Xbox 360, PlayStation® 3, MMO, DX9 and DX10 all-in-one game development solution that is next-gen ready – with scalable computation and graphics technologies. With CryENGINE® 3 you can start the development of your next generation games today. CryENGINE® 3 is the only solution that provides multi-award winning graphics, physics and AI out of the box.

The complete game engine suite includes the famous CryENGINE® 3 Sandbox editor, a production-proven, 3rd generation tool suite designed and built by AAA developers. CryENGINE® 3 delivers everything you need to create your AAA games.

See the Crytek page for full info and updates, as a tool for architectural and geographical visualisation the CryEngine 2 is unsurpassed so we are looking forward to version 3…

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CryEngine 3 Preview

Andy — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:38:00 +0000

See the Crytek page for full info and updates, as a tool for architectural and geographical visualisation the CryEngine 2 is unsurpassed so we are looking forward to version 3…

The post CryEngine 3 Preview appeared first on Digital Urban.

A Return to Crysis? SketchUp and 3D Max Progress

Andy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:19:00 +0000

A while ago we ran of posts on importing into models into the Crysis Sandbox – ranging from models direct from the 3D Warehouse such as the Tate Modern below and the following city model direct out of our Greeble Tutorial in 3D Max:

Greeble City in Crysis:

Progress via 3D Max 9 was swift with a few hoops to jump through but an export route that generally worked, embedded below is an example featuring the Swiss Re, Tower Bridge, London in the Sandbox:

The potential of using Crysis for both urban and landscape visualisation is well known and with the introduction of various modifications such as the ‘Natural Mod’ below we thought it was timely to take a new look at Crysis:

Natural Mod 2.0 for Crysis from pydon on Vimeo.

Sadly we have to report that the importers do not seem to of improved all that much, the latest version of 3D Max is incompatible with the previous plugins and we have failed to get the SketchUp to Crysis plugin work at all.

That said it is well worth taking a look at the SketchUp to Collada direct export thread at Cryteks Official Modding Portal as well as a free plugin from PlayUp for SketchUp that allows models to be exported to both Crysis and the HalfLife engine.

We are almost tempted to go back to modding Oblivion which was relatively straight forward:

Oblivion Mod: University College London Quad from digitalurban on Vimeo.

See How to Import SketchUp/3D Max into the Oblivion Engine for Architectural Visualisation – Part 1 for more info.

The point of this post? Part frustration at the number of hoops still to be jumped through and high end software required to modify games such as Crysis. We know that its still a thriving scene and we have shown its possible to go from the Google 3D Warehouse to the game engine, its just annoying it is still a slightly painful route.

The post A Return to Crysis? SketchUp and 3D Max Progress appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crysis: Physics Engine Movies

Andy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Crysis LEGO map from Robert Tieber on Vimeo.
The Crysis engine has an inbuilt physics system that supports vehicles, rigid bodies, liquid, rag doll, cloth and soft body effects. The movies in this post provide a glimpse of the physics engine in action, the first clip above demonstrates the ‘Lego’ modification running in real-time.
The following movies illustrate the use of the physics engine of Crysis in maximum effect. Note each one was rendered frame by frame using the ‘linked method’, take a look at this thread for full details.

Crysis Mass Physics HD By ÂLÐÒ•Ó from Ald0o0 on Vimeo.Continuing the theme:

Crysis Mass Physics HD VOL II By ÂLÐÒ•Ó from Ald0o0 on Vimeo.
Crysis Mass Physics HD VOL III By ÂLÐÒ•Ó from Ald0o0 on Vimeo.Finally applying the technique to buildings:

Readers may recall our work earlier work in Crysis, a change of deadlines stalled the earlier work somewhat but we will be returning to Crysis in terms of physics, agents and urban modelling in the coming months…

The post Crysis: Physics Engine Movies appeared first on Digital Urban.

Crysis: Physics Engine Movies

Andy — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:02:00 +0000

The post Crysis: Physics Engine Movies appeared first on Digital Urban.