When comparing CryEngine vs PlayCanvas, the Slant community recommends CryEngine for most people. In the question“What are the best 3D game engines?” CryEngine is ranked 7th while PlayCanvas is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose CryEngine is:
CryEngine has some C#template and also C# based system to write your function/ideas in to your game.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro C# integration
CryEngine has some C#template and also C# based system to write your function/ideas in to your game.
Pro DX12, Vulkan support
CryEngine 5.4 now supports DX12 and Vulkan
Pro Features allowing for realistic weather effects
Cry Engine has volumetric fog rendering which allows for realistic cloud shadows that actually render shadows onto the fog itself. Combined with their time of day system, it's possible to create incredibly realistic weather effects. On top of this, color grading allows user to post process pallets allowing them to change the color tone for different type weather, such as using a deep dark blue for rain.
Pro There is already a built-in AI
It can shoot, walk on patrol points, can see the player and so on.
Pro VR support
Cryengine (starting on Cryengine V) has Virtual Reality support. Developers can create games with VR support for multiple platforms: PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Pro Dynamic water rendering
Cry Engine has realistic water effects that even simulate ocean physics. Features such as waves that respond to global wind, and dynamic water volume tessellation allow for some of the most realistic water effects available to a game developer. The engine also takes into account LOD (level of detail) on water geometry to allow it to stay performant for water at a distance.
Pro Realistic rendering of vegetation and landscapes
Where Cry Engine really shines is with rendering scenes of nature. The Crysis games feature incredibly detailed vegetation and weather effects and it's the Cry Engine that enables that. The engine has many features to create a cohesive realistic looking world. Dynamic water effects allow users to have beautiful oceans, fog and cloud effects allow for realistic weather, and a plethora of lighting effects optimized for natural looking scenes make Cry Engine one of the best engines for creating vast beautiful landscapes.
By having all these features built together from the ground up, Cry Engine is capable of doing more complex effects more efficiently, than other engines that didn't have these effects planned from their inception.
Pro All platforms, including next-gen consoles, are supported
Supports miltiple platforms including: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, Wii U, PC, iOS, and Android.
Pro Versatile flow diagram script model
Flow graphs resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish.
Pro Dedicated channel for Q&A
Crytek has launched a dedicated Q&A forum for everything Cryengine related. It's called Cryengine Answers and it's a community dedicated to sharing and answering any question related to Cryengine.
Pro Online marketplace available
The Cryengine marketplace is an online marketplace which enables developers to access and use individual assets from thousands of materials, sounds and 3D objects created by the community. Even Crytek's own library assets are available there.
Pro Advanced volumetric cloud system
Cryengine has an optimized volumetric cloud system for Virtual Reality to give clouds full 3D spatial rendering. This ensures a high rendering quality with a minimal performance hit.
Pro Terrain tools are great
Pro Disallows bad practices in asset creation
Simply by looking at the RC log when exporting can greatly improve your work. Cryengine doesn't handhold you constantly and helps greatly with avoiding bad practices in asset creation.
Pro Real-time collaborative online editor tool
PlayCanvas has an online editor that lets you build scenes and work with other people in your team in real-time. This is all done through the web browser without having to install any additional software.
Pro Powerful assets pipeline
Assets and content delivery is very different on a web platform comparing to native. So PlayCanvas challenges best practices to allow developers decide how their content is delivered and in what form.
Async Assets download allows developers to load content as the app goes, instead of asking to download all assets in advance risking users to simply navigate away while staring at loading screens.
Formats for 3D models and textures support covers all the popular tools. And the workflow is as simple as dragging and dropping your files right into the Assets Panel. The cloud will do the rest of the hard work optimizing and converting your files into runtime-friendly and compressed data.
Pro Rendering engine runs on the browser
Has an advanced WebGL renderer that runs in the browser.
Pro Avoids having to download lots of textures for lightmaps
Lightmaps are an efficient way to deliver lighting to your scenes for a long time. But they come with the cost of large textures. PlayCanvas offers a unique solution for a web platform, it renders lightmaps when an app is loading in runtime.
This is faster than downloading MBs of textures. And it's much more convenient: simply switch your light sources to bake, and static models to be lightmapped, and the engine will do the rest.
Pro Friendly and active community
PlayCanvas has Feed as homepage for registered users, listing Dev Logs of other developers. This allows to socialize with other developers like yourself in a twitter-like environment.
More to that, there is also an active forum, where developers help each other to solve their challenges.
Developers of PlayCanvas itself are always looking forward to chat and help the community with any problems that may arise.
Pro Integrated physics engine
PlayCanvas lets users integrate physics in their game rather easily, using the powerful Bullet Physics Engine (ammo.js). Should also be noted that the physics engine is delivered as an optional library, so by default being disabled it does not add any extra download size to your apps.
Pro Has a free tier
Engine is free for projects under 200MB and with no more than 2 people on a team. The free tier has no engine restrictions.
Tools are totally free too. There are no special limiting features behind any paywalls, and free users have all the features as paid users.
There are no royalties associated with publishing your apps and games - you've made them, you own them.
It is free to publish to playcanvas.com as well, just by one click in Editor.
Pro Cross-platform support
PlayCanvas lets you build games that run in mobile, desktop browsers, and native mobile apps. PlayCanvas can even make games that can run inside mobile social media and instant messenger clients like Twitter and WhatsApp.
Pro Small app size
The engine itself weighs just under 150Kb, and it's always challenged to stay small. There is no extra weight that has to be carried with your app, just your assets and scripts in a runtime-friendly compressed form.
This allows users to engage with your content in matter of seconds, and even just under a second on a good connection.
Pro Open source
PlayCanvas is fully open source and is under active development.
Pro Very easy to use
Pro Loads extremely fast
Pro Has hot code reloading
Real-time link between your launched app and the editor allows the developer to preview and play with their scene without needing to refresh the game after every change in the code to see the updated result.
Cons
Con Steep learning curve
Except for basic FPS games getting anything done will require solid knowledge of C++, Flash, ActionScript and Lua.
Con No GNU/Linux support
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Con Hard to develop games other than FPS
Cryengine is a great engine to be used for developing an FPS (and it's relatively easy to do so). But if you want to develop another type of game, it requires at least advanced knowledge of C++ and Visual Studio.
Con No Mac OS X support
Con Restrictive license
Cryengine is not restrictive anymore just more personalized. The model is Pay what you want and if you want more you get a membership with them. Or private support, help and lessons directly from the CryEngine team.
Con Private projects are only available for premium users
The free tier does not support any private projects. Instead, all the code and assets will be hosted openly. While not a problem for open source games and for developers who intend to make an open source game, it can be a deal-breaker for teams who want to keep their code and assets private.
Con No collision offset
Con Not many tutorials
