So it's been a while since Cryengine has updated its UI solution. (I think we're running Scaleform version 2 or something)

It's been so long that we have been using AS2. I started at least 6 years ago and there has been 0 changes.
Scaleform had released a version that supported AS3 a while ago, and as of July 12th, 2017, has discontinued it's sales and production for all of it's scaleform products. https://www.autodesk.com/content/autode ... middleware

That means that the current UI solution in Cryengine is so old that not even the people creating the software are supporting it anymore.

I'm mainly coming on here to rant, but also to raise awareness that the UI system is in a desperate need for an update.
The biggest things that our current version of scaleform doesnt support or handle well is listed below.

1. 4k and ultra hd support is lacking. Flash sort of supports this, but all of the images need to be different sizes to deal with scaling issues.
2. 3d objects. We need a solution where we can render 3D objects on screen (without a bunch of hacks) and be able to interact with them.
3. Varying screen size positioning. Currently, the UI is set up to work with rectangular or square screen environments. There is no good solution to working with varying sized screens and where elements should be located.
4. Currently the only solution for importing video is through an expensive Autodesk license that you technically can't purchase anymore. We need something that will allow us to play videos.
5. With VR coming out and technology advancing, scaleform is going to become more and more apparent with how outdated it really is...

But yea, there is a large need here for a new solution. When is Cryeninge going to realize this and take action?

CEV is running on Scaleform v3.3.94. But yes its getting old. Works fine for my needs. Easy to use too. Im sure we will see some new solution sooner or later. But nothing for 5.4 as it's feature locked and i doubt 5.5 will introduce anything new either.

This is a great post, since I don't see anything significant on the Development part of the road map either for this.
Hopefully they are considering this, because it might be the time to ditch scaleform. And I side more with sooner rather than later.

Not everything ends up on the public roadmap ...

Hey guys,

thanks for your feedback. It's very valid feedback and we're continuously investigating our UI solution. It's too early to make promises at the moment but as Lavi said, not everything hits the public roadmap immediately, so please rest assured we hear you and we're on it. Please keep your eyes peeled for more updates on this in the future and keep your feedback coming so we can consider it in future decisions.

Cheers,

Great to hear guys.

Thanks for taking the time to post replies

Couldn't agree more. We're still running Actionscript 2. It does the job but is just ancient at this point. Cryengine definitely needs a new modern UI solution.

CryEngine needed a different solution since there was Crysis 1! We use AS2 for almost 10 years now! And AS3 was released in 2006. By 2010 most of major game engines supported AS3. And now neither Flash, nor Scaleform using it is no longer available. Autodesk has abandoned Flash a long ago, and now they've developed their own IDE for Scaleform UI that uses Lua and visual scripting.



You don't need to create your own UI solution. There's already too many proprietaty UI solutions around: every game engine now tends to make its own. Soon there will be hundreds of them. You just need a good and widely used one. And also make a possibility to use HTML5 methods to render the custom JS/HTML made UIs. It's probably better to make a built-in Chromium engine into CEV.

We need either an independent UI maker built in, heavily influenced by ScaleForm 4.6 (latest source and binaries), CryForm!
Or what might end up being more feasible is having an open ended UI backend. So that you can drag and drop plug-ins from other middleware UI software. There's Coherent GT, which UE4, Unity, Lumberyard etc all have plug-ins for. Also Affinity Designer, which is mostly for Mobile Apps, IOS, webdesign etc. Very Artsy and photoshop driven, but is quite beautiful. A derivative of UI/UX software meant for Mobile apps on Apple or Android could still offer an amazing experience when using it for CryEngine or UE4.

If Cryengine was more on top of the latest middle wares in the industry and provided plugins for it, that would let developers chose what options they wanted to integrate into Cryengine, this could also be an option or direction, rather then building some sort of CryForm UI.

Plugins/ native support missing for other software are -> SpeedTree, Simplygon, World Creator, Quixal Software Suite
UE4 and Unity and LumberYard have direct support/plugins for all of these.

You can still get the required Flash development tools compatible with CRYENGINE's Scaleform Helper from Adobe by subscribing to their Adobe Creative Cloud service - specifically the "Animate" package.
You can then choose to download the older version of this package using their Adobe Launcher suite.