Free CryENGINE 3 SDK update now available

Crytek has announced the arrival of a new update to CryENGINE 3. The CryENGINE 3 SDK now presents users with new tools to tap into, including revamped DirectX 11 tessellation, advanced character rendering options, improved AI system and much more.

Among the key enhancements free CryENGINE 3 SDK users can look forward to in version 3.4 are:

·         Revamped DirectX 11 Tessellation
DX11 support and tessellation has come a long way since Crysis 2. Phong, PN triangles and displacement maps, along with no need for pre-tessellated assets, makes CryENGINE’s DX11 support among the best in the industry.

·         Multi-layer Navigation Mesh
The multi-layer navigation is a powerful new and easy-to-use navigation system that AI agents utilize to path-find through game maps.

·         Improved Skin Rendering and Eye Shader
New scattering approach gives more realistic rendering with fewer artifacts. New settings, checkboxes and sliders for things like oiliness, iris control, colors, pupil dilatation, tessellation and parallax support make CryENGINE character rendering more advanced and customizable than ever before.

·         Advanced/Improved/Extended Glass Shader
The glass shader is a specialized tool for rendering glass-based surfaces. It can represent a wide range of glass types, including regular windows, stained glass, leaded glass, beveled glass, some crystal types and some types of transparent plastics as well. The improved glass shader now also boasts features such as a dirt layer designed to produce extremely realistic-looking glass surfaces complete with dust and dirt, differential fog and refractionblur.

On top of these key updates, version 3.4 of the free CryENGINE 3 SDK addresses a number of bugs from previous releases and gives developers access to further improvements that include:

–       Improved glass rendering
–       Geometric light beams
–       Point light shafts
–       Time of day based filmic HDR tone mapping
–       Curves and key tangents for time of day
–       User controlled per cascade shadow bias through time of day
–       Improved transitions between levels of detail
–       Volumetric fog features extended and improved
–       Improved distance cloud shading