About the Authors

Sean Tracy is Crytek's Senior Field Application Engineer for the award-winning CryENGINE. He is responsible for adapting the engine and its features to individual licensees, as well as developing full technical and "vertical slice" demos for prospective and existing clients. Describing himself as a "generalizing specialist", he also gives support directly to CryENGINE licensees while designing and maintaining their workflows, pipelines, and development techniques.

Sean was recruited by Crytek in 2008 after working as an electronics technician for the Canadian military. He was recruited due to his role in founding and leading development on the award-winning total conversion project—MechWarrior: Living Legends. Since then, he has been featured in numerous gaming magazines and has been invited to speak at many game-related trade shows, conferences, and seminars. He is an avid gamer with extensive modding experience on titles, including Never Winter Nights, Battlefield, Doom, and Quake.

This is Sean's second book.

I would first like to thank my beautiful wife, Kristy, for her love and support throughout the process of writing this book and for her ongoing support allowing me to do what I truly enjoy for a living. I also want to thank her for giving us a gorgeous baby girl who is the light of my life. I would also like to thank my colleagues for taking the time to review the book with me, as it's a pleasure to work with people with the same love for real-time technology as I have. Finally, I'd like to thank Crytek and Packt for their support in allowing me to write this book and for making one of the best game engines on the market.

Paul Reindell has been an Engine Programmer in the SDK team since June 2010. He is responsible for UI programming, next-generation features, and the development of new tools for the CryENGINE 3 Sandbox, as well as for forum support for CryENGINE licensees. He has also worked on projects for licensees and evaluators.

During his diploma thesis, Paul started as an Intern at Crytek in March 2010. He finished his diploma theses successfully in June and started directly as a Junior Programmer in the SDK team. During his academic studies, he created a mod prototype with CryENGINE 2 (GarbageWarz); and during his diploma thesis, he was able to connect CryENGINE 3 successfully with a Head tracking API. Before working at Crytek, he worked for three years as a programmer at DENSO Germany besides his studies.

I would like to thank my family, who have been positive and unconditional supporters. I would also like to thank my girlfriend, who always encourages me more than anyone else.

I would also like to thank my colleagues, who have provided invaluable opportunities for me to expand my knowledge and shape my career.