How CRYENGINE helped student devs achieve their vision
How CRYENGINE helped student devs achieve their vision

How CRYENGINE helped student devs achieve their vision

In our latest Community Spotlight, we’re showcasing an award-winning study created for a university project from student Tobias Piechota and his team. The art was created in Blender and imported into CRYENGINE, and won the Best Digital Showcase of an Art Project ahead of their peers. We spoke to Tobias to find out more about the study, why they chose CRYENGINE, and how the engine helped him and his team achieve their vision.

Hi Tobias! Congratulations on the award. Can you tell us a bit more about the project?

I am a student at the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, where I study computer science.

Last year I participated in a Key Qualifications for Computer Scientist course. Our goal was to work in a team and cooperate with an artist from Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences to create a Blender animation to showcase the artist’s work.

As we did not have much time, we started to work on the Blender animation. It was a new tool for us, so we had to learn about 3D modelling and so on. About one week before the final presentation I had the idea that it could be possible to import the 3D model into a game engine, and present the object in real time. We agreed that it would certainly be a better and more innovative way to present the study, so while the rest of our group would continue to work on the Blender Animation, I would work on our side project alone.

Why did you decide to use CRYENGINE for the project?

I had seen a video about CRYENGINE where someone demonstrated how easy it is to build something with fairly limited time. I also knew that one of the big strengths of the engine was to render beautiful natural environments. I continued to read about the engine and it was clear to me, that I would use it for our project, as it was the best choice compared to other engines like Unity or Unreal.

One other group experimented with using Unreal Engine, but I think they somehow ultimately failed with it. I don’t know the details, but I was happy that I chose CRYENGINE.

I’m not a CRYENGINE Expert and I’m well aware that our application looks rather amateurish, but I was happy with the result, especially when looking at the very limited time I had. In the final presentation, when all the artists and professors came together to see the result, everyone was really impressed with it. They clearly haven’t seen something like that before. We even hooked up an Xbox pad to the PC, so you could roam around the object and look at it from different angles, while the dynamic day-night cycle was creating different beautiful lighting conditions.

Thanks Tobias well done to you and your team!

Have you achieved your vision with CRYENGINE on a new project? Get in touch on the forums, Facebook, and Twitter.

- Your CRYENGINE Team