Crysis®, modding and content creation

When Crysis© was released in November 2007, after its installation I thought „Wow, this is the game and graphics I’ve always wanted“. And to be honest… I must say… until today this game doesn´t lose its fascination. The story is no highlight but when you land on the island, you are still fascinated. Crytek© knows graphics. Unfortunately the game was technically ahead of its time in 2007. Not very many people were able to play it in high quality, in full-HD, with acceptable frame rates. Nevertheless, the modding started. Not until later, in 2010, the PCs became strong enough, to handle Crysis© well. Justifiably the game remained „state of the art“ for long time. „Just in time“ with the release of Crysis© started its modding. The main reason behind it was that Crytek© released the game allegedly with „DX10“-features, usable only with Windows Vista©. But the community was quick and noticed some possible workarounds, inside Crysis© CVar-files. These first tweaks opened the possibility of using the „DX10“-features (that in reality were apparently DX9 ones), for the Windows

XP© users. The amazing side effect of the My Crysis(R) version (US-version 1.0): This bypass runs faster with Windows XP©, than with Windows Vista©. Later, Crytek© have made this feature official in a patch. Not long after these first modifications, many people wanted to have the „ragdoll“-effect back. We had seen those effects in the convention videos, before the Crysis© release, but the final version did not include it. The first „reality-mod“ was born and I was a member in the team behind it. Below I will show you my part of work for it. Inside version 1.0 of the game it was easily possible to get the ragdoll-effect back, by editing a few files, located in different *.pak files of the game. The reason behind this modification was to make the game more realistic, but ragdoll and visible blood-decals are only one part of it. The first mod contains many other „reality“-things, like lightning and environment work, too. With the first patch, Crytek© patched off the possible ragdoll-workaround and all future methods were illegal because its reactivation then required code editing and hacks. Our team broke up and continued only the work on environmental content. I have nothing to do with any later released „reality-mods“ or any illegal back-compiling of files or hacks! Please note, that this workaround is only legal and usable with Crysis© v 1.0! The first step is to unpack the original „gamedata.pak“ and find & edit the files below: .xml (steers the „blood splatter“ at bullet hits) .lua (steers the ragdoll itself) .xml (steers lifetime of shot- and bood-decals) .lua (steers ragdoll at hits) _fx.xml (steers the lifetime of shells) If you want to get more shiny shells after shooting, you can edit the „objects.pak“ the file: „*_5,56.mtl“

The next „reality-features“ I did were more realistic grass, shells and some additional environment stuff. A few things I wrote into a tutorial which you can download on my website.

Shortly after the shells I worked on different grass-models, because the original grass in Crysis© was one of the things that weren’t looking good.

After the grass I created some bamboo-trees, because Crysis© doesn´t contain any of these and I liked them in Far Cry©. With the bamboo I created not just touch- and detail-bending content, it was breakable too.

Last but not least, I tested my first coral-models for a reef.

Shortly after the beginning of reef models, my work was interrupted by a newly founded German Jurassic Park© mod and I was highly interested to work in it. This was in January 2010. I now concentrated my work on the „Return to Jurassic Park©“-mod and started a very huge collection of information. Later down the road, I wrote another very huge tutorial, about the complex rigging and the animation for the CryEngine© Free SDK, the new tool by Crytek©. This was exactly on 17. Oct 2011. The test inside the new SDK and the tutorial itself took me about a year. By the way, you can download it on my website too. And please take the time for 120 pages!

When the tutorial was finished and the engine-tests done, the mod was broken up and as result I had wasted the last year of intensive work for the online-documentation and the huge tutorial. To be honest, it was frustrating! It was January 2012 when this was happened. Because of the broken up mod I wanted to start my own modification, in my beloved theme „the age of sail“. Since the first second of Crysis© in 2007, I tested some simple ship modifications but lost my „mental fight“ for the reality mod and the rise of the visual quality. In the years from 2007 to 2012, I did much more than I have posted here. Most of the work is not worth presentation. It was mainly texture- and material-optimizations or the creation of new ones, as replacement for the original ones. Or simply in-engine-settings of the „time of day“-lightning. I spent a little time modding the first Crysis©-map „island“. I tested around with „flowgraph“, expanded the vegetation, accessible areas and much more. After the last 5 years of experience in Cryengine©, I decided to start my own modification. Please read the next period, to read more.

Till today the game Crysis© by Crytek© is a real great game, with an amazing graphical experience. Convince yourself and look at the pictures on this site below or on my next section „Crysis Modification Drake´s Legacy“ . But attention: Please note absolutely the relevant Amazon product pages: The game is suitable for people aged 18 years and older! Rated in Germany by USK and in the UK by BBFC. In the USA the game were rated by ESRB with „M“ as Mature (17+). Buy this game at Amazon.de (Germany) Buy this game at Amazon.co.uk (UK) Buy this game at Amazon.com (USA)