Past weekend, while we were celebrating upcoming New Year, something big happened in Tanki Online. The amount of registered users passed the mark in 1 000 000! Boyko_yaroslav became the millionth player so he gets a little present from us — flask and T-shirt with Tanki Online emblem.
Now we have more players than people in Montenegro in off-season and even more than amount of visible stars in the sky. And if every registered player gives us one dollar, we could by Ferrari!
Of course, we have not Ferrari yet, but we do have huge and rapidly growing united community with its own forum newspaper and rich interesting life. We congratulate all tankmen with our common success.
First weekend of December we’ll spend in Kyiv, Ukraine. We are going to taste bacon and dumplings (just’ve learned dumplings are not Ukrainian dish…) and to visit international FlashGAMM! conference. It will take place at 4th and the 5th of December in the 3rd pavilion of KyivExpoPlaza Exhibition Center.
Anton Volkov will read his «Digging into Molehill» session about new 3D API Molehill for the next Flash player. He will also demonstrate our progress in developing of Alternativa3D 8 engine with Molehill support. FlashGAMM! visitors will get an exciting opportunity to play MAX Racer. This racing mini-game was used by Adobe’s Molehill presentation at Adobe MAX 2010.
Andrey Kopysov, Vladimir Babushkin and Olga Danilova will teach a master class about Alternativa3D 7. This will help developers to know more about already existing Flash 3D technology. By the way, Alternativa3D 7 is free for any projects.
Because of Adobe MAX cares we almost forgot to share another one good news with you. But better late, than never! AlternativaPlatform once again (third time in a row) got «Technical achievements» award at Russian Flash Awards ceremony. Jury highly appraised our latest efforts in development of Alternativa3D technology intended for visualization of 3D graphics in Flash environment. At the alternativaplatform.com you can get Alternativa3D 7 engine for free and watch videos of applications based on Alternativa3D 8.
As you know, Anton Volkov and me were absent since the 20th to the 30th of October. We spent these days in LA, visiting AdobeMAX conference. And now we’d like to share some details about our trip.
We had three main aims. The first — to know personally Adobe leads. The second — to present our report about 3D API «Molehill» for next Flash player. This API was officially announced at Adobe MAX General Session at the 25th of October. Finally, the third aim was to demonstrate our projects and technologies at the booth in Community Pavilion. And we can proudly declare that we have done everything we wanted to and came back home with lots of new interesting ideas and contacts.
Adobe MAX conference is over and now we can absolutely legally disclose some detailes about Alternativa3D 8 engine with new Flash player support. Due to Molehill 3D API with hardware 3D acceleration support in new Flash player, Alternativa 3D 8 will draw more than 3 millions of polygons with high performance. And due to vertex and pixel shaders support it is possible to use modern special effects like lighting, shadows, particle system, posteffects etc. To simplify development of applications engine will be complemented with handle tools for designers. Finally, API of A3D 7 and A3D 8 will be maximally similar to provide smooth porting from 7 to 8.
Possibilities of new technology were shown during first time presentation of new Flash player at the Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles on the 25th of October. Showcase called MAX Racer was created specially for this event. It is a racing game where player drives sport car near Los Angeles Convention Center controlling it with keyboard, steering wheel, joystick or gamepad. Application is intended for several players but uses peer-2-peer connection instead of server.
You can watch video from MAX Racer at the alternativaplatform.com in Showcase section. Application demonstrates such A3D 8 features as high speed drawing (hundreds of thousands of polygons with 60 FPS), advanced shaders (reflections on the car body and buildings) and realistic physics. There are also anti-aliasing combined with semi-transparent objects and light maps for realistic lighting.
Two browser-based online games built on Alternativa3D 8 are already in development. The first is an in-house real-time sci-fi action-RPG Ostrova Online. The second is postapocalyptic turn-based MMORPG Metro 2033 Online which is developed by Open Games. AlternativaPlatform acts as a technical partner, providing 3D-engine, server side and technical support.
Videos from both projects can be watched at alternativaplatform.com. Also you can find free version of Alternativa3D 7 engine there. A3D 7 is used in a commercially successful browser-based 3D shooter Tanki Online. There are a lot of 3D-sites and applications built on it, including Toyota and Volkswagen promotional projects.
Everybody can get and use Alternativa3D 7 absolutely free. The latest, improved and enhanced version of the engine can be downloaded with no charge. It is just necessary to place the link to AlternativaPlatform company in case of using engine in some projects. Today Alternativa3D 7 is one of the most advanced solutions for realizing 3D in the browser.
Main flasher’s event of the year - Adobe MAX - is in full swing. Just minutes ago Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch finished his presentation “Welcome to the Revolution” during General Session of the conference. For the first time Adobe showed new Flash player, using application MAX Racer by Russian company AlternativaPlatform to present it. Four years of hard work on Alternativa 3D engine were not in vain.
One of the main parts of new Flash-player is a set of 3D APIs codenamed Molehill. It drastically changes Flash scene due to the hardware 3D support. There are months before final release of the player, but Alternativa already works on Alternativa 3D 8 based on it. MAX Racer showcase built on A3D 8 by Alternativa with the help of American studio Mythos Labs took central place during General Session.
This showcase impressed the crowd! Imagine graphics like in a modern racing game with reflections, realistic lighting, hundreds of thousands of polygons with 60 FPS, close to real physics… And all of these right in the browser!
Although, MAX Racer is only the beginning. Alternativa now works on two browser games based on A3D 8 engine. Videos on these games are demonstrated at the company’s booth in Los Angeles Convention Center. Alternativa CTO Anton Volkov will provide in-detail look at A3D 8 engine and new Flash player abilities in the report during Adobe MAX on the 27th of October.
If you could not attend Adobe MAX personally, you still can watch its most spectacular part — General Session. There Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch will show abilities of new Flash player. And there is a big chance you’ll be amazed. :-)
You can visit General Session through online translation. Please, read, where and how watch it.
First, Alternativa 3D 7 is free now. Anyone can use it in his own project without any charges. However, in case the technology is used in commercial project it is necessary to place the link to its developer — Alternativa company. Check out technical features of the engine at the restyled version of Alternativaplatform.com.
Second, Alternativa works on Alternativa 3D 8 engine based on new Flash player with the next generation 3D API’s. It’s all what is possible to say about it before Adobe MAX. Till new Flash player is in a work-in-progress stage and barely be ready earlier then in a year we offer to use A3D 7. More than likely it’ll be possible to port projects based on the seventh version to A3D 8.
Third, Alternativa already prepares its own project on A3D 8 and participates as a technical partner in another one project based on A3D 8.
And, finally, fourth, Alternativa prepares presentation at Adobe MAX this year. We have a booth and sponsorship like IBM and Freescale, for example. You can check out our reports at MAX on the 27th of October. We’ll start at 5:00 pm in area 515B (registration).
According to establishing tradition, we’re taking our chance to party with Adobe and to read an interesting session in English. This year we have only one Adobe MAX in L.A., 23-27 of October.
Volkov and Karpovich will read a session about next Flash player, toghether with Rob Bateman from Away3D, and will show some working applications. Zykov will welcome bosses of different companies at our cozy exibitor stand in convention center.
We, team of developers of Tanki Online, are proud of our game and we hope that it is something more than just a good flash-site so it got to be marked high at Favourite Website Awards. If you agree with our opinion, we ask you to vote for Tanki Online here: thefwa.com/submissions/tanki-online.
