October 6th - October Update news - CryENGINE 2 Developers

Welcome to todays update. I apoligise for the fact that we put this news update out 5 days after we said we would, but due to illness on my part along with internet connection issues with some of the team, resulting in renders of work being a bit slower to get to me for the update. Either way, heres this months update, and I hope you like what we’ve got to show you.

First up for this updates Modelling & Texturing section, is the work of George Sokol whos been working tirelessly on the Landrover Series III. This was, and still is for many states, a workhorse of their armed forces – versatile, cheap, and durable, which are important for any armed group. For the mod, we’ve produced 3 flavours – soft top, hard top, and Makrolon armour variants. This beast of burden is able to carry several people, along with equipment, due to its large size, and passenger/equipment area in the back. (From personal experiance, you want a hardhat if you end up sat in the back of one of these, particularly when bouncing round a quarry in. I’ve still got the dents in my skull, I think.) 

As you can see from the below shots, the softop version consists of a metal frame covered over by canvas. As you might have guessed, this is the least well armoured out of the types available to the player, but probably the quickest overall due to the decrease in weight due to the canvas. This is primarily seen as a civilian jeep, but is also sometimes used by military and paramilitary forces alike.

Next, we have the hardtop version. As you can see, there is a solid metal frame covering the vehicle, providing more protection than a softopped vehicle – but theres little this can do against armour piercing rounds, much the same as any civilian grade vehicle – or at least, an unarmoured one. This is somewhat more better protected than the softop, but nowhere near as well as that Makralon armoured version, but is still faster than the armoured Landrover.

We at last come to this vehicle’s final variant, the Landrover Makralon, or as it was effectionatly known, the “Piglet” in relation to its larger cousin, the Humber Pig. This is the best protected out of all the landrovers, being entirely cased in Makralon armour, along with utilising new perspex glass for the side, and back windows. RPG mesh also covers the windows to protect the occupants from an RPG attack, with the mesh predetonating the warhead. This was the design basis for the British armed forces Snatch Landrover, which has served both in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and has been fazed out due to its inability to defend against IEDs - much like the original.

Now moving onto one of the numerous organic projects that have to be undertaken to produce the new models for our production, we have Alex Jupp’s work on the SAS CRW kit – which is better known as “The Black Kit“. The design for this was based primarily on the gear worn by the 1981 Iranian Embassy assualters, with some of our own features put in. We’re still putting some changes in, such as the gasmask, and bulking out the chest to demonstrate body armour being worn.
 

As part of this model, Alex needed a Browning Hi-Power Pistol. Unforunately, Robin Geuens, one of our primary weapon modellers hadn’t quite finished working on the ingame Browning, so Alex had a go at making one himself – as you can see, it turned out absolutely brilliantly. I’d like to say here that Robin’s work is still going in game, and this model with be used primarily for cutscenes that require that extra bit of detail, or focus on the Browning more.

To finish off this months Modelling & Texturing section, we have work by our new 3D Lead, Austin W.Firstly, we have his work on the Welrod pistol – while it was designed in WW2 for British/Guerrilla forces to eliminate targets quietly, it was in reportedly in use right up until the Gulf War by the SAS. Make no mistake – for such a simple, and quite frankly, ugly looking gun, its perhaps one of the deadliest assassination weapons available, with the firing noise being less than that of the user loading the weapon – something that isn’t replicated by any firearm today. 

Austin has also been working hard on texturing up some of the assets that he made for the last update – the Ka-bar combat knife, and the M61 frag grenade. Both of these have been rendered in the Marmosett Toolkit, a lovely bit of kit. (I’m aware that the base of the M61 frag is somewhat octagonal, but it doesn’t matter. It’d be rather unwise to stand looking at it when one flies towards you.) 

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= LEVEL DESIGN =

This month, we bring you the very first shots of our single player campaign, which is currently tightly under wraps for the most part. These shots are of the level based in County Antrim, which is being built by Kai Vuellings. As of yet, this level is still requiring quite a chunk of work on it, mainly on the small village/town area, primarily getting the textures getting completed for the buildings, hence why they aren’t displayed in these shots.

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= NEW SITE =

For those of you that have had a look at our site recently, you’ll see that we’re reworking our site a lot – we’ve got to the stage where we’ve built up a lot of work, and pages on the site based on Wordpress. We’re still working on the site to get everything smooth, and unbuggy, and an even nicer design is coming soon for the site. We’ve got all the information on the current project, links to partners, the team listing, and our news page, which often updates every 5-7 days, and has regular information on what we’re working on. You can check it out at the links at the end of this post.Well, thats all for this update, thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll join us again in a week for our #2 Dev Diary.

-J.
Crystal Wolf Studios