Crysis

I truly believe Crysis will be the next big FPS for the PC.Just check the screenshots available here. http://www.crysis-online.com/Media/Screenshots/screenshots-ingame.php

I also dug up an interview that may interest those gamers looking for more info on this new title. Check it out.

Hanno Hagedorn (characters):

1) It has been said a number of times that every character in Crysis will have a unique appearance. Explain how this is achieved? Do you actually have to create all these unique faces or are they randomly generated?

Doing every soldier’s face 100% unique wouldn’t be possible with the current hardware generation. So we were looking for away that allows us to simulate a variety of Faces which lets every Soldier in the game to be looking different. We are able to seamlessly blend predefined faces and cross apply shaders, textures, normal maps, Camouflage patterns and dirt on them.


2) Syncing facial movements to voice can be difficult. Can you explain how this is accurately achieved? And can you explain how you depict emotion without it looking fake as it does in so many other games?

Our Facial Animation system is Muscle based. That means that we e.g. do not model a whole smile-morph at once. Instead we model every separate muscle which is needed to make such a smile. This allows us to apply a much more natural and asymmetrical motion because we do not limit our self to a certain, fixed morph. We also virtually simulate skin sliding over bones and muscles. This keeps the whole face moving and doesn’t limit its motion to just a small area, just a like a real face.


3) How many different nano-suit designs did you go through before Crytek was happy with the design?

While the game was growing, the requirements to the suit were growing as well. So there were different aspects which kept the suit evolution going. We had 3 complete different Suit designs, Plus a version just for the Koreans.


Zoltan Pocza (vehicles):

1) Could you explain how the component damage works and what kind of objects it's applied to? We've already heard one of the examples where if the rotor of a chopper is hit, the helicopter will loose control. Can you explain?

That’s correct. If you hit the tail rotor, the pilot will loose control, so it will take a lot of effort to keep it in the air. Also there are other weak points of the helicopter as well. There are also other vehicles with weak points too, you can blow up the tires of any regular wheeled vehicles for example which can be really effective sometimes, and can result in 'movie like' situations. Just as an example, with a sniper rifle, you can shoot the tires of the jeep while it’s driving on a bridge, which will most likely cause the drive to lose control, and the fall off the bridge. Also you can shootout the glass, set the fuel cans on fire, etc. You can actually destroy all the vehicles.


2) Could you explain some of the various vehicles? Do cars for example have headlights which you can turn on and off? Can people jump in the back of the truck and get a free lift without being locked in to a certain position? For example, could you walk around in the back of a truck while it was moving?

Yes, they have horns, headlights, break lights, but at night time it’s better if you use your night vision device, otherwise you will get spotted. Yes, you can jump on the truck without actually “entering” into the pre-described positions, but then you have to count with the forces effecting you in cornering, breaking etc. So it’s better if you sit.


3) Can you drive most vehicles in Crysis including many of the alien vehicles (such as the hunter)?

You can drive most of the vehicles, including some civilian cars; we have different versions of them.


4) How many different vehicle models are there?

We have over 15 vehicles of all kinds which you can use during the game. There are vehicles with different versions as well, like the SUV for example. Also we have some extra versions in Multiplayer.

Tom Deerberg (vegetation):

1) Please explain in as much detail as possible how some of the destructible elements in Crysis / CryEngine2 actually break...

We have three different ways of breaking in the Sandbox.

1. procedural breaking
2. jointed objects
3. pre broken objects


1. Procedural breaking

In this technique we are using direct physicalized render geometry. There are no extra proxys which would make this method very heavy on physic performance. It’s used for glass and trees. We define a subtract object which will be subtracted from the object placed in level. This object is also giving the mapping and material details for what the cut is.


2. Jointed objects

A Jointed Object contains different sub objects which are held together by joints. Joints are helper objects which give strength information for the connection at this point of the object. After breaking a joint you could also define pieces which will displace the old object. You can also joint procedural breaking objects.


3. Pre broken objects

Pre broken objects consist of main part, remain part and pieces. The main part has health. If health is over, the pieces and the remaining part is spawned. This is a more or less historical object class. We try to avoid this kind of breaking object and rebuild it with jointed versions instead.


Vegetation

Vegetation can only include procedural breaking. But there are also two more techniques which allow branches and leaves to bend.

1. touch bending
2. wind bending

1. Touch bending

This is used for vegetation and object collision. It’s a bone which is instanced on all meshes in one object which share the same mapping coordinates. You can use different amount of bones for one object and give them different amount of pivots. When ever something hits one of these bones, the object part will bend.

2. Wind bending

Wind bending is vertex color based. We define different colors for different behaviors. Blue is for up and down, red for side movement and green for overall variation. Later in shader you can say how strong which color should bend. This way you can tell a palm leaf to bend more on the outer side than on the inside.

Not every branch can break. This will happen in 5 years time when hardware has more power. Generally speaking, everything is breakable that we define to be breakable :-)


2) How many unique trees and shrubs can we expect to see in Crysis? And how many trees and shrubs did you model that didn’t make it in? Do any of the leaves and palm fronds have volume, or are they basically textures on a flat plane?

You will see as much different variations as possible. We really go for the upper limit. This means in detail, there will be...

* 8 trees
* 10 bushes / shrubs
* 5 economic plants
* 10 ground cover plants

Each of them exist in different color, size and age variations. All leaves are still textures but the mesh is never a flat plain. We have at least one corner to always give a feeling of volume.
For the “close to player” objects we put in even more details.


3) How do the leaves behave? Do they react to wind? If you shoot a palm frond, will it create a bullet hole? How many leaves (or leaf planes - textures) did you have to model?

There will be no such thing as bullet holes in leaves. The amount of placed vegetation would not allow these details. Leaves can bend from wind and object collision as mentioned earlier.

Our basic set of green leaf textures includes around 15 variations. Each with normal, specula and scattering map. Many textures are used for multiple objects like from baby leaf and teen bush to adult tree.


Tim jansuuouK (prop):

1) Tell us a bit more about the physics associated with some of the props you’ve made. Do things such as furniture (tables & chairs) break dynamically like the trees, or are they pre-broken? What happens when some of your props enter liquid (river, ocean), do some things sink while others float?

We use both dynamically breakable objects and pre-broken objects. You can, for example, destroy the North Korean watchtowers piece by piece if you like. It's possible to take it's legs off and make it fall. Glass windows and wooden fences also break dynamically. Other props can be broken and the resulting pieces are physicalized realistically, but you can't break them piece by piece. Things generally have real world buoyancy, so wooden objects, plastic bottles and such float while metallic objects sink.


2) How long did it take you to model the whole carrier (inside and out) – please go into a bit of detail such as some of the challenges involved in modeling such a big object? And how accurately is it modeled in comparison to a real-life aircraft carrier? Is the whole carrier accessible? For example, can you open any door and walk inside?

I worked closely with a level designer dedicated for the task of creating the carrier. It was very much a team effort to build it. Including all the changes and tweaks needed after the bulk of the work was done, it took nearly 2 years while we worked on other things at the same time. Biggest problem initially was figuring out how to achieve a good balance between realism and functionality.

We began by creating prototypes of the interiors and exteriors to solve any such problems. I then built things just as they were in real life, using photo reference, while keeping functionality requirements in mind. After that I cut the exteriors into pieces in a specific way to ensure good framerate and to also solve a number of other technical issues. Initially we had some concerns about lighting. We use a lot of white painted metal, which might be true to real life but certainly doesn't look very exciting unless you have some pretty good lighting, which is exactly what we got with realtime ambient maps.

After all the main gameplay elements were locked down, it was a matter of noodling on details, both visually and functionally. The carrier is modeled pretty closely to it's real life Nimitz class counterpart. Some things were changed in favour of good gameplay and functionality, but even so it's still very close to real thing. We didn't try to reproduce real life corridor layouts or things like that, but rather aimed to reproduce the look and feel.

Players can freely travel in the ship without any interruptions, or go outside at any time and walk on the deck where ever he/she wants. There are no loading times between inside and outside or other areas of the ship. Some of the areas which are inaccessible in single player are accessible in the multiplayer version.


3) Can any of your props be used as weapons? Such as furniture, boxes & bottles? or environmental props such as shards of ice or rocks? How will some of the props effect gameplay. Would a falling brick or box hurt someone? ( this question was partially answered by the videos that came out of CES 2007 )

Big rocks falling on you will obviously crush you. You can pick stuff up and throw it in strength mode to take out enemies. Pretty much anything can cause damage as long as it's heavy enough and you use enough force.


4) Was it difficult to transfer some of your work (models) into the icy environment?

We have a special shader that can be applied to any object to make it appear frozen, so there were no particular challenges involved in that as far as my work is concerned.


Grega Kopka (weapons):

1) Could you supply us with a complete (as complete as possible) weapons list with some interesting facts about each weapon. Interesting facts may include what a weapon does, how many polygons it has, how many revisions it went through, what real-life gun the weapon is based off… (and so on). Could you also tell us what grenades there are? (frag, flash, smoke?)

Melee:
1. Fists
2. smack with weapon

Close Combat: ( Customizable, short range firepower )

1.Pistol (dual wield possible)
2.Shotgun
3.Submachine Gun

Assault Rifles: ( Customizable , tactical weapons, ideal for any situation )

1. SCAR (US weapon)
2. FY71 (North Korean Weapon)

Precision weapons: ( Customizable , long range weapons, low rate of fire )

1. Sniper Rifle
2. Gauss Rifle (high velocity weapon, useable against vehicles)

Support:

1.Hurricane (high rate of fire minigun)

Ordnance: ( Area Effects , for demolition )

1. Flashbang (used to blind)
2. Smoke Grenade (used for cover)
3. Frag Grenade (Shrapnel)
4. C4 (Satchel Charges)
5. Anti Tank Mine
6. Claymore ( Against Infantry)
7. Missile Launcher ( 3 Shot disposable weapon)

Mounted Weapons:

1. Shi Ten (found on vehicles and tripods)

Polygons:

I used between 4000 and 2000 (high -> lowspec) polygons for first person weapons.


2) Do weapons get weaker with weather & rust as they age and are exposed to harsh conditions? And Can you shoot some guns under water? If so, which ones?

No and No :-)

3) Do bullets ricochet? And on the same topic, Can you throw, kick or shoot away grenades before they explode if they’re thrown at you?

There are no ricochets, but you can pick up live hand grenades and throw them back, if you are fast enough.

To convince you even further, you MUST watch this video.
http://www.crysis-online.com/file_downloader.php?dir=/video/SD