CRYENGINE fans, here is something special for you today. Crytek has just open sources CRYENGINE. What this basically means is that everyone can go ahead and download this engine from GitHub. BOOM.
Do note that CRYENGINE isn’t considered a free software project though. There are still licensing terms.
Regarding licensing, here is what Crytek had to say:
The license is basically you can use the engine for free with no royalties. Our model is Pay What You Want: https://www.cryengine.com/get-cryengine
Basically you pay whatever you want, if you want, and have a choice of how much of that goes to the developers and how much goes to an Indie Fund that we use to fund indie projects that use the engine.
We also offer “Insider Memberships” (https://www.cryengine.com/get-cryeng…rvice-packages) for studios that want some closer support from us, trainings, etc.
Those interested can download the source code for CRYENGINE from here.
As Crytek claimed:
- We have today released engine source code of CRYENGINE (latest build being last week’s 5.1) on GitHub
- The GitHub release today is new, but we announced at GDC back in March that we would release full engine source code under our new “Pay What You Want” business model
- Commercial games: If you so chose, you can take the engine and make a full commercial game for free, yes. There are no royalties or obligations towards CRYENGINE, though contributions to the engine’s development and/ or our Indie Development Fund are more than welcome
- EULA: I usually give ESRB ratings as an example. If your game would get a “M” (or 18 in Europe), it is fine. If there is content that would require it to be rated “Adult’s Only”, chances are it violates our EULA.
- Licensees: There are more indie developers than ever using CE for their games these days, and also some unannounced titles from larger companies…
Have fun everyone!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Is it easier to use than Unreal 4, then I am in.
No, UE is still ahead of CE as far as ease of use is concerned. But then if you’re looking for the best graphics for your game, you’ll willingly make the extra effort to get used to CE.
Ah you got me i was just going to say that 🙂
Heh, sorry about that.
Wait except about the graphics part many people switched to the UR4 engine over it having a better lighting system compared to cryengine 3 plus it has better performance
Most people switched due to Blueprints. CE still has a better dynamic GI solution as far as I’m aware. UE4 is still playing catch-up in that department. Well at least till they implement the new GI algorithm (I tend to forget what it’s called at the moment).
SVOGI?
Nah, that’s not happening anytime soon! Epic already ditched that back in 2013. The one I was referring to is DFGI, as in distance field global illumination. Apparently it’s a compromise for the sake of performance gains. Crytek on the other hand has already implemented their take on SVOGI in CryEngine and calls it SVOTI.
Ah, right!
CRYENGINE’s implementation is called SVOTI or SVOGI. Unreal’s implementation is called “distance field global illumination” or DFGI.
Well, DFGI is kind of a compromise from Epic’s previous solution – SVOGI (which Crytek has already implemented and calls it SVOTI). Epic has already ditched SVOGI due to performance issues and is now focused on DFGI.
This is CE5.1, so what has CE3, got to do with it?
It’s like comparing UE2 to UE4 , and saying 4 is better than 2.
CryEngine “4” doesn’t exist, so we basically went from CryEngine “3.5.8” (or whatever) to CryEngine 5.0 & now 5.1 in the last…. 2-3 years.
The comparison is absolutely fair, it’s like comparing Unreal 4.0 to Unreal 4.11.
By comparison, you can find bigger differences in the Unreal 3 (2006 SDK) & Unreal 3 (2015 SDK) than the CE3 (Final) & CE5 (Premiere) builds. Hell, even Unreal 3 (2015 SDK) directly compared to Unreal 4.0 has bigger differences than CE3 to CE5.0.
Its more straightforward then ue4, especially if you’re used to 3ds max. To me personally ue4 feels like its making me use 5 different programs in 1 every time i open a new window but while cryengine is easier imo, it definitely has more steps and is far easier to make errors in.
UE4 is far easier.
Ok, cool. I’ll check it out sometime in that case, cause I use C# and I was kind of getting tired of Unity anyway.
IIRC there’s a group of guys on the UE forums who are working on a UE4 plugin to enable C# support on there too. Hopefully that should make things lots easier for those switching from Unity!
Cryengine’s C# functionality is also ‘plugged in’. They didn’t just magically reimplement the engine in C#. Both are just APIs, as is Unity’s implementation.
“Do note that CRYENGINE isn’t considered a free software project though. There are still licensing terms.”
Even “free software” has licensing terms. I’m not really sure what the article is trying to say here.
Means what this means
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started in 1985, intended the word “free” to mean freedom to distribute (or “free as in free speech”) and not freedom from cost
(or “free as in free beer”).
Crytek is releasing the source without the copyleft type licence, granting the fredom to redistribute the source, while crediting the authors work.
So not free speech (Beer seems even less likely), but detailed inspection of the license would be required to determine the facts.
Note, I haven’t checked either. I’m just explaining what the article means by;
“Do note that CRYENGINE isn’t considered a free software project though. There are still licensing terms.”
I’m not claiming the statement is accurate
I think it means, CIG’s modified engine (Star Citizen) couldn’t be released, even if it was started after this point. In reality CIG bought the right to use and access the souce under different terms and conditions. Whether this has any effect on CIG’s custom work is unknown, I doubt it.
While the source code is now available it is definitely not Free of FOSS. IT’s licensing is pretty restrictive when compared to FOSS Licensing. Just look for yourself:
Crytek
https://www.cryengine.com/ce-terms
Compared to a common Free license.
GNU GPL
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
While I am glad the source code is available and that does technically make it open source, but not in the sense that FOSS developers like myself would consider.
Yes, I’m aware of the “free as in speech” aspect, but what you mentioned about the release not being covered by copyleft seems interesting. I’ll have a look at the terms and conditions later to get an idea.
Seems it’s the only way Crytek can compete. A proprietary engine then open sources means it’s desperate to compete.
UE4 is open source and Epic is not desperate.
True, becoming open source is a good way to get more audience on board and build good will among fans. The reason why everyone make fan projects with UE4 is because it’s available to everyone and it’s open source. I also use UE4 to mod Street Fighter V, it’s a good way to learn about a professional engine as well.
I didn’t say they was, I said Crytek is.
ID needs to release Id Tech 6 as open source. It’s probably a massive pain to work with, but after how amazing Doom turned out…I would love to see more games using that engine.
ID no longer own that engine, they sold the rights to BS (Bethesda Softworks, Publisher), which is owned by Zenimax Media, so only Zenimax could do that, though they would likely do it using BS Publishing.
BS best publisher acronym ever.
Can’t wait for the flood on Greenlight/Early Access.
“Our model is Pay What You Want”
That’s the same model Crytek used on their UK staff, sometimes they didn’t “want” to pay them at all so they didn’t.
lol
S A V A G E
Did you hear that Crytek?
The headline is incorrect. They didn’t make the engine open source, they just made the source code available. Now it certainly is very helpful of them to do that, but “open source” has a specific definition that doesn’t apply here: software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. The latter part isn’t true for CRYENGINE, the license doesn’t allow for it. A correct headline would read: “CryTek makes source code for CRYENGINE available for download”.