Questions I need answered soon

Hey @REDACTEDUSER

As for the documentation, we are constantly working on creating and keeping the documentation up to date and creating new documents. As for the engine API I will see if there is any info we can share on when we will have these documents ready to share.

I know it can be frustrating, especially this early on in the development of a project of this scale. Your comments and concerns of this nature help us prioritize our roadmaps, so keep them coming.

Well here is the bottom line @REDACTEDUSER

I see mostly I will have to write my own class for Cry3DEngine since most of it is directed at a lot of stuff being processed if it exists. Especially the terrain part.

IMO it was better to leave the terrain as just another object so it can be removed if wanted but anyway at least the developers followed common rules so m_p is memory pointer IName is integer, F and m_f float and so on. I was able to decipher most of the class.

it is not a problem to write the code ok. I been coding for almost 40 years. It is just a slowdown in the development cycle of the project. My base server library is complete and I want to now start a client/server testing with graphics instead of just text.

I have two other engines which are not as tied to editors that WILL work but I wanted to get a high level AAA engine involved to see how well the engine responds to streams.

Looking forward to that answer. Especially on ETA on that API reference document ;)

I understand completely. I've asked one of our techs to give a more technical response to your questions and concerns. Just wanted to make sure you knew we didn't forget about your concerns.

This is one of the BIGGEST hurdles. No engine Documentation. I honestly think I will move on to urho for this project since they have more internal comments, more documentation of the core engine and the engine render system is more open to access.

Correct me if I am wrong here.

Maybe I was mistaken but I was under the assumption that LY core would be more accessible without relaying on the editor but my finding are saying that to initialize the engine will start a level which has to exist or rewrite the engine itself.

Not acceptable.

I don't disagree. We are trying to create as much documentation as we can as fast as we can. You should see a new big batch of docs and tutorials with 1.7 or shortly after.

**Thank you @REDACTEDUSER

I been busy with other projects so been away form LY for awhile. I have 3 projects going at the moment and want to get these easy ones done first since they are mods for Skyrim. I plan to get back to my main project in around May time frame at which I will make final decision on which main engine I'll use.

1 - Is it possible to by code and without hacking the engine code to start the renderer only and add and remove things in my own display buffer?

Hmm, the renderer is a system that is loaded by the engine itself so you can't just load the renderer without a lot of hacking. If you mean, can I start rendering without loading a level, then yes you can. However, we don't really have any samples that do this at present and there are some systems which expect a level to be loaded to pull configuration data.

Your answer is in question 3 and what I needed to know. Don't need samples as much a API documentation since it will tell me how.

2 - Is it possible to use the GUI without directly loading a GUI? I want to create a GUI dynamically.

Yup! You can create elements dynamically with LyShine (dev\Code\CryEngine\LyShine and dev\Code\CryEngine\CryCommon\ILyShine.h are helpful)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I needed to know where to look.

3. - Exactly how much control can I get from default build without load a level, start a game play session?

You'll need to be more specific here. Like I mentioned here, there are systems and features that rely on there being a Level to work (Flowgraph level nodes, assets in level pak files, etc.) We are working toward making the engine less around levels and more around slices so eventually, you will be able to make your game entirely without touching levels. I haven't personally tried making a game completely with just slices and no levels yet so take this with a grain of salt.

This is promising because the loading of levels needs to go and if slices work it may be best solution yet. I'll have a look at this on the weekend. I was attempting to bypass the terrain and ocean which I have my own seamless world code which is build for server side and has its own database. I like the on fly capability to add and remove objects into the render buffer (entities, static models, scripts, etc..) . Maybe allowing GEM plugin would be another possibility?

4. Last but most important, When will there be a API documentation for this internal engine?! Block diagrams, short description even. Just something to tell me what this class does.

All of the core foundation classes (AzCore, AzFramework, LmbrCentral etc) that we've created should have comments in the actual headers for the classes, the CryEngine classes are more hit and miss. We're still working on a unified web interface for these (ala something like doxygen or similar interface)

Yes, The CRY code is not documented at all or very little information. I did read comments but again having several files open and trying to correlate exactly what is going on can be a bit frustrating. doxygen is great way to put the info out so yes. please do. I guess I could do it too but flowcharting the system is even better (like graphic diagrams)

You can find a lot of web docs for these same core classes in our developer guide for example:

<a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/az-modules-intro.html">http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/az-modules-intro.html</a>

<a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/az-modules-intro.html"></a><a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/component-entity-system-intro.html">http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/component-entity-system-intro.html</a>

<a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/asset-pipeline-ebus.html">http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/asset-pipeline-ebus.html</a>

These must be new. I will look and thanks again for this info.

EDIT:

After reading the first section on AZ modules I have my answer! Thank you and this is exactly what I needed.