Concept of flowgraphs
For years, writing code has been the primary, if not the exclusive method of creating behaviors and logic for games. Let's take the example of a level designer, building a combat section for the latest title.
Traditionally, the said designer would have to ask a programmer to create the logic for this scenario. This has several problems:
- It creates a disconnect between the design and the implementation
- Programmers are forced into spending time which is really a designer's job
- The designer has no immediate feedback on how his/her section plays out
This is the problem that CryENGINE's flowgraph, often referred to as FG, solves. It provides a set of flownodes, best thought of as convenient Lego blocks of logic, which the designer can utilize to piece together entire scenarios. No more requests to the game code team; designers can go ahead and realize their ideas instantly! We'll discuss creating the nodes themselves in more detail later, but for now, let's take a look at some simple flowgraphs, so you can take your first steps into CryENGINE game logic!