Overview
The Crystals Tools engine is a game engine built by Square Enix. It is targeted at Xbox 360, Playstation 3,PC, and Wii. It was originally called the White Engine. The name change was revealed at the Game Developer's Conference in 2008.
The development team requested extensive use of character close-ups and stylized expressions. Visuals are of the upmost importance for Square Enix. Murata commented “when you look at the screen, it should look cool, or you should feel good.”
History
In 2004, the company wanted a common 3D data format to work on. This decision occurred as hardware manufacturers started offering new details on the current generation of hardware. Square's Research and Development Division was established on September 2006, when they announced the White Engine.
It reached version 1.0 in September 2007.
The original release of Final Fantasy XIV used the Crystal Tools engine, but it was dropped in favour of a custom engine with “some similarities” for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn producer/director Naoki Yoshida cited Crystal Tools’ design as fundamentally at odds with the technical requirements of a large-scale MMO, and blamed the engine for the technical difficulties of the game’s now-abandoned original release.
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