Crysis: The Lowdown.
Is Crysis going to be the next big engine to mod? There are many ways to answer that question, but one thing is certain and can be seen on the chart below. Whilst the release hype faded in December, the modding curiosity is on the upmarch. Experienced Far Cry modders, amateurs from other engines and mod-”newbies” all gather up to see what Crytek has in store for the creative ones among us.
Sandbox 2 is the official tool released with the game, some teams also have access to what is being referred to as an SDK but in reality is probably an MDK. Moddb.com has 61 mods registered for the game, and by using the simple and easy to follow 10% rule, the figure brings us down to 5-6 serious ones… for now. With Half Life 2 being over-saturated with mods and the frenzy somewhat dying down, we should expect a couple of teams to make the migration along with a number from other platforms. However, challenges will be rough for any team that’s not on top of their game.
Crysis boasts so many features & increased graphical demand that any team willing to mod it will need to work an immense amount of hours to even replicate some of the quality produced by the original developers. That definitely is a disadvantage as other popular games have far less complexity in their structure. As such, do not underestimate the volume of manpower which will need to be sacrificed on dare I say, a total conversion. The amount of time someone will spend producing a small vehicle will still be less then any time spent on the largest of vehicles from previous engines. To give you a visual, let’s compare two tanks, the left one from Crysis (duh) and the right one from popular mod Desert Combat. They are world aparts.
Making a couple of vehicles for your mod back in the day was manageable if you had a job, went to school, etc. Now you’re looking at months of work for a SINGLE piece (given you are indeed the average modder). The requirements did not grow in a linear fashion, it’s exponential in all ways. A 2048*2048 texture map is not twice the size of a 1024*1024, it’s four times the size! Also take into consideration that normal maps & specular maps are the norm and that the fluid animations are a must, you’re in for a long ride.
Are you still interested in modding Crysis? Well here you go, my list of MUST-haves for a successful Crysis mod:
A BIG Team. You can forget the “me and a couple of friends” team here, we’re talking 50 plus to start off with (and that’s without all the Public Relations people mods feel the need to hire). Do not underestimate the importance of this, especially in your initial phase. I have recruited recuiters in the past to do my recruiting. People whine that they do not have enough people on their team, but it comes down to getting those e-mails, pm’s and instant messages out, in the 100’s. If you want 50 decent people you’ll want to approach at least a 1000. If you want to target a particular group to begin with, start with the art team, because coders can’t do anything without fresh assets (check out my post on recruitment for more information).
Clearly defined Milestones. Granted, Project Reality got away with a lot of things, like not having a design plan (oops), but when you’re deciding if you want a certain vehicle created or level designed, you’re swinging between hundreds of manhours in making your decisions. No one expects you to bust out a full design plan as players expectations change, and sometimes things don’t work out as planned after releasing. However, do the minimum by at least maintaing milestones. They can be every 2 months and be marked by a content-heavy media post, up and until release. Inform your team of this and keep biweekly tabs on their progress.
Streamlining Production. This is definitely a concept that was not much of an issue in the past, taking into consideration free time vs. time required for modding. As this ratio is now falling hard on the latter, you will need to find ways to save time. There are many methods to achieve this especially when it comes to art. Consider the following:
- Modular or Resuable Assets. 1st Person Weapon Sights, Rifle Mags, Vehicle Wheels, Tank Tracks, Character Props. All of these can be reused and combined with other assets. The key is to break them down to manageable texture sizes and think universal when creating them.
- Photoshop Tools. Do you have a defined style in your environment like some form of pattern or texture component which is reused over and over again? Lets say you’re making a tank, record an action which will make a certain plate cover for you by means of a cheap ambient occlusion (i.e. outer glow), maybe even throw in an automatic bevel. One of my favorites is a tank brush pack I made that has crossing perpendicular wear & tear as well as horizontal & vertical strips of differently sized bolts. It’s like a DIY Tank Texture Kit.
- Collapse Production Time. If you’re asset goes from a single person to another individual and so on, i.e. modeler to texture artist to animator to coder, then you’re doing something wrong. As long as a model is unwrapped, a coder can start importing without the texture. Same goes for the animator. Hence you can bring down 10 weeks of work down to 3 or 4 by not spending an hour more.
You can find out more about streamlining and stronger efficieny in one of my articles geared towards weapons, follow the link here.
In the near future we will see what kind of showing Crysis mods will make. Maybe an increased percentage of them will fail given the heightened requirements. With more complex production comes a greater need for leadership, organization & a will to see the light at the end of the tunnel despite the never ending work.
Good luck to all who are going to make a move on the Crysis platform.
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