April 21 2008.

For those who couldn't be present at last GDC in San Francisco, Crytek GmbH allow you to make it up by reading their slides online. The sujet du jour was what defines a next gen effect and how they succeeded in creating that characteristic Crysis look throughout the game. They also have some slides on how they implemented the SCRUM software engineering method halfway through their project. Read more after the jump/link.

The first series of slides describe what people called next gen graphics effects. Of course the adjective might be overused, as advance in graphics is more akin to a continuous refinement than a true generational gap. At least that's our opinion. But it's still important for marketers and that's maybe how the public perceives it. But look beyond the marketing gimmicks, the slides are really interesting in themselves as they cover real world experience on how to do real time graphics. We've seen in our previous article about their Siggraph 2006 presentation how they handled atmospheric effects. The slides of today cover the water rendering in more details (screen aligned waves, and god rays), the frozen look (through procedural and artist created assets), motion blur, color grading and so on.

The second series of slides is also interesting in a topic not often covered by game companies. It's how they went agile halfway through shipping the game and broke the world. After a hard look at what they had so far one year before the release and at how the progress would lead them to a shippable product, they had to rethink priorities, team focus and managements and setup people to become sprinters. The slides explain how and why. And, as it seems, they succeeded so this might help some people rethink their management. Of course, your own mileage may vary.

Read the rest at Crytek GDC 2008 presentations.