In the real sea state, the differences in directions of component waves result in three-dimensional short-crested waves, which have many different characteristics compared to two-dimensional long-crested waves. Therefore, in present study, the whole generation and evolution processes of short-crested freak waves are experimentally simulated by dispersive and directional focusing of component waves, in order to examine the external features and relationship of the abnormal large waves occurring during the processes. The results indicate that the abnormal large wave evolves symmetrically along the peak wave direction and undergoes a three- or four-stage process, each stage is indicated by the characteristic parameters of the abnormal large wave, it implies that the characteristic parameters can be used to identify the stage which the large abnormal wave is in and predict the variation tendency; and that compared to the two-dimensional cases, the “wave group” and “deep trough” stages are likely to be skipped, as a result, the spatio-temporal spans of the generation and evolution processes are smaller for the three-dimensional cases, it implies that in three-dimensional wave fields, the deep troughs and successive large waves (wave group) associated with freak waves may have a low probability of occurrence.