Blue Mars (video game)

Blue Mars
Developer(s)	Avatar Reality
Designer(s)	Kaz Hashimoto
Engine	CryEngine 2
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, iOS
Release	September 2, 2009 (open beta)
Genre(s)	Virtual world, MMOG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Blue Mars is a 3D massively multiplayer virtual world platform currently in open beta. The platform, being developed by Hawaii-based Avatar Reality, allows 3rd parties to create virtual worlds, MMOG games, simulations, shops, businesses, entertainment venues, clothing, custom avatars, furniture, virtual homes, and other items. It consists of four main parts: the client software, the Sandbox Editor SDK suite, the website, and the host servers. It is often compared to Second Life, since both are virtual social worlds allowing user-created content. According to Jim Sink, CEO of Avatar Reality, "Blue Mars was inspired by a vision of the future when the power to terraform whole worlds is within our grasp. The name Blue Mars represents possibility and hope."

The editor suite is a free download after upgrading to a developer account. It currently consists of nine editors with specialized purposes (Animation, Block, Body, City, Cloth, Furniture, Interior, Item, and Shop), a developer version of the client software for testing, and reference and sample data.

Both the client software and Editor suite utilize the CryEngine 2 rendering engine originally developed by Crytek. The video game Crysis also runs on CryEngine 2. The graphics engine is being modified by Avatar Reality, and features not part of a combat game but needed for a virtual world are being added. Content can be created on many 3rd party 3D and graphics programs so long as they can output a COLLADA interchange file format 3D model or TIFF or Direct Draw Surface image formats. They are then converted to CryEngine native .cgf and .dds formats as needed via the provided development tools

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