Crystal Tools
Crystal Tools is a proprietary engine built for Square Enix's seventh-generation games,
supporting the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, andMicrosoft Windows platforms.Crystal Tools, formerly known as White Engine, was constructed to develop games for the next generation consoles PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. Final Fantasy XIII was developed on the Crystal Tools engine since the production moved on PlayStation 3.
Crystal Tools handles standard features like advanced audio processing, cinematic cutscene transition, physics effects calculations, and special effects rendering. There are plugins to allow Crystal Tools to work with Photoshop, XSi (3D software), and Maya (3D software). All of these programs are industry standard.
Version 1.0 ,Verson 1.1 and later versions are available.
Problems
While Final Fantasy XIII was in production, the development of Crystal Tools caused significant problems and delays. The programmers spent much time on taking all the demands by the game staff into account as they tried to adapt the engine to the needs of several projects. The virtual impossibility of doing so and the debates caused by this prevented the engine's specifications from being finalized. Furthermore, as separate groups were working on the individual tools of the engine, there was no comprehensive software documentation to ensure usability and compliance.
The Final Fantasy XIII team had no choice but to begin creating assets to keep to the game's production schedule, but the lack of specifications resulted in them being incompatible with the engine. In the end, it was decided that Final Fantasy XIII was to be the principal focus of Crystal Tools and the game's team began cooperating with the Research and Development Division more closely to receive the required tools and specifications. Murata said that Square Enix might license the engine out to other companies at some point in the future, although the limited documentation and the impracticality of supporting licensees posed great problems in doing so.
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