Crytek Interview, Part II of III

[PressBot]

By Neil Schneider

MTBS is pleased to be joined by Jens Schöbel, Technical Designer (and stereoscopic 3D wiz) for Crytek, developers of the upcoming Crysis 2 video game and CryENGINE 3 game engine!



Crytek first made headlines in stereoscopic 3D gaming with a demo they did on an iZ3D monitor at GDC 2009.  They later demonstrated CryENGINE 3 running in stereoscopic 3D on the big screen at SIGGRAPH 2009.  Now Crysis 2 is getting set for release in the new year, complete with native stereoscopic 3D support on PC and console (Xbox 360 and Sony PS3).

Today, part two of our mystery tour to find out what they have cooking in 3D!  Check out part one if you haven't already.

1. Which stereoscopic 3D hardware and display solutions will Crysis 2 support on PC and console?

Currently we support several output modes like side by side, a lot of anaglyph modes and the upcoming HDMI 1.4a that is perfect for stereo 3D.  Other modes that we support are interlaced and dual head output.  Very important: our CryEditor.  You are able to develop inside the editor in S-3D to review everything in front of your screen.


2. For 3D HDTV users on XBOX and PS3, which resolutions will be available in stereoscopic 3D mode?  What is the expected frame rate, and how will it compare to the 2D version?

The CryENGINE 3 Stereo 3D rendering only has a minimum effect on the performance compared to the 2D version.  From the beginning on, that was one of our main goals. To make it crystal-clear: you will hardly realize a performance loss at all if you turn on S-3D.  Another goal of ours was to support the same formats in 3D like in 2D.  But, people investing in 3D hardware will of course get a much better depth experience.


3. Cevat Yerli, Crytek's CEO & founder, is proud that the performance hit for the 3D is only about 1.5%.  I'm going to take an educated guess, and say you are not creating two unique camera views to make the stereoscopic 3D work.  DDD (Tridef Ignition Drivers) on PC, and Trioviz on console use depth maps to create a 3D experience without losing the performance.  Are you using a similar technique?

That's right, we use depth maps ... and some internal developed techniques we don't want to reveal right now

Read full article...

[Dom]

I really hope this game looks like the stere3d effect Avatar the game has. With all the correct 3d effects and its a first person too so it will feel more imursive since fps do that alot better than 3rd person. I also hope they fixed the dollhouse effect with this game, the convergence max setting without double imagery or crosseyed freakness.

Also why cannot the consoles be upgraded for stereo3d. All microsoft and sony need to do is put 3d processor into a usb device and plug it into the console to activate a more whole experience with more polygons and detail. Its a shame they will have to revert to nintendos graphics for stereo3d, idk maybe not? Wipe out don't look to graphicy.

[tritosine5G]

Even the editor has depth map 3d with no pop out? Hell, it must be really good then.

Btw , somewhat sad about their choice, 3rd person games are nice with pop out imho, given your screen is large enough, but maybe its a gimmick, I got used to it anyways.

Also, I remember that I experienced dynamic depth , when I was ~6 yr old, and always fell asleep while the family was watching DALLAS™ (... you know the ewing's @ the ranch - I remember way too much ) , before actually falling asleep, I remember that good old CRT drawing me in ! It became like 100" !

Someone experienced this? I know it happened , nearly every time!!

[Likay]

Until now i've been totally against all "2d-depthmap" technologies but the screenshot above looks way real enough to me! Maybe this is a boost for autostereoscopic 3d-techs like wowvx and zecotek as well? I'm really curious how the 3d experience will be. Does the 2d+depthmap give any compromizes in stereoreproduction or have their extra little magic made the final image perfect? I feel my mouth watering even more....

I remember that good old CRT drawing me in ! It became like 100"

This never happened to me but i can imagine if you're just about to sleep and somebody turns off the tv you may experience such thing. The characteristic image of old tellys being shut off: The image is shrinked to a small dot which slowly vanishes. Maybe it was the episode when jr was shot? The only real reason to watch should be Victoria Principal imo.

[Neil]

Wait! That screenshot was from the original Crysis with the iZ3D drivers, not Crysis 2. The original story shows the caption correctly, but the forum reprint doesn't. I had the forum article version cut down so you can now read the full article where it was originally intended. Sorry about that.

Regards,
Neil

[Fredz]

No new information about their stereo 3D technique, too bad... We don't even know if it's real 3D or "fake" 3D like DDD, TriOviz and Sony in-house methods.

[Likay]

Shrugh... Damn it Neil. Ok. I'm not entirely that positive anymore but i'm reserved until i've seen with my own eyes. I'm very skeptical to the 2d+dept but now i'm really hoping to be proven wrong!!! Hopefully Crytek knows what they're doing.

[cybereality]

I think the 2D+depth method can give acceptable results but its never going to match a true stereoscopic rendering. We'll see how good their algorithm is.

[Neil]

Shrugh... Damn it Neil. Ok. I'm not entirely that positive anymore but i'm reserved until i've seen with my own eyes. I'm very skeptical to the 2d+dept but now i'm really hoping to be proven wrong!!! Hopefully Crytek knows what they're doing.

Woah! Don't shoot the messenger!

Let's see what they deliver in the end.

Regards,
Neil

[Likay]

You can have it for faking such results!!!
Just joking. I hope you ducked the bullets.
I was really entusiastic because this would have solved other issues with autostereoscopic displays as well (which uses 2d+depthmap to save resources) and the image really looked perfect. Too bad it was a fake.
I'm as curious as you and i really hope the Crytek-team will deliver a great experience. My own from 2d+depth says something else though... I just hope the compromizes regarding stereo-3d won't be too much from the original crysis experience as best. I enjoyed crysis a lot even with the anomalies in 3d.
Officially i hope Crytek will crush my opinions of 2d+depthmap. I would be happy to be wrong about this!

[Neil]

It wasn't a fake! It was a...misunderstanding.

Though wouldn't it have been cool had I not noticed the error, and that picture got blasted around the web? I'm so dumb for fixing it. Damn my honesty!

Regards,
Neil

[Fredz]

Their technique seems to be more complex than only 3D+depth judging from this and their previous interviews, but I wonder if they managed to resolve all the problems others have faced (ie. occlusions, partial transparency (windows, particles, smoke, lasers), specularity (mirrors, water, metal), etc.).

That may be the case considering they've written the rendering engine themselves and that it's the most good looking one to date, but the 1.5% performance hit makes me wonder if they took shortcuts.

I really hope they'll communicate about it in the future, it could be very useful for 3D developers and for S3D gaming in general.

[tritosine5G]

-some guy was arguing with me about 3d 1080p television broadcast, in his mind depth map fullHD was preferable over true stereo 720p.

-but this was the same guy who tought sony is actually doing 240hz with their LCD's for the reason to achieve less flicker than at 120hz ( what I consider flicker-free, and blamed his CRT display). So .......... I have mixed feelings about him

[tritosine5G]

..... why no talk?! Noone talks with me... You desrve this:

[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRyX1tC2OS0&fmt=22[/youtube-hd]