CRYENGINE 5.4 Update Now Available

“The 5.4 release represents a big step forward for the engine, and we’ve worked closely with CRYENGINE community members to ensure it includes features and updates that address their needs,” said CRYENGINE Product Manager Collin Bishop. “We’ve made sure that these additions—particularly in the form of Substance integration and Vulkan API support—really cater to artists and programmers.”

A beta preview of 5.4 was released earlier this year in order to allow CRYENGINE developers to test. During this phase the CRYENGINE team collected community feedback that was crucial in finalizing 5.4 for the full release this month.

CRYENGINE 5.4 Release Highlights

• Substance integration. CRYENGINE now supports Substance Designer in the Sandbox Editor, allowing artists and game designers to continue using their Substance workflow when working with the engine. This addition also includes the Substance Viewport Shader, a custom shader designed to work with Allegorithmic’s Substance Designer and Painter software. (YouTube tutorial available here.)

• Terrain system upgrades.  Multiple upgraded terrain features have expanded on the power of the current terrain editing tools, making the blending and integration of separate objects into the terrain mesh possible, while simultaneously enabling a higher level of realism and more flexibility.

• Vulkan API support [beta]. The 5.4 release includes a beta version of the Vulkan renderer to accompany the DX12 implementation added in 2016. Vulkan is a cross-platform 3D graphics and compute API that enables developers to use high-performance real-time 3D graphics applications with balanced CPU/GPU usage. (YouTube Tutorial available here.)

• Entity components. CRYENGINE 5.4’s Entity Component System provides a modular and intuitive way to construct games, working at both the system level and the entity level.

• C# templates. Two new templates have been added to C# with 5.4: the C# Plugin and C# 3rd person. In conjunction with launcher improvements, CRYENGINE has also expanded template selection in order to make  to make getting started even easier. Further C# templates will be added in the future.

Many more features are included in 5.4, including Extended Detail Bending—a feature developed during the creating of Crytek’s virtual sci fi adventure, Robinson: The Journey—CRYENGINE pull requests, new anti-aliasing techniques, and a Particle Editor Preset Library.

For further details on the CRYENGINE 5.4 update, please visit www.cryengine.com or read the full release notes here.