CryEngine 3 To Support Stereoscopic 3D

Crytek's CryEngine 3 development platform is adding support for stereoscopic 3D game development, the company says, and it plans to show it off for the first time at the Game Developers Conference next week. "Over the past few years, S-3D technology has emerged as one of the key trends both in movies and games," says Crytek's global business development director for CryEngine, Carl Jones. "With CryEngine 3, developers will have the ability to create their content in 3D on all platforms." Crytek also says it's also ready to show another feature new to CryEngine 3. Called LiveCreate, it is intended to allow designers to see real-time results across multiple platforms while working in a single editor. This feature is designed to enable better comparison of assets for individual platform optimization. Both features are intended to help developers reduce cost and speed development while enjoying more options, the company says. Crytek launched the third version of its engine in October 2009. Past versions of the engine have been used to develop games including Crysis, Far Cry, Aion and numerous serious games. In addition to supporting DirectX 9 and 10 for PC, as well as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles, Crytek claims CryEngine 3 is the first "next-gen-ready" development engine, meaning it has been designed to scale up to the forthcoming game platforms. Crytek has also previously stressed that a major goal with the new engine was to deliver scalability in the other direction as well -- which has allowed it to support current consoles and less-powerful PCs, countering the tech's reputation for high player system requirements.