Week 1- Introduction to CryEngine SDK

b) Getting Started and Folder Structure:

·          The Game Folder is very important and holds most of the components of the program where a person can find objects, particles etc

·          Many Folders are important and shouldn’t be touched in most cases as editing them will affect the program.

·          To add new comments that affect the file, make a new text document and name “user.cfg” to load their effect.

·          Incase programs that run with 64 bit fails, 32 bit will work.

·         Incase objects are lost, going to game folder and objects pack will help to get back any lost objects

c)Overview of the Cry Engine 3 Sandbox User:

·         The set up is very similar to 3ds MAX

·         Most of the work is done in perspective view

·         Right-clicking screen can affect resolution for easier customization

·         By typing in the correct name in the search, only objects that contain that word show with all other objects become hidden

·         Selecting objects- Lock selection only targets those objects

·         Can affect viewport speed by status bar

·         Clicking and holding terrain prevents you from moving into it

·         AI- Physics simulates a real-time game while also being editor

·         Go to position can be important by having a consistent camera position (Can affect terrain for that shot)

·         Console Variables can adjust and turn off some features

·         Export to engineà exports the pure game

·         Groupà allows you to organize entities and objects for ease of organization

·         Prefectsà allows you to edit one object and let it affect all objects that have been attached to it

·          Toolsà allows you to reload various things like texture, script, terrain etc.

·         Toolsà can check errors and save level statistics

·         Viewà Open View PointàAllows you to see all different panels like materials, lighting etc

·         Rollup Bar and console can be showed from view panel

·         Selecting object type in roll down menu restricts you to only select those objects.

·         Snapping to terrain and objects will help in position objects

·         Snap Angle will help in rotating to a specific degree

·         To find distance between two positions, use ruler

·         You can save selections so you can automatically get them in a group and moving chunks

·         Terrain/ Texture/ Lighting à allow you to modify the environment 

Customising the Editor:

·         To make things easier to read, drag and drop panels into the one window so they each have a single nav bar

·         You can attach the window to the sides, top or bottom like a toolbar

·         You can turn on and off some of the toolbars

·         You can make a new toolbar for specific items

·         To change keyboard controls, go preferences

·         Enable surface central

·         User configuration can allow you to make buttons to turn on and off specific functions

Viewports:

·         Using WASD and Right Click will be main navigation

·         Middle Mouse button and right mouse button can be an alternative method

·         Pressing shift speeds up viewport camera

·         Pressing alt and middle mouse button, you can orbit around the middle of the screen

·         You can affect movement speed by adjusting speed

·         To prevent walking through terrain, button right next to speed will help this

·         Using go to position will help in getting specific points

·         You can save camera positions. To save CTRL + f1. This shift+ f1. Jumps back to that position

·         Top right corner: helpers will show all the details and labels of objects. You can turn off those labels in preferences.

·         Holding space will limit selection to only mouse over

User Interface Panels Overview:

·         To revisit old objectsà control + T

·         You can find out what entity is using cgs by filtering it through objects lists

·         Open Excel Browser will open browser to browse for assets and textures

·         DB- Database Viewà Brings up list of entities and allows you to customize in this panel. This is where you create entities. To make entities interacted, load up to here and modify the parameters

·         Lighting Tool can adjust time of day and sun direction can change position of the sun

·         FGà Flow Graphà Tool used to script the level

·         Track Viewà Tool where you would animate the shots

Overall, I was amazed the potential of this program and the level of detail that can be achieved. This easily surpasses the level of detail in Lumion and can work on a muuch smaller precise scale.