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CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua
In DetailCryENGINE is a complete 3D game development solution that can run on multiple platforms. It is orientated around giving intuitive tools to the developer. A variety of interactive video games can be created using CryENGINE. CryENGINE is one of the most beginner-friendly engines out there to learn. If you are interested in diving into the various systems and understanding their workings in a way that is easily understood, then this book is for you.
This book provides you with the knowledge to tame the powerful but hard-to-master CryENGINE. CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua dives into the various systems and explains their workings in a way that can be easily understood by developers of all levels. It provides knowledge on the engine along with step-by-step exercises and detailed information on the backend implementation of the subsystems, giving you an excellent foundation to build upon when developing your own CryENGINE games.
Written by developers with years of CryENGINE experience, this book breaks down the common confusion that encompasses the CryENGINE engine code, guiding you through a series of chapters aimed towards giving you the ability to create your own games in a rapid yet productive fashion. You will learn everything you need to know in order to create your own CryENGINE-powered games as well as detailed information on how to use the engine to your advantage. By teaching systems such as audio, particle effects, rendering, AI, networking, and more, we’ll be exposing the most inner parts of CryENGINE that commonly confuse programmers. If you want to quickly gain the knowledge required to create your own CryENGINE game title, then this book is for you.
ApproachThis book provides you with step-by-step exercises covering the various systems of CryENGINE and comprehensively explains their workings in a way that can be easily understood by readers of any skill level to help you develop your very own CryENGINE games.
Who this book is forThis book is intended for developers looking to harness the power of CryENGINE, providing a good grounding in how to use the engine to its full potential. The book assumes basic knowledge of the engine and its editor in non-programming areas.
This book provides you with the knowledge to tame the powerful but hard-to-master CryENGINE. CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua dives into the various systems and explains their workings in a way that can be easily understood by developers of all levels. It provides knowledge on the engine along with step-by-step exercises and detailed information on the backend implementation of the subsystems, giving you an excellent foundation to build upon when developing your own CryENGINE games.
Written by developers with years of CryENGINE experience, this book breaks down the common confusion that encompasses the CryENGINE engine code, guiding you through a series of chapters aimed towards giving you the ability to create your own games in a rapid yet productive fashion. You will learn everything you need to know in order to create your own CryENGINE-powered games as well as detailed information on how to use the engine to your advantage. By teaching systems such as audio, particle effects, rendering, AI, networking, and more, we’ll be exposing the most inner parts of CryENGINE that commonly confuse programmers. If you want to quickly gain the knowledge required to create your own CryENGINE game title, then this book is for you.
ApproachThis book provides you with step-by-step exercises covering the various systems of CryENGINE and comprehensively explains their workings in a way that can be easily understood by readers of any skill level to help you develop your very own CryENGINE games.
Who this book is forThis book is intended for developers looking to harness the power of CryENGINE, providing a good grounding in how to use the engine to its full potential. The book assumes basic knowledge of the engine and its editor in non-programming areas.
428 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 12, 2016
Both authors, Filip Lundgren (developer for CryMono) and Ruan Pearce-Authers (currently working for Crytek GmbH), have a strong background in working with CryEngine. The book gives a lot of insight into the programming side of the engine, which is mostly missing from the documentation; it’s a great reference for using CryEngine’s subsystems from a programmer’s point of view.
The content itself is based on CryEngine 3.5.4, which is one of the latest iterations as of February 2014. There’s also a companion project which is already set up to use CryMono and includes all the code written throughout the chapters. I had some issues running it out of the box but seasoned programmers will have no trouble tackling those problems.
The book starts by explaining the building blocks for making your game – how to script your game visually using CryEngine’s flowgraph system and how to create your own custom flow-nodes. It then expands on customizing the entities and game rules in your application. Halfway through the book you’ll already know how to create your level, spawn your actors, control the player camera and add triggers that execute the game logic. This is done in a “learn by example” fashion, which is my personal favorite, especially when the examples are clear and concise as is the case.
The second half of the book is dedicated to the major subsystems in the engine – Artificial Intelligence, User Interface, Networking, Physics, Graphics and Sound. At just shy of 300 pages, you can’t expect to gain in-depth knowledge of every little detail in those subsystems from reading the book, but it does give you a comprehensive overview that will get you started. One thing that I did not like was that instead of the example driven style used so far, the book becomes more of a reference in this part, with only one practical example for all the subsystems (namely, “Dynamic alpha testing for vegetation”). The subsystems part of the book does give you a lot of useful information summed up, but I feel that having a few samples would add more value.
The last chapter is dedicated to debugging and profiling, covering common ways of detecting and fixing problems in CryEngine.
Overall, it’s a great resource for both beginners and intermediate users of CryEngine, although advanced knowledge in general programming is required to understand what’s going on under the hood. That’s why I wouldn't recommend it for novice programmers as they will probably be left frustrated. If you have coding experience and you’re a newcomer to CryEngine who doesn't want to spend hours and hours looking for information, then this book is for you. If you’re already into CryEngine and you find yourself lacking a concise guide for its subsystems it’s worth the read as well.
The content itself is based on CryEngine 3.5.4, which is one of the latest iterations as of February 2014. There’s also a companion project which is already set up to use CryMono and includes all the code written throughout the chapters. I had some issues running it out of the box but seasoned programmers will have no trouble tackling those problems.
The book starts by explaining the building blocks for making your game – how to script your game visually using CryEngine’s flowgraph system and how to create your own custom flow-nodes. It then expands on customizing the entities and game rules in your application. Halfway through the book you’ll already know how to create your level, spawn your actors, control the player camera and add triggers that execute the game logic. This is done in a “learn by example” fashion, which is my personal favorite, especially when the examples are clear and concise as is the case.
The second half of the book is dedicated to the major subsystems in the engine – Artificial Intelligence, User Interface, Networking, Physics, Graphics and Sound. At just shy of 300 pages, you can’t expect to gain in-depth knowledge of every little detail in those subsystems from reading the book, but it does give you a comprehensive overview that will get you started. One thing that I did not like was that instead of the example driven style used so far, the book becomes more of a reference in this part, with only one practical example for all the subsystems (namely, “Dynamic alpha testing for vegetation”). The subsystems part of the book does give you a lot of useful information summed up, but I feel that having a few samples would add more value.
The last chapter is dedicated to debugging and profiling, covering common ways of detecting and fixing problems in CryEngine.
Overall, it’s a great resource for both beginners and intermediate users of CryEngine, although advanced knowledge in general programming is required to understand what’s going on under the hood. That’s why I wouldn't recommend it for novice programmers as they will probably be left frustrated. If you have coding experience and you’re a newcomer to CryEngine who doesn't want to spend hours and hours looking for information, then this book is for you. If you’re already into CryEngine and you find yourself lacking a concise guide for its subsystems it’s worth the read as well.
January 26, 2014
Definitely not for beginners, but well worth the time
Overall, this book is a fount of knowledge regarding programming for CryEngine. The authors examples are both functional and useful. However, this book is clearly for people that have an intermediate coding knowledge. Additionally, it is incredibly helpful to have a working knowledge of the CryEngine SDK before starting this book. I will wholeheartedly admit that my personal knowledge of CryEngine is not the best and that did cause me a few issues in understanding certain things being discussed. If anyone is looking at this book to teach them CryEngine from scratch, there are much better references out there for the complete beginner.
There are many subjects, particularly the C++ portions of the book, that help to explain things where the online documentation for the CryEngine SDK is lacking. As such, this book is going to go into my reference library and without a doubt get filled bookmarks and plenty of notes. Though it is impossible to fit all the knowledge of CryEngine into a single volume, this book definitely points the reader in the right direction regarding a good amount of subsystems that CryEngine has to offer a developer. Additionally, the discussion of C# and Lua on top of C++ really shows the freedom that CryEngine can give you.
There are some minor issues with some of code that is in the book, but as I said before, familiarity with programming is a must and that knowledge will lead you to easily track down those problems. As I read this in an electronic format, it is good to note that formatting of code in e-books always seems to leave a bit to be desired; there were occasions that I had to look at the code multiple times to get everything right.
As I mentioned previously, I would only recommend this book to people with a working knowledge of both CryEngine and generally programming. It is well worth the read for those that need to expand an already existing knowledge base of the game engine.
Overall, this book is a fount of knowledge regarding programming for CryEngine. The authors examples are both functional and useful. However, this book is clearly for people that have an intermediate coding knowledge. Additionally, it is incredibly helpful to have a working knowledge of the CryEngine SDK before starting this book. I will wholeheartedly admit that my personal knowledge of CryEngine is not the best and that did cause me a few issues in understanding certain things being discussed. If anyone is looking at this book to teach them CryEngine from scratch, there are much better references out there for the complete beginner.
There are many subjects, particularly the C++ portions of the book, that help to explain things where the online documentation for the CryEngine SDK is lacking. As such, this book is going to go into my reference library and without a doubt get filled bookmarks and plenty of notes. Though it is impossible to fit all the knowledge of CryEngine into a single volume, this book definitely points the reader in the right direction regarding a good amount of subsystems that CryEngine has to offer a developer. Additionally, the discussion of C# and Lua on top of C++ really shows the freedom that CryEngine can give you.
There are some minor issues with some of code that is in the book, but as I said before, familiarity with programming is a must and that knowledge will lead you to easily track down those problems. As I read this in an electronic format, it is good to note that formatting of code in e-books always seems to leave a bit to be desired; there were occasions that I had to look at the code multiple times to get everything right.
As I mentioned previously, I would only recommend this book to people with a working knowledge of both CryEngine and generally programming. It is well worth the read for those that need to expand an already existing knowledge base of the game engine.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews