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Star Engine is the name of Star Citizen's game engine since before moving to Amazon Lumberyard.[1] It was a heavily refactored version of CryEngine 3 from Crytek used since the first in-engine video released at the start of the Crowdfunding campaign. More specifically, the last update integrated into Star Citizen's code was patch 3.8.[2]
On 2016-12-23, CIG announced with the release of Star Citizen Alpha 2.6.0 its move to Amazon Lumberyard game-engine (which is also based on CryEngine 3.8)[3] in order to utilize the integrated Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloud-Computing features "to support next generation online gaming"[4][5] . It is not known which version of Lumberyard is currently integrated in Star Engine and how CIG will handle future iterations (as of November 2016, the current version of Lumberyard is Beta 1.6).
Star Engine aims among others to be seamless without any loading screens or invisible walls despite being massively mutliplayer.[6]
Engine development is still driven within the CIG studio structure with some of former Crytek employees supervising the project[citation needed].
Star Engine is not available for sale.[7]
Features
Although CIG is very open about their development process, not all details on internal processes and work on the engine are released to the public. The following list contains features that are described in interviews, Monthly Reports or dev comments. The names can differ from the actual name internally used and the feature funtionality should always be considered as not fully accurate. Additionally, some are already integrated CryEngine 3.8 and/or Lumberyard features - for a list see 
CryEngine
CryEngineHere's a list of features added by CIG since CryEngine 3.8.
Notable Tech
- Large World (64bit world space coordinates)
- Object Container Streaming
- Mega Map
- Zone System
- Local Physics Grids
- Room System
- Camera Relative Rendering[8]
- Procedurally Generated Planets
- PBR (Physically Based Rendering)
- The Sun as a physical object (possibility of Binary Star Systems or exploding ships in orbit casting light to the planet surface)[9]
- Subsumption AI[10]
- Unified First- & Third-Person animations
- Unique Global Entity ID[11]
- Generic Instance Manager[12]
- Universe Simulator[12]
- Persistence (Player Info Server, Presence Server, HUB Server and Player Persistence)[12]
- Item Port System[13]
- StarNetwork
- GOST (Game Object State) (reworked to newer system[8])
- "Grabby Hands" - now integrated into the Cargo system and Loot system,[12][14] initial system for grabbing and moving objects (e.g. cargo) and initially set to be released in the (later delayed) Astro Arena or SATABall FPS game mode
- Multi-LayerBlend - character shader tech[15]
- iPredictor (movement prediction) system[12]
- Diffusion (cloud-oriented back-end service architecture)
Rendering
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Tech included in Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.0[16]
- P4K System - improved data handling system
- Planetary Rotation
- Temporal Supersampling (TSAA) - previously rendered frames are used to improve the anti-aliasing results on the new frame
- Improved Screen Space Directional Occlusion (SSDO)
- New Filmic Tone Mapping Curve (ACES)
- PBR Glass - Glass (e.g. cockpits) can be rendered with phyiscs-based distortions, cracks, reflections and chromatic effects
Planned features (as of October 2017)[16]
Short term
- Terrain Occlusion & Shadowing
- Gameplay Driven Material Shaders
- "Space Fog" (Gas Clouds in e.g. asteroid fields)
- Improved Hair
- New Shield Effect
- Depth of Field Improvements
- Colour Processing Improvements
- New Motion Blur Implementation
- Support for Complex Shading Models
Mid/Long term goals
- Object Container Streaming support on the low level/system side
- Improved Planet Effects (shadows, clouds, etc.)
- Improved Space Effects (stars, sun, rings, etc.)
- Dynamic Global Illumination
- Batching of physics-thread
- Batching of render-thread
- Vulcan backend support
Planned features (as of October 2023)
- Cloud light shafts - 3D volumetric shadows from clouds as opposed to post effect[6]
- Ground fog - follows the terrain, fully integrated into the atmosphere, reduces the scattered light[6]
- New water - constantly in motion, reactive to wind and objects, be it fottprints in puddles, rivers, lakes, oceans or hot tubs[6]
- Fully dynamic blood, sweat and tears[6]
- Temporal Upscaling[6]
- Virtual Terrain Texturing[6]
- Improved Scattering System[6]
- Ray Traced Global Ilumination[6]
- Starcloth[6]
- Starhair[6]
- Maelstrom - physically based destruction system.
Tools & 3rd-Party Software
- Kythera - AI middleware[17]
- Vulkan API - 3D graphics and compute API [18]
- Wwise - Sound Engine [19]
- FMOD - (deprecated) Sound Engine [8]
- DataForge [citation needed] - Data management, Ship & Weapons balancing[8]
- StoryForge - Dialogue and Conversations system, built upon DataForge[11]
- VERS 3D (formerly known as PlanetEd) - Editor for creating planets[20]
- System Layout Tool - Star system layout and design[10]
- Room Management System - (deprecated) System for players to manage their hangars; now changed and integrated in Item Port System[8]
Trivia
- A typical Star Engine frame update has up to 64 hardware threads, 200 software threads, over 700 000 streamed-in entities on a server, millions of entities overall in the solar system, about 150 000 component updates.[6]
- Any given frame has over 200 vehicles, thousands of actors, including new creatures, over 2 000 000 physical objects, over 100 000 objects generated per frame, many unique locations to explore in a gigantic seamless space.[6]
List of Videos on the Star Engine
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Chris Roberts on Engine Architecture & Zoning Optimization (2015)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Chris Roberts on Instancing & Player Counts (2015)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Chris Roberts on Procedural Generation (2014)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Chris Roberts on Character Tech, Weather System, & Engine Architecture (2016)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Sean Tracy on CPU thread management, Jobs System, Character Technology, Lighting, sun/planet movement, Authoring Tools & AI (2016)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Sean Tracy on Parallax Occlusion Mapping for Biomes edge-blending; Spring Tension and Inverse Kinematics for the Rover & Ships (2016)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Chris Roberts on Procedural Planets V2 (2016)
- Gamers Nexus - Video Interview with Sean Tracy on 64-bit Engine Tech & Procedural Edge Blending (2016)
- Gamers Nexus - CitizenCon 2016 PlanetEd tool
- Chris Roberts on DX12 & Vulkan support
- Squadron 42 Trailer (2012)
- CitizenCon 2953: Shaping the ‘Verse - The Future of StarEngine
See also
References
- ↑ Gamers Nexus - Interview with Chris Roberts, summary
- ↑ Gamers Nexus - Interview with Sean Tracy, summary
- ↑ Erin Roberts: "Lumberyard is completely based on Cryengine", wccftech, Star Citizen Switches Engines: Move Along Folks, Nothing to See Here, Dec 24, 2016
- ↑ Star Citizen Newsletter - Alpha 2.6 with Star Marine!, December 23rd, 2016
- ↑
Clarification by Chris Roberts on the switch to Lumberyard
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 CitizenCon 2953: Shaping the ‘Verse - The Future of StarEngine, Star Citizen, YouTube, 24 oct. 2023
- ↑ CitizenCon 2953 interview with Brian Chambers, Hugo Lisoir, Twitch, 22 Oct 2023
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Monthly Report Oct 2014
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedGN-20160924-CR_CitCon16 - ↑ 10.0 10.1 Monthly Report Sept 2014
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Monthly Report Nov 2014
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Monthly Report April 2015
- ↑ Monthly Report May 2015
- ↑ Subscriber's Town Hall with Austin Developers
- ↑ Monthly Report June 2015
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 CitizenCon 2017 Graphics Engineering Panel "Beyond the Cutting Edge"
- ↑ Kythera by Moon Collider
- ↑ Ali Brown (Director of Graphics Engineering) comment about Vulkan
- ↑ Wwise
- ↑ PlanetEd reference