Preface

Today, making games is easier than ever before. There are a plethora of game engines available for developers, and most of them can even be tried out free of charge or used to release games noncommercially. So, irrespective of whether you are modifying an already released game, building your own indie game, or maybe working on a big AAA production, the chances that you will be using a licensed 3D engine such as the popular CryENGINE are pretty big.

The times where development teams would write their custom game engine to produce a game are mostly over. The use of licensed 3D engines is very common and saves developers and publishers a lot of money. Using a licensed 3D engine instead of building a custom solution allows developers to focus on making a great game instead of developing and maintaining their own technology.

A result of this continually advancing technology development, however, is that it has become very difficult for developers to really master all aspects of a 3D engine. Engines such as CryENGINE are not simply rendering programs that are capable of drawing beautiful content on the screen in real time. Animation systems, physics simulation, AI behaviors, or particle systems are just a few parts of what makes up the CryENGINE. However, with the increasing complexity of game engines, it has become more difficult for today's game developers to stay on top of the technology.

This is where Mastering CryENGINE comes in. This book focuses on the professional CryENGINE developer and tries to provide an inside scoop on how to produce games at an AAA production level. Getting the most out of the engine and becoming a highly productive CryENGINE developer requires knowledge of the multitude of subsystems that CryENGINE offers.

The goal of this book is to provide you with valuable information about the most important aspects of CryENGINE production as well as guide you through the most common technical problems encountered when developing game content with the engine.