Cinematics - UDK or Cryengine?

Ravenok

Hey there PCs,

I'm starting a project, sort of like creating an in-game cinematic, and I need to choose which engine it'll be done on.

I have never worked with neither UDK or Cryengine, so I'm gonna have to study one of them to make this project in.

I'm aware of the general capabilities of both engines, but not too in-depth.
I've seen the latest demos of both engines, and they seem impressive enough, but that doesn't tell me much about what I could do with them in a standard timeframe.

I want to start studying one of them.
My top priority, is creative freedom. Obviously I'd prefer to use the engine that will grant me prettier results more intuitively. Freedom with materials, fire/water/atmospheric effects, physics, cameras and lighting, etc.

I have no problem with complex technical stuff, but I do prefer to avoid jerky, buggy stuff. I don't have time to troubleshoot and if one of these engines gives a harder time when it comes to bugs, compatibility, and whatever else, I'd rather avoid it.

I lean more towards UDK at the moment, since it seems to be more stable and there seems to be more support for it. But I've seen some amazing footage from Cryengine, which really tempts me.

Is Cryengine capable of better visual performance? Or are they both more or less the same? What's the strong points of each engine?

And is UDK4 close enough for me to consider using it for a project that's due in the near future?

e-freak

CryEngine all the way. Might be slightly biased here :P

In all seriousnes though: I've professionally worked with both engines and shipped cinematics and full motion videos with both - most of the hard work is done in DCCs (Maya/Max/Motionbuilder).

I like the tools (Trackview/Particle Editor) in CryEngine better than the Unreal ones (Matinee/Cascade).

renderhjs

have you considered source filmmaker? might be more the thing you're after especially with creative freedom.
http://sourcefilmmaker.com/

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zri1c_If6Ic"]Introducing the Source Filmmaker - YouTube[/ame]

Ravenok

From what I heard, SFM is currently in the TF world only, isn't it?

Also Source doesn't seem to look as good as UDK/Cryengine.

We will create all of the content, we don't use any package that's coming with the engine.

e-freak, thanks for the recommendation. Could you go a bit more in-depth about cryengine in comparison to udk?

Comparisons like this:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXNvmvaBNiY"][Comparison] CryENGINE 3 vs. Unreal Engine 3 - YouTube[/ame]

Show that Cryengine has a few things that are really important for a good cinematic feel.. like the bloom of the sky and the distance fog. I don't know if the intentionally left these out in the Unreal version, but it really adds to the atmosphere.
Also it seems like grass looks better on the CE3 one, as well as textures, general colors, normal maps seem to be more effective...

It's odd, I tend to think this difference is due to a better understanding of CE3. Is this really the case here?

Visceral

That comparison is retarded? Im sorry but if your are going to make a comparison between engines you cant just leave the defaults on and expect a fair result.
Just compare the features in the documentation if you want a fair comparison.

renderhjs

Blaken wrote: »

From what I heard, SFM is currently in the TF world only, isn't it?

Also Source doesn't seem to look as good as UDK/Cryengine.

We will create all of the content, we don't use any package that's coming with the engine.

No? you can or have to create your own content if its commercial. Its just that everything goes through the source pipeline including the character and shader tools. And no its not just TF - its any mod or project in your source engine folder. Maybe you should watch the videos first. Well it looks you are not that much into the film making I guess you plan on doing that in Maya or max and use the engine to just render the content.

Froyok

Visceral wrote: »

That comparison is retarded? Im sorry but if your are going to make a comparison between engines you cant just leave the defaults on and expect a fair result.

This.

Ravenok

We're gonna work on all the assets as if we're making a video game, only instead of making an actual video game, we're making like a short animated film. Instead of using Vray, for example, to render it, we're looking for the right engine to work with to get the best looking result. Excuse me for being new to this, I wasn't aware it's not allowed.

I remembered Crytek announced Cinebox, which at the time was exciting for me but overtime I forgot about it. Is it any closer to release now? This project will probably be in production for a full year starting now, and they said they're aiming a mid-2012 release. If I can count on that tool being released soon, it's awesome.

Now about SFM, is it capable for the same graphical quality of CE3/UDK? isn't Source a bit outdated now when it comes to presentation?

I'm not sure what the engines support at the moment, but I'd love to make use of all of the latest tech... tessellation/AO/reflections and everything else that's been released, if it's been released. That's where I'm lacking info - what's already out there, and where it is among the different engines...

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Visceral

Source is a bit outdated.
I would recomend UDK if your not familliar with Ce3 yet. Beacuse its easiest to learn, at least to ME.

renderhjs

Visceral wrote: »

Source is a bit outdated.
I would recomend UDK if your not familliar with Ce3 yet.

Please explain your context. Maybe ease of use or artistic freedom are more important than a tripple A belt under the technology that you are using to make a linear animation with.

passerby

renderhjs wrote: »

Please explain your context. Maybe ease of use or artistic freedom are more important than a tripple A belt under the technology that you are using to make a linear animation with.

the pipeline for building a environment and getting all your assets into source is a royal pain in the ass compared to ce3 and udk.

also not everyone can get there hands on sfm yet.

Ravenok

Personally, my top priority is artistic freedom, and the best possible visual quality. I saw both engines support DX11 features, but then, I don't quite know the details yet.

I WOULD give some features up if it means avoiding technical trouble.
I don't mind learning something more complicated, what I do mind is dealing with errors, crashes, incompatibility, etc. These I can't stand. If CE3 is better overall in render quality, but requires me ONLY to spend more time studying it, it's fine. But if it causes more errors, crashes, compatibility problems, and things of that family - I'd rather avoid it.

Overall, I'm looking for the best looking engine that's stable, has a decent amount of support and a nice community to consult with. It seems UDK is more popular, but CE3 is really impressive in many ways...

Froyok

Well, UDK is here since a long moment (which mean it's a program now very stable), there is plenty of help on the official forum (and the Doc is becoming better). A lot of tutorials are available now. The UDK package system is a bit boring, but with the support of FBX format it's batter now to use it and quickly reimport work/assets. There is some script/tools which make the export easier to UDK by the way (for Ce3 too) which the workflow is pretty good.

The only really boring thing in UDK is the tangent space problem and the specular seams in specific situation which need some tricks to avoid them. CE3 is clean on this side.


I will avoid too Source because of this texture/mesh pipeline which is very bad to use.

(I can't compare to CE3 unfortunately because I don't use it.)

Visceral

renderhjs wrote: »

Please explain your context. Maybe ease of use or artistic freedom are more important than a tripple A belt under the technology that you are using to make a linear animation with.

I dont know much about CE3, i was one of thoose people who where really looking foreward to it but when i got ahold of it i instantly went, oh fuck this.

This is just based on my personal oppinion. I dont know whats best for op at all. But if he is going to be a bit realistical about what engine to choose i would advice him to pick up the one that requires least learning before creating content.

e-freak

For me the main reasons to go with CryEngine every day:

• Realtime Lighting Feedback
• Trackview and its Tangent handling is much nicer and more intuitive to a Maya/Max User than Matinee
• Very clean rendering and great shaders (that said, if you don't write HLSL you will have a hard time creating custom shaders (which again you dont need in 99.9% cases))
• Believe it or not, I quite enjoy the way we work with Animation Export. Once its setup properly it just feels very good and very fast to integrate animations into the Engine.

Entity

I went through the same dilemma a while back, but ultimately CE3 won over because of two things:

1) Being able to light and see results in realtime (along with some GI happening).
2) Not having to worry about lightmaps.

Ravenok

So far it seems CE3 is the way to go.. Mainly since lighting is one of the most important steps for me.

Any idea when the Cinebox is coming out? is it going to be free with the package?