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Cipher is a complete development environment designed for creating 3D games. By providing a solid foundation onto which games and other interactive applications can be built and immediate access to a comprehensive range of tools and features, Cipher gives your game development a quick start. With support for leading third-party tools and components, easy integration into the developers own tool chain, advanced rendering techniques and comprehensive feature set, Cipher makes it possible for developers to concentrate on creating great games.
Cipher is not a point and click game creation tool. Developers will need to be able to program in C++ or C to create their game, and they will need artists to create the models and environments for the game.
Cipher was developed from 2000 to 2003 by Synaptic Soup Ltd. The company built Cipher to create their own games with and also licensed the technology to other developers. Cipher was purchased from Synaptic Soup when it closed, so that it could be made available to a much broader range of developers.
With its new low price and more open approach, cipherengine.com hopes that Cipher will grow a community of developers that will help it go from strength to strength.
Cipher's goal is to provide developers with the features and tools they need to make games. Cipher has a data driven design, with many system using information in simple text files to tell the engine what to do. For example, Cipher uses text files to describe shader effects for surfaces, particle systems, lens flare effects, world layouts and 3D paths.
Cipher was originally developed by Synaptic Soup to provide it with a game engine that it could re-use for multiple games in different genres, with Quake-like features. It implemented many leading edge features that were being discussed and presented at game developer conferences at the time and offers support for developers in most significant areas of game development, including rendering, audio, animation, input, networking and tools.
Cipher requires a hardware 3D accelerator card, but beyond that, the minimum spec for a Cipher powered game is very much down to the game.
If you rely on a lot of Cipher's more advanced features and use models with lots of polygons and high resolution textures, you will need a high spec machine than another game that only uses Cipher for simple 2D effects. Cipher has been used to produce a game that runs on a Pentium II 300Mhz with a Rage 128, which is a very low spec machine by today's standards. At the same time it can push a 2Ghz Pentium 4 with a Geforce 4. The temple demo has been designed to take advantage of more up to date hardware, while the Crazy Car Championship demo has been designed to be more scalable and will run on a wide variety of machines.
Cipher currently only supports Windows PCs (Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP).
Some of Cipher's tools require Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Cipher tries to cover similar ground to engines like Quake 3 or Unreal. It aims to provide a complete solution that covers all the areas of a game, including rendering, animation, audio, networking, input, time management and so on. It is possible to take Cipher and write nothing but game code, leaving everything else to the engine. We expect most developers will want to extend Cipher in some way though, to add their own unique features and we make this possible by including the source code to the entire engine and its tools.
Since Cipher is not locked into a single genre, it can be used to make a wide variety of games, from racing games to fps games. If you are planning to make a regular fps game, then you should probably look at making a Quake or Unreal mod, but if you planning something a little different, or want to extend the engine, then Cipher might be a good solution. We have tried to make using Cipher as easy as possible for existing mod developers by providing features and systems that you will already be familiar with.
The core engine and renderer are written in C.
Most of the tools are written in C++.
Some of the add-ins for 3ds max are written in Max Script.
The networking model that Cipher uses is not really suitable for massively multiplayer games. Cipher's networking system can be used for multiplayer games that support up to about 32 players, as long as some care is taken to ensure the game code is suitably designed to accommodate this.
However, Cipher has a very flexible and powerful rendering system with excellent animation support. It should be perfectly possible to use this part of Cipher to help create a great looking mmorpg if you already have the appropriate networking technology.
No. Cipher includes support for many other important areas of game development, including audio, networking and input.
For a complete run down of Cipher's features, take a look at the features page.
Yes. Cipher includes support for a continuous level of detail landscape rendering system.
You can see screenshots of this system in the screenshots section.
No. Even though Cipher has some features that are similar to Quake 3 and other engines, Cipher is not compatible with any other engines.
However, since Cipher includes source code, it should be possible for you to add support for any custom file formats that your game requires.
The answer to this question depends on a great number of factors. The most important factor is the machine you are running Cipher on. Other things that will effect the final polygon count include the following...
It is fair to say that Cipher is able to push the 3D hardware in your computer very hard indeed. The engine and its tools have been carefully optimised to squeeze every last drop of performance from your machine, while making it as easy as possible to create stunning effects and fun games.
Cipher comes with several important tools, including...
Cipher also comes with evaluation versions of Daily Build, a tool for automating your build process, and Task Tracker, a simple task management tool. Some of the Tools in Cipher require Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP to run (ie, not Windows 95, 98 or Me).
Cipher has support for 3dsmax. We hope to add support for other modeling tools, such as MilkShape 3D, CharacterFX and Maya, but this has not been done yet.
Cipher's model file formats are fully documented in the programmers manual, so if your team needs support for a specific tool, your programmers will have all the information they need to develop an exporter.
Cipher's shader graphics system should not be confused with the shader systems now exposed by DirectX and OpenGL. Cipher uses a high level script to describe surface materials that is based on the system used in Quake 3 and presented at the Game Developer Conference (GDC) in 1999 by Brian Hook of id software (Brian no longer works at id). The idea behinds Cipher's shader system is to provide something that artists can use (DX and OGL shaders are for programmers only).
To see some of the effects and the ease at which they can be controlled and modified, check out the video in the download section.
Cipher includes powerful visual tools that were designed specifically for artists, giving them full control over the look and feel of the game. check out the video in the download section of Shader Designer in action.
Cipher also supports well known professional tools like 3ds max, allowing you to design your models and animations with the best tools available.
Licensed developers get access to Cipher's complete documentation.
Cipher's programmers manual that includes information on the API's used to talk to Cipher, as well as overviews of many core systems. You can see a sample of the API documents here.
Cipher also includes a comprehensive artist's manual that covers using the art tools, getting the most from cipher's shaders, and a lot of advice and ideas on building artwork appropriate for use in a game.
Support is available via the programmer's and artist's manuals and the discussion boards on this web site. The community of developers using Cipher do a great job of helping each other out, and the original developers of Cipher make every effort to visit the discussion boards as often as they can and help out as much as possible.
In addition to this, all Cipher developers are given access to the complete source code, allowing them to see exactly what is going on under the hood. This makes it possible for developers to add any features they need or change any existing feature to suit the needs of their game, without having to wait for new releases or updates.
Because Cipher is priced so competitively, we are unable to offer dedicated technical support via e-mail or phone to developers. Also, we can not promise to add features you request or to fix any bugs you report. If you require this level of technical support then I would recommend using one of the more expensive solutions.
Cipher has not been used in a shipping game at this point, though it has been used in two technology demos for leading graphics card manufactures and is being used in a number of non-commercial reseach projects. Cipher has also been used to prototype several titles.
If you release a game powered by Cipher, let us know so we can include a link.
Cipher can be used to create games in a wide variety of genres. It is ideal for producing action based games using either first or third person views. In the sceenshots and downloads pages you can see examples of a racing game and a first person shooter style technology demo. Multiplayer action games are also possible, though Cipher's networking technology is not really suitable for massively multiplayer games.
Cipher has also been used to developer underwater action games, mission based city driving games and even virtual reality systems.
In order to create games using Cipher, you will need programmers that are familiar with C or C++. Cipher itself is written in C, so C programming skills will be needed if you wish to extend or modify the core engine. Also, your programmers will need to write the code to control your games logic, such as the AI for your entities. Developers can use C or C++ for this part of the project.
In addition, you will need artists to create the models and environments for your game, and the textures. Cipher has built in support for 3dsmax, but if you want to use other 3D modeling tools you may need to develop your own tools to export models and textures from them.
When you place an order via this website for Cipher, you will receive a license key via email. This license key can then be used to activate your user account on the user profile page. When your account has been activated, you will be able to download Cipher's installer and source code. You will also be able to access Cipher's on-line documentation and developer articles.
Licensed developers will also be able to download updates and any new tools or features that are released.
Cipher costs 70 € euros and can be purchased on-line here. We can accept payments via secure servers using most popular forms of payment. Some payment methods incur a small additional processing fee. If you pay by credit card, you should receive your license key almost immediately (though you should allow up to 24 hours).
Important note: Customers in the European Union (EU) may be liable for VAT.
If you are interested in evaluating Cipher, there are some demos and movies that you can download to see what Cipher is capable of. The demos include Crazy Car Championship (a playable demo of a racing game) and Temple, a first person style technology demo. There are movies of the temple demo and a number of shader effects and animation demos.
In addition, there is a sample from the on-line documentation from the programmer's manual and artist's manual, to help give you an idea of the kind of documentation that is available for Cipher.
Some customers working on commercial projects have asked if it is possible to purchase dedicated or extended support for Cipher. However, we do not really have the resources or infrastructure to provide a service of this nature to the quality that would be required.
If dedicated technical support is a requirement for your project, there are many companies offering game engines with an appropriate level of support, for an appropriate increase in cost.
You will need Microsoft Visual C++ Version 6 or better in order to compile Cipher and develop your game code. Other compilers should also work, but Cipher has only been tested with MSVC and only MSVC project files are included.
On the art side, you will need a paint package such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro in order to edit create textures. You will also need a modeling tool to create the environments and models for your game. Cipher has support for Discreet's 3ds max. It is should be possible to use other modeling packages, but your programmers may need to develop appropriate exporters for these packages to get the models into Cipher format (the file format is documented in the programmer's manual).
You will also need appropriate tools for creating and editing any music and audio effects your game needs. Cipher can use regular windows style .wav files for all audio.
No, You will need to buy a license from IDV .
You can get more infomation here www.speedtree.com on SpeedTreeRT.
Yes, In the new update will there be support for SpeedTreeRT
You can get more infomation here www.speedtree.com on SpeedTreeRT.