Book Image

CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua

Book Image

CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua

Overview of this book

CryENGINE is a complete 3D game development solution that can run on multiple platforms. It is orientated around giving intuitive tools to the developer. A variety of interactive video games can be created using CryENGINE. CryENGINE is one of the most beginner-friendly engines out there to learn. If you are interested in diving into the various systems and understanding their workings in a way that is easily understood, then this book is for you. This book provides you with the knowledge to tame the powerful but hard-to-master CryENGINE. CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua dives into the various systems and explains their workings in a way that can be easily understood by developers of all levels. It provides knowledge on the engine along with step-by-step exercises and detailed information on the backend implementation of the subsystems, giving you an excellent foundation to build upon when developing your own CryENGINE games. Written by developers with years of CryENGINE experience, this book breaks down the common confusion that encompasses the CryENGINE engine code, guiding you through a series of chapters aimed towards giving you the ability to create your own games in a rapid yet productive fashion. You will learn everything you need to know in order to create your own CryENGINE-powered games as well as detailed information on how to use the engine to your advantage. By teaching systems such as audio, particle effects, rendering, AI, networking, and more, we'll be exposing the most inner parts of CryENGINE that commonly confuse programmers. If you want to quickly gain the knowledge required to create your own CryENGINE game title, then this book is for you.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

The stock flownode overview


To make something a little more complex, we're going to need an understanding of what nodes the CryENGINE provides for us by default.

Building a clock

One of the most useful nodes we have access to, at least for debugging purposes, is the HUD:DisplayDebugMessage node. It allows you to display information in the game window, optionally with a timeout. With that in mind, let's build a little debug clock based on the time information we learnt about earlier.

The Time:TimeOfDay node outputs the current time in the CryENGINE time format, which is defined as hours plus minutes divided by 60. For example, 1:30 p.m. would be expressed as 13.5 in CryENGINE time. We now know we're going to need some mathematical operations, so it's time to check the Math flownode category.

The first thing we'll do is get the time in hours by rounding the current time down. To do this, place Math:Floor, then connect the CurTime output from our Time:TimeOfDay node to Floor's A input port. Then...