I tried Cry Engine once, it didn’t go well to me!
I couldn’t import my own 3D model and when I looked up how to do that it was a whole different story!
Are you using CryBlend or the official /Maya exporter?
I am going dual ( CE + UE4) . Let me sumarise it for ya.
If you are not going to go “SERIOUS and BIG” basically you are not gunning for a a big game, CE is overkill for you. Stick with UE4for all kind of your indie needs.
I’ll be honest and people may get angry with me but… CryEngine doesn’t f…k around. It goes full “developer” on your **** and expects you to know how to code well already. Yes it has a great visual scripting system but that is not for creating whole games from scratch ( ın fact neither does Blueprint). You either go “Full Metal Jacket” or you don’t touch it at all.
On the other hand for most indie level games UE4 is ideal for only one great reason and it is not technical. It is the people. Community is just sweet and people will try to help you as long as you try to honestly go after your development work.
So here you go. Decide for yourself. Goodluck and Godspeed.
I Didn’t bother what exporter it used. If such simple process as Model importing is made to be so complex then it’s a clear headache to developers and especially 3D artists who heavily rely on constant importing. (I am not arguing about graphics in CE)
And its not even about importing models. CE itself feels limited to making First Person Shooters. I just opened it up and closed it.
But as TAN_ says it’s clearly made for heavy duty game developers, not for indies, despite the fact that its pricing model is clearly indie-friendly ($10/months with no royalties).
Yes, CryENGINE is very hard to use, and it is designed for “big” professionals teams. I asked information about CryENGINE on the MODO’s forum and one of the user told me that it’s very hard to import 3D model, and even if you use the official PhotoShop plugin for 2D textures, it “will turn your hair white”. LOL. The only thing I like of CryENGINE is the AI Faction System, but this can be written from scratch in C++ or Lua.
://docs.cryengine/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=13205553
Multithreaded physics is another good feature. And can also develop for consoles by using UE4, because of the full access to the source code. 
I went from Unity after finishing a project to CE3.
My first month on CE3 just ran out. Honestly - I quite liked it. It has a pretty steep learning curve, but once you get your head around it I found it quite powerful.
In regards to the post above about 2D Textures with the Photoshop plugin and importing of models - I dunno, I never really found that. The model import process can be a pain if you want collisions, since you need to add your proxies but other than that I found it was fine.
That being said though, I didn’t renew my subscription now that it has ran out. I’ve dabbled with Unreal in the past and I believe it’s powerful as all hell - I just bought a subscription and I’m going to make the switch.
I saw the same question asked on the CryEngine forums - it always seems as if it’s going to be a bias answer depending on what forum you’re on.
Overall, I feel CE3 is personalised for CryTek. EaaS is powerful, but as an indie/one man team it’s probably going to take a bit to get to know and actually bring about something decent.
Basically THIS is how much help you receive if you have a technical question in your game development process using CE.
So yes as TAN said it’s an engine only for those who already know everything about it, no offense but as you see even the mods there don’t have enough information about creating a good A.I.
You should see how much help i received when i asked for just “from A to B” pathfinding. Absolutely nothing, even if i had something that was inmensely close to the final result, but crashed. (yes, that thing you can do with a MoveTo() call in UE4)
Here is in my experience using the both powerful engine:
- Better graphics = CryEngine
- Easier to use = UnrealEngine
- Easier to run = UnrealEngine
I prefer UnrealEngine than CryEngine. CE isn’t much suitable for Indie, you must have unlimited money in your pocket 
even they are offering $9.9/mo subscription. And the documentation is really hard unless you obtain full source code with exclusive support directly
UE4 is cheaper, MUCH better supported, graphically comparable in 99% of cases, has superior prototyping speeds, and CryTek is going through way too much turmoil to safely make a long-term commitment to honestly.
I don’t have that much arguments against cryengine since I never used the new one.
But since I am using UE4 I don’t need to think outside the box. UE4 is simple to use, it has a nice documentation and a lot of starter content and videos. It’s kind of easy to create beautiful content and all the systems are powerful (My fav is the particle-system). Another argument is that the community and developers are nice and helpful.
Short story.
We were looking for a new engine to port our game to and was looking at different options, graphics not being a deal maker or breaker and when we made general inquires as to our needs the response usually was how much do we have in the budget. Worst yet would not even respond.
Epic was the only company to “phone” us back and asked how they could help us out with our needs.
The fact that they were interested in our game was the deal maker period.
I guess you’ve already made your choice but I’ll just give my two cents here for anybody else who would have the same questions.
Firstly, asking on UE4 forums would give you a pretty biased answer but to be completely fair there is a reason we are on this forum and that is personal preference. Its the same thing with people who’d prefer coke over pepsi and so on. But moving on to technical details. I’ve previously used Unity and CryEngine 3. While not completely pro at them I always ended up giving up half way through a personal project never to touch it or return to the engines again. And there is quite the explanation for that. For starters, it would be:
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Tutorials: Even if you ignore the fact that UE4 is relatively new when compared to the other two engines mentioned, there’s an INSANE AMOUNT of tutorials available online. And literally 85% of them would be free tutorials offered on YouTube or on the forums.
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Community: I have no words to describe how helpful the community of UE4 is. Even if you asked the most retardedly noobish question that has been asked a million times. You will never ever get the usual “use the search” or your usual trolls harassing you. Everyone’s EXTREMELY friendly and more than willing to help you out provided you have the dedication. Everyone here is ready to help you no matter what. All you need to do is ask.
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Features: UE4 is packed with an endless amount of features that ranging from solo or indie all the way to AAA companies can use. And given everything INCLUDING THE COMPLETE SOURCE CODE, I don’t think anything beats that. Agreed that CE3 offers you the “complete source code”, but trust me. I’ve worked with an indie studio developing in CE3, and the amount of work it takes to get a particular task done in CE, UE4 does it three times faster, you just have to learn how to.
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Updates/Upgrades: In UE4 an update is actually “AN UPDATE”, it is not the same previous engine with just a few bug fixes. Besides that it comes with a whole new variety of features which make it a legit step up from the previous version which is pretty “Epic ;)” that the devs work constantly to keep producing a better and better software for their users.
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Marketplace: Granted that Unity might have a bigger marketplace, but UE4 is growing too and do not forget that its relatively new, besides all the major asset devs from unity like Manufactura and such are now expanding to UE4 to, so it won’t be long before we’re out there as well.
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Blueprints: BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS BLUEPRINTS. An artist? Coding? Pfft you’ve got to be kidding me?! No I’m not. All you need is to learn what the particular functions do. Learn the differences between variables and constant and all the flibbery floo flaa of blueprints and believe it or not you could quite possibly make a game from start to finish without even a single word of code.
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Graphics: UE4 certainly beats unity out of the way and comes pretty close to CryEngine. It might take a bit longer but man do the results look good. I strongly urge you to check out kooolala or whatever’s youtube channel. Or even the virtual paris tour on youtube.
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Indie Friendly: UE4 is much more indie friendly as opposed to cryEngine. And specially for prototyping purposes you could have a game ready in no time. Also, their royalty package seems pretty reasonable to me as well so I don’t think its arguable at all.
I know this is pretty biased but this is all from my point of view. And I could be wrong but as I mentioned earlier its all preference in the end of it. Hope I could help.
Cheers. 
VeerWolf pretty much covered everything … I come from a Unity and Torque 3D realm and actually having my game (Re-Spawn) in closed Alpha on Torque 3D … the choice to move to UE4 was one that was not taking lightly.
If it wasn’t for the ease of use and steady learning curve of UE4 … I would not be at the stage where I am with the conversion of Re-Spawn to UE4.
But as mentioned … it is all personal preference and I am not hitting out at the other engines … UE4 has been able to do everything I need it to do, the pipeline works for me, and I am having a ton of fun using it.
Good luck with your choice. 8-}
I feel you , conversion can be quite the step. A pretty daring one, let alone painful. Here’s an amazing blog post that satisfies all those with questions from Unity to UE4 and I’m sure it would benefit a lot of those who have these questions or have to make the move.
://martiancraft/blog/2014/08/an-unreal-decision/
I wish you all the best with your project mate!
Cheers.
Yeah I guess that is the real source of problem with. CryEngine. Not the software but the company.
Among many nonsensical decisions they made please don’t forget that EaaS is a “service” meaning they may decide to “terminate their service” let’s just say… next month. What to do then ???
Also if you really feel unable to decide wait for GDC this March. Crytek will play their final card, the 3.7 which they claimed every branch of the engine will combine and from AAA developers to like us will use the same engine branch.
If that still doesn’t satisfy you just o along with UE4.
CryTek is losing veterans whose were there for more than 8 years working for them.
They are losing even high profile management staff and every month more and more jump off ship.
Also ex-Crytek employee says that their engine as a service is a big failure as well, almost no indie devs are using it…
They are in such a situation where their most creative studio had to be sold out. (Don’t hold your breath for another Crysis game).
Juniors are getting hired there (to work on mobile F2P) no senior developers have faith in CryTek anymore, I bet they are pretty much ‘done’ with AAA development unless some miracle drops in their hands.
Something else I came across.
://www.cryengine/community/viewtopic.php?f=355&t=123647
Seems if you end your subscription to Cry you loss access to the engine. UE4 you can un-Sub and still have engine access?
Come to think about it if this is this case UE4 wins again as in you only need to pay for what you need and not locked into a subscription from concept to completion.
Personal opinion though I think Epic is more interested in getting their engine out to people who will use it and not something that can someone can download for free as a twitch.
Why do you think Crytek would allow any official PR about that?! Of course I have no links…
They won’t even admit to the press that those rumors about not paying their employees were true. I’m saying what I know from the insiders.
Those were rumors, from few months back, and frankly they were mostly true.
High profile developers, left Crytek (like Tiago Sousa, who was responsible for graphical advancements in engine), and UK studio has been completely dump down.
Unfortunety Crytek is victim of poor managment, bad decisions, and over extending resources, over many area, which they didn’t had any idea what to do.
Crytek was synonym for high end real time rendering tech. That was what they were good at, and they should stick to it.
On personal note since, Martin Mittring (yay!), went to work for Epic, we really haven’t seen any spectacular advancements in CryEngine, after CryEngine 2. CryEngine 2 was just piece of art, and still hold strong.
If anything it kind of went backwards. From the mantra of all time real time to, to somewhat realtime (static light capture probes for example).
Yes, Crysis 3 look awesome, and latest CryEngine definitely can render higher quality/faster compared to CE2. It’s just not this… “omg I cant believe what I see!” thing.