Game Engines Research Essay

Game Engines Investigation

CryEngine.

The CryEngine is a revolutionary games engine that allows real time world physics and astonishing graphics. It was first released on a game in November 2006 when “Far Cry” was released. It was originally produced to power the demo based beta version of Far Cry in early 2006 but was then made public as the first game was released. Since then, the CryEngine has been known to produce astonishing graphics with a high frame rate which would keep the overall system stats at their potential. The CryEngine has more recently produced a series of games called Crysis which delivers action packed game play with real time graphics and physics which made the game the masterpiece it is today.

In my opinion, I think that the CryEngine is a visual masterpiece, it provides decent, stable game play while also keeping the system properties at the right level, it works in a way where the player will not need to have a large system memory(for PCs) but could still be able to keep the desired frame rate while keeping the fantastic quality of the graphics. Many games companies have bought the rights to use the CryEngine at their company but so far few have succeeded in releasing a top selling game bar the Crysis series and Far cry.

The AI in Crysis 2 are programmed so that their line of sight is linked directly to the player, although in some cases the player can sneak past the AI by using the cloak, however after the player has been seen, the AI will automatically know where the player is even if he has resumed hiding, which is one of the few down points of the game engine. The unanimated AI in the Crysis games are programmed so that if the player hits a barrier or interacts with an object in a certain way, the surroundings will correspond the players action. For example, if the player hits an invisible barrier while walking through a street, it will trigger a mob of enemies to spawn at a certain point, this would mean the unanimated AI scripts would have to be linked with the enemy AI scripts. This particular script would also be an example of collision detections, for when the player hits the cube, he is actually hitting an object which has no material , so in theory, the player is actually hitting a wall.

When the player collides with an object such as the example above, there will be no difference in the game play, there will be no lag or frame rate drop as the CryEngine is programmed to prep the scripts needed as he approaches or interacts with the objects.

In some game engines like the Unreal engine, the player can easily notice a lack of frame rates and system lag when encountering some types of collision detection. Occasionally in the game play of Fallout New Vegas, when the player enters a new area he well often lag for a few seconds while the area loads, this does not happen with the CryEngine.

The graphic rendering in Crysis 2 loads as the player is approaching another area, so that the game will not have to load more than 2 areas at once, as the player leaves one area the graphic rendering follows the player so that if he is out of range of a certain area or object the graphics will dematerialize. If too large a portion of the area’s graphics are loaded at the same time it could cause the game’s frame rate to drop and the players game play quality to deteriorate.

Frostbite Game Engine

The frostbite engine is a recent, highly rated game engine produced by EA Digital Illusions, many games have been released using its software such as Battlefield 3 and Need for speed: The Run. The Frostbite engine is mostly known for its graphical abilities and real time physics. The Frostbite engine was originally released to the public in 2008 when Battlefield: Bad Company was released. At the time, the Frostbite 1 engine was one of the most technical, highly rated game engines available to use, but has since been overtaken by the CryEngine and the Rage engine, until 2013 that is, when the Frostbite 3 was announced and said to be used in the 8^th generation games such as Battlefield 4 and Dragon Age: III.

In my opinion, I would say that the Frostbite engine is possibly my favourite out of the ones I have researched, I like how EA have designed the physics in the game so they actually seem like they are real and animating around you, for example, in certain parts of Battlefield 3 gameplay, the player/other players connected to the game can destruct the environment around them through means of explosives, vehicles and phased destruction. My favourite part of the Frostbite engine would be that throughout the whole game and online multiplayer, there is never any screen lag, frame rate drop or graphic glitching(graphics don’t load).

In Battlefield 3, the AI enemies are programmed to spawn as the player hits a certain part of the game, in certain missions or areas different enemies will spawn based on what’s going to happen in the game, for example, if the player is in a vehicle or near a vehicle, a soldier might spawn with a rocket launcher to make the game a bit more challenging for the player, this is not always the case though, sometimes the spawns are completely random. The unanimated AI consists of things like when the game predicts an explosion, it’ll generate the exact pinpoint of where the explosive will hit and how it’ll affect the environment around it, where the game will need to create rubble, will any buildings, cars be affected? Etc.

Collision detection with the Frostbite engine is a lot different compared to that in the CryEngine or the Unreal engine, depending on what happens the overall game play could completely change, if two vehicles collided, the damage animation would respond as such. Battlefield 3 doesn’t use invisible barriers in the game play, the AI are set in a position to react when the player nears a certain area, a proximity radar.

The Frostbite engine doesn’t need to use graphic rendering, the graphics load before the level/area has started, this is because most of the games that use the engine are made for the actual multiplayer gameplay, and because so many people connect at once, the whole map must be loaded simultaneously.