New Alternativa3D tutorials were published on wiki:

•  Alternativa3D 8 for Dummies. Part I
•  Alternativa3D 8 for Dummies. Part II
•  Alternativa3D 8 for Dummies. Part III

These tutorials were made for newbies. They teach you how to create simple projects on AS3 using Alternativa3D 8.

Also, two tutorials about connecting Alternativa3D ( version 7 and 8 ) to the best knowns IDEs were published on wiki:

• Getting started with Alternativa3D 7
• Getting started with Alternativa3D 8

To your attention we introduce the new public engine build Alternativa3D 8.12.0 which supports the Flash Player 11 Beta 2. So this version of the engine is completely compatible with the latest Flash Player build at the present moment. We have also accelerated the mouse events system and added the orthographic mode to the camera.

Complete list of changes

•   The public version Flash Player 11 Beta 2 is now supported.
•   The orthographic mode has been added to the Camera3D.
•   The MouseEvent system has been optimized and accelerated.
•   Logo “AlternativaPlatform” has been updated.
•   Now when objects are added and removed from the parent, the event will be sent (Event3D.ADDED, Event3D.REMOVED).
•   The ability to change the property renderToBitmap into View after creating has been added.
•   The height and width of the View has been limited to the minimum size of 50×50.
•   Bug in mouse events system when used skins divided on surfaces by divide() was fixed.
•   A bug has been fixed in Decal.
•   Skin lighting algorithm changed to more precise one.
•   ParserCollada: Fixed a bug when binormal vector of the vertices of the object was incorrectly parsed.
•   The value of backgroundAlpha in the View constructor changed to 1.0 by default.
•   VertexLightTextureMaterial now draws correctly without lights in scene.
•   MouseEvent3D was moved from alternativa.engine3d.core to alternativa.engine3d.core.events.
•   A bug has been fixed in Object3D.dispatchEvent().
•   The offset property has been added to the constructor Decal and it is compulsory.
•   Now the offset property can be copied using the clone () method of class Decal.
•   The ratio property has been removed from View class.
•   VertexLightTextureMaterial now can be used with skin with the maximum number of bones in surface no more than 33.

Download Alternativa3D 8.12.0.

We have added new 3DS Max plugins, including one for 2011 edition, at 3D-engine section of AlternativaPlatform official site.

Changes and additions
- We realized 3DS Max 2011 support.
- We added export tangents for first uv-channel option to A3D export plugin.
- specularColor slot is now used for specular map export to A3D. If there is not texture in specularColor slot, then specularLevel slot is used.
- Error with boundbox export in A3D export plugin was fixed.

Download 3DS Max 2010 plugin

Download 3DS Max 2011 plugin

Finally, we have updated versions of Alternativa3D 7 and Alternativa3D 8 engines. We have added EllipsoidCollider class for continuous collision detection, upgraded materials API and fixed a few bugs. Please, check full change list below. Also, snatching at a chance, we’d like to inform you, that new tutorials are available at http://wiki.alternativaplatform.com.

Alternativa3D 8.8.0

- TextureMaterial, VertexLightMaterial, LightmapMaterial now supports the map-transparency and alpha property.
- Added EllipsoidCollider class for continuous collision detection.
- Added Decal class for detalization of texture on models.
- WireFrame class was added.
- New class SkyBox was added.
- StandardMaterial supports Object-space normal maps now.
- StandardMaterial supports glossiness maps now.
- Property alwaysOnTop was added in the Sprite.
- clone() method was added to Skin.
- concatenatedMatrix property was added in Object3D.
- Primitive Box contains vertex tangents now.
- ParserA3D: glossiness and opacity maps are supported now.
- Parsing of Skin with animation from collada was fixed.
- ParserCollada: a bug, when model without vertex normals parsed, was fixed.
- Lighting in StandartMaterial, VertexLightMaterial, when models have non-identity scale, was fixed.
- View can be any size now without throwing exceptions.
- Mouse events work properly now after creating the View with zero width or height.
- Bug with culling of scaled objects in camera frustum was fixed.
- A bug in dispose() method of Geometry class was fixed.
- DirectionalLight: bug with wrong light direction after parsing from Collada was fixed.
- ParserA3D: bug with wrong textures assignment was fixed.
- ParserA3D: vertex tangents are supported now.
- ParserA3D: bug, when Geometry methods worked incorrectly on a parsed model, was fixed.
- FileTextureResource: after a repeated call to upload() the resource is not destroyed now.
- FileTextureResource: you can get and set the texture data now.
- FileTextureResource renamed to ExternalTextureResource.
- ColladaMaterial renamed to ParserMaterial.
- Surface: owner property renamed to object.
- Geometry: findVertexBufferByAttribute renamed to findVertexStreamByAttribute.
- Sprite3D: StandartMaterial and VertexLightMaterial are not supported with it now.
- Fillmaterial: the color property has uint type now.

Download Alternativa3D 8.8.0.

Alternativa3D 7.8.0

- Bug with the splitter in BspContainer was fixed.
- 3D symbols are added to the values of the static constants of class MouseEvent3D.
- Bug with the work of a parser Collada in player 10.0.32 was fixed.
- AverageLightMaterial: we added special property to set influence of shading based on angle between light source and camera direction.

Download Alternativa3D 7.8.0.

At the E3 2011 conference in LA we used two interactive Tanki Online 2.0 showcases to demonstrate possibilities of Alternativa3D technology. These showcases are build on Alternativa3D 8 engine with Molehill 3D API support. They show the level of graphics in browser-based projects and social network applications which is reachable already today.

Now everybody can check these demos himself. Meet “Tanki Online 2.0 — Arena” and “Tanki Online 2.0 — Crash”.
NB: don’t forget to download beta-version of Flash Player 11.

Tanki Online 2.0 — Arena (56 MB)

Tanki Online 2.0 — Crash (137 MB)

An early build of Alternativa3D 8 engine with Molehill 3D API support for Flash Player 11 is ready. Technology utilizes the GPU for rendering, increasing performance and picture quality.

With the CPU free of carrying any of the load for graphic rendering, its power can be put to use elsewhere. For example, it can process physics models in 3D games. Meanwhile, the GPU increases the maximum amount of polygons to several millions and expands the number of available effects. Shadows, particle effects, photorealistic lighting, post-effects – all of these become possible right in browsers and social networks.

We also recognize that it will be important to transfer projects based on the Alternativa3D 7 to an Alternativa3D 8 environment. And we will provide a tutorial to explain how to do this. You can also develop a project for both versions of Alternativa3D simultaneously. So, you can be ready for Molehill 3D API final release even launching your project today. We use this strategy in Tanki Online 2.0 development.

Some of the engine’s features can be demonstrated right now in the interactive showcases. Adobe Flash Player 11 is required!

Character animation demo
Model consists of 52 bones and has up to eight influences of the bones on each vertex.

Point sprites demonstration

You can obtain and try out the new technology for yourself by downloading the archive with swc-library from alternativaplatform.com.

Alternativa 3D 8 main features

High performance
GPU rendering. Allows the display of about 3 millions of polygons.

Lighting system
Point, directional and spot light sources. Efficient hierarchical culling of unlit objects. Each object can be lighted by six light sources simultaneously.

Advanced materials
Allows the use of fully dynamic lighting with normal map, specular map, glossy map, or more lightweight materials - with baked light.

Character drawing
The powerful hierarchic animation blending system. Character models of any complexity without bone quantity limit.

Transparent objects
Sorting and proper display of transparent objects

3D Sprites
Point objects always facing the camera.

Interactivity
Uses mouse events similar to those used in Flash. The system takes into account hierarchy and options of containers. Optimized to work with high-poly models.

Optimized textures for the GPU
The support of compressed texture format ATF (Adobe Texture Format) reduces the amount of video memory in use. It is especially important for mobile devices.

High capacity data format
Special binary format reduces the amount of data required for sending over the network, and speeds up scene loading in the engine. You can export models to this format right from 3DS Max, using special plug-in.

Alternativa3D engine becomes more and more popular among MMO browser-based games developers and publishers. For example, Mail.Ru company chose Alternativa3D 7 as a core technology for MMO project Territory 2. Mail.Ru is one of the biggest online game publishers in Russia.

Our technology is ready to work with 3D models and skeletal animation and it shows good performance. Alexander Yenin, producer of Territory 2, marked all these advantages as a reason to choose Alternativa3D 7 among other engines. By the way, we are always ready for partnership and already successfully cooperate with several game studios.

Finally, we have finished another one interactive showcase, based on Alternativa3D 8 engine with Molehill 3D API support for Flash Player 11. It is Metro 2033 Online. The demo shows skeletal animation and normal map lighting. It also gives sage advice to avoid walking in the Moscow subway, because who knows what might await you there?

Metro 2033 Online is a full scale browser-based MMO-game based on the novel by famed Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky. It is a joint project from Open Games and AlternativaPlatform.

We have been dreaming about dynamic lighting in Alternativa3D for a long time, but different reasons have been distracting us from realizing this feature. Most of all we were afraid that lighting system in the engine’s architecture would decrease general performance.

And finally we’ve found effective solution! Now we have dynamic lighting in Alternativa3D. Also we made some upgrades and fixed a few bugs. You can download Alternativa3D 7.7.0 from the official site.

Changelog:

• Added light source classes: AmbientLight, DirectionalLight, OmniLight, SpotLight.
• Added materials with lighting support: VertexLightMaterial, FlatShadingMaterial, AverageLightMaterial, NormalMapMaterial.
• Added environmental reflection material: SphericalEnvironmentMaterial.
• Vertex: added properties normalX, normalY and normalZ.
• Mesh: added methods calculateVerticesNormals(). Method calculateNormals() has been renamed to calculateFacesNormals().
• Added light source debugging.
• Added method clone() for materials.
• Camera3D: added lookAt() method.
• RayIntersectionData: added toString() method.
• AnimationCouple: the type of left and right properties has been changed to AnimationNode.
• ParserCollada: added light source parsing support.
• Sprite3D: fixed bug in intersectRay() method.
• Skin: fixed bugs in methods clone() and attach().
• KDContainer: fixed tree building bug.

On Sunday, February 27, Adobe provided general access to the beta-version of Molehill 3D API and Flash Player 11. Molehill uses GPU for rendering, allowing developers to achieve modern graphics in browser applications. You can download public builds, documentation, and Flex SDK from AIR and Flash Player Incubator on labs.adobe.com.

But to see the true value of these new technologies you need showcases. We present MAX Racer demo, built on proprietory Alternativa3D 8 graphics engine. First the video of this showcase was shown at Adobe MAX 2010.

MAX Racer is a racing prototype set near Los Angeles Convention Center. The player controls a sports car with the keyboard, steering wheel, joystick, or gamepad. Another demo of Molehill, built on Alternativa3D 8, soon will be available in the Showcase section at alternativaplatform.com. It is Ostrova Online. Both mentioned projects show great potential of Molehill 3D API.

A beta version of the engine will go public in April 2011. Third-party developers can use Alternativa 3D 8 free of charge, but are required to put in a link to alternativaplatform.com.

Read more in press-release.