Introduction

In this chapter, we will explore the fundamentals, as well as some advanced techniques, to creating real-time game assets for the CryENGINE 3.

Throughout this chapter, we will use 3dsMAX2010 and all examples will assume a basic understanding of that package.

Note

CryENGINE 3 also supports Maya; see mycryengine.com for more details.

The CryENGINE 3 using a system that considers two types of assets:

• Source assets, which include .TIF format textures and any other uncompressed information

• Target assets, which include .DDS and other compressed data and may be specific to the target platform (Xbox, PS3, and others)

The handling of these different file types is by the resource compiler, which is explained in Chapter 1, CryENGINE 3: Getting Started.

We will follow the overall explanation of the asset pipeline for CryENGINE by exploring each step from start to finish.