
VR First by Crytek - lentil_soup
http://vrfirst.cryengine.com/
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ogreveins
I worked with cryengine for nearly a year before giving up and moving on to
UE4 where I already had source code access without being admitted to an
incubator. Hopefully something good comes out of this initiative but I'm not
holding my breath. When you start learning an engine or any framework the
ecosystem and community are instrumental in making your life easier and
getting some sort of camaraderie.

Just my 2c.

~~~
mentos
I've been working with UE4 for 2 years now and its been the 2 most exciting
years of my life. The tools are great but the community is even greater. I've
never felt more empowered to create.

UE4 has won this generation of game engines in my eye, I think crytek should
take a step back and re-evaluate everything. Maybe they learn from UE4 and
compete with UE5 in a few more years or maybe they boldly fork UE4 and add
their value as a 3rd party fork/plugin.

I think the sunk costs are too large but I'd love to see Valve fork UE4 and
put their engineering might next to Epic's. Would love to hear why this
thought of mine is naive/misguided.

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Strom
Valve is spending their resources on the Source 2 engine instead [1], which is
used by their games. Also working on UE4 would be a severe lack of focus and
the work on Source 2 would suffer. Only working on UE4 would mean that Valve's
own games would suffer because Source 2 receives no love. Migrating all these
games to UE4 doesn't seem to have a net positive effect either. It would be a
gigantic amount of work and in the end they would have to start paying Epic
for the licence. Also, Valve developers have intimate knowledge of the Source
engine, which I doubt they have of UE4.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_(game_engine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_\(game_engine\))

~~~
adventured
The better solution would be to acquire Epic.

Steam is a juggernaut sales and income producer for Valve, they can easily
afford to buy Epic now. That would bring the engine tech, talent and community
in-house, and eliminate licensing fees for Valve. There would also be a lot
Valve could then do with the UE4 market in tandem with steam.

~~~
izacus
It would also reduce choice and competition on the market. Do you really wish
so much for EVERYTHING to be owned by a few ultra-rich corporations?

~~~
adventured
Everything? You're being intentionally overly dramatic.

Choice and competition are forever being reduced or increased. Nothing can
ever stop that gyration. It is in fact desirable at times for mergers to
occur.

I have absolutely no problem with Valve buying Epic. Your premise rests solely
on the notion that the combination would be bad due to the scale and
consolidation it causes. I reject that entirely and contend it would be better
for consumers.

I don't consider "ultra rich" to inherently be an insult or negative. Valve
deserves all of their success. Hopefully they buy Epic, as they're an
excellent ultra-rich corporation.

There are no by-gun-point cartels in video gaming such that another person or
company can't compete. The dramatic fall from grace - and large red ink
production - of Electronic Arts a few years ago nicely proved that. If Valve
buys Epic and it doesn't work out to the benefit of video game consumers,
another developer will step up and gain from the Valve failure, seizing a new
opportunity, as has been happening in video gaming for decades non-stop and
will continue to happen.

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magicmu
Great idea! It'll really be good for universities to start developing the
infrastructure for VR courses, which I would imagine could easily be
prohibitively expensive without something like this. Interesting angle by
Cryengine as well, it seems like the benefit for them is getting more new game
devs to use their platform. I wonder what the story is behind using Bahçeşehir
as their flagship school -- Turkey I can see, since there's a big push for
technological literacy there right now, but I would think a school like
Boğaziçi or Galatasaray would be higher up on the list.

~~~
pjmlp
Probably related to its founders.

Aren't they of Turkish origin?

~~~
patates
The founders are German-born children of a Turkish family who migrated to
Germany.

~~~
magicmu
Ahh there we go. Still an interesting choice of university though, I would
imagine some of the more high-profile schools would've been higher up on their
list. Who knows what goes into those decisions though.

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k__
They're still in business?

Serious question.

I heard they went down, after the criticism about how they treat their
employees.

Just wanted to know if it's still the old company or someone bought the name
and tech and does his own thing now...

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throwthrow987
Current employee here. We are def in business, we had some money issues like
others mentioned more than a year ago but things are looking much better now.
We have a few projects announced, signed and in full development and the
engine is getting a lot of love as well with some key new hires.

~~~
ekianjo
Is there anything you can say about Linux support ? I think you have announced
several times that Linux support is active, but I have not seen any port of
CryEngine games to Linux so far.

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chronial
Am I the only one getting a distinctly dystopian (/cyberpunk) vibe from the
video on that page?

I don't mean the text/content – just the general vibe of the clip.

~~~
Simp
The voice might be computer generated, if it is, it's really well done.

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nickysielicki
Is there anyone else here, who has used VR in the form of an HMD, that thinks
this is all just a passing fad that will fail miserably? Can I note for a
moment that this technology has been hyped since 2012 and we're only seeing
the first consumer-facing products now? One of which is nothing other than
Google Cardboard (GearVR) and one which is $600? The only real attempt at
targeting consumers is coming from Sony, and it costs nearly as much as the
console itself does. This is still decidedly a hobbyist market, and it doesn't
look like that will change for another year at least.

But let's put the price of adoption aside for a moment and assume that at some
point it will come down in price. Even then I can't imagine that the average
household will be buying this.

For one, you wouldn't want to use an HMD in any context other than sitting
alone in a room, and that's something that the nerdy hobbyist market doesn't
mind, but to the average person it makes it nothing other than a novel toy. I
keep hearing people on CNBC talk about how this year the Superbowl will be
able to be watched via an HMD, and how this is the future of media.

Are they serious? Have they ever heard of a Superbowl party? I watch football
around friends, and we enjoy good food and beers. It's a social event first,
and a content event second. How does an HMD fit into that? It doesn't. And I
think most media we have today (save for video games) are social events. I
watched the Breaking Bad finale with friends. I watch scary movies with
friends. And that's not to say that I don't sometimes watch things alone, but
when content creators have to worry about accommodating both of these
experiences, it's difficult to make the VR experience comparatively
worthwhile. VR content is going to face the same fate as 3D movies do today.

It might be the evolution of video games. But that's a far cry from the hype
that it gets.

I think that the evolution of Google Glass is what will really take off.

~~~
Suttonian
No I don't think it's a passing fad or will fail miserably - but I do know
you're not alone.

Yeah - VR is expensive right now. Maybe the price will drop a little - but
this is one of the reasons why it will be niche for quite some time.

I totally agree with you that I don't think many people will watch the
superbowl in VR...but!

What I predict (take with pinch of salt) is that as the Oculus and Vive are
delivered there will be the common realization of some of the limitations and
problems with VR (motion sickness, people who wear glasses etc) and the
popularity will go down a little - but long term this type of thing just has
so much potential I can only imagine it growing in the long term.

Something I notice in your comment is that you seem to be assuming that you
can't have social experiences in VR, I see social in VR as one of its greatest
strengths. You could see your buddies in VR as legendary warriors fighting
demons. Or maybe some of your buddies are the demons. There's a huge market
for that type of thing (or there will be).

AR like Google Glass (HoloLens, Magic Leap...) is also going to take off.
Eventually AR and VR may converge. Want presence and to be fully immersed?
Switch to VR mode.

~~~
vectorpush
> people who wear glasses

Just as a sidenote, I recently purchased a GearVR headset for use with my
galaxy S6 and the headset allows me to calibrate the diopter such that I don't
even need to use my glasses (though it is also possible to use it with them,
though I prefer without). I feel like this will be a must-have for any future
HMD, as in my experience it solves the glasses problem entirely.

~~~
jeff_marshall
You are lucky you don't have astigmatism :)

Even with diopter adjustment, I still prefer to wear my glasses (oculus DK2 in
my case). I should really look into corrective surgery (lasik, etc.) again...

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rboyd
The VR labs sound great, but maybe not enough to offer a material advantage.

The next stage of the game engine wars will be fought and won over how the
developers extend the designer app with VR UI, enabling creating VR (or
traditional) games/experiences from within VR.

I'm sure they're all already plotting this on the roadmap, even if they're not
vocal about the specifics yet.

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jpeg_hero
Maybe this can help with the 2045 initiative?

[http://youtu.be/01hbkh4hXEk](http://youtu.be/01hbkh4hXEk)

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JustSomeNobody
"Lead the way", "define the future"

Lot of assumptions given:

"Ground floor"

