Crystal Tools
| Developer(s) | Square Enix |
|---|---|
| Initial release | September 2007 |
| Platform | PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Wii |
| Type | Game engine |
| License | Proprietary |
Crystal Tools is a game engine created and used internally by the Japanese company Square Enix. It combines standard libraries for elements such as graphics, sound and artificial intelligence while providing game developers with various authoring tools. The target systems of Crystal Tools are the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and the Wii. This was decided with the intention of making cross-platform production more feasible. The idea for the engine sprang from Square Enix's desire to have a unified game development environment in order to effectively share the technology and know-how of the company's individual teams.
Crystal Tools entered development in August 2005 under the code name White Engine. It was intended for the then PlayStation 3-exclusive role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII. The decision to expand Crystal Tools' compatibility to other game projects and systems marked the official project start for a company-wide engine. Development was carried out by the Research and Development Division headed by Taku Murata, which was specifically established for this purpose. As Square Enix's biggest project to date, the creation of Crystal Tools caused substantial problems in the simultaneous production of several flagship titles; various critics cited the engine as the primary cause of significant delays in the release of Final Fantasy XIII.
Crystal Tools is a unified game engine by Japanese developer and publisher Square Enix that combines standard libraries for graphics rendering, physics processing, motion control, cinematics, visual effects, sound, artificial intelligence and networking. Its target systems are the PlayStation 3 (PS3), the Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and the Wii. On the development side, the engine takes the form of various authoring tools focused on large-scale game projects. It encompasses a character viewer for 3D models, an effects and a cutscene editor, a previsualization tool, and a sound maker. Usage of the third-party programs Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Softimage and Adobe Photoshop is supported via plug-ins. The individual authoring tools are connected over a communications server called GRAPE2 which reads all the different data formats, processes them and gives an instant preview of the final game. The engine is highly customizable and can be expanded with new functions and tools should the need for them arise. Although Crystal Tools allows for easier cross-platform development, the differences in the target systems' video memory and processor architecture still necessitate fine-tuning adjustments in the games, for example concerning texture sizes.
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