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)

We’ve become a frequent visitor to the US. The star trio of Volkov, Zykov and Karpovich departed to the E3 2011 conference in June, while earlier our programmer Mikhail Okunev visited Orlando. Misha, acting as coach, and his team participated in the final tour of the international programming tournament among students at ACM ICPC.

About 8,000 teams had registered for the first tour of ACM ICPC, but only 100 made it to the World Finals. The Perm State University team of Pavel Ponomarev, Dmitry Sergeev, Andrey Serovikov and coach Mikhail Okunev took 27th place! Our guys left in the dust some pretty serious competition, including Princeton University, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich and many others.

Participation in the World Finals required a deep knowledge in combinatorics, graph theory, probability theory, complexity, computational string theory, number theory, etc. Check out a couple of these tasks to get a feel for what we’re talking about.

1) You have a polygon with N vertices. Your task is to compute the smallest hole width through which a given polygon can pass. N <=100.

2) There are N mummies on the infinite grid. Each mummy tries to get a human and every turn will take one step in that human’s direction. Your placement and the placement of all the mummies are known. Create a program, which could calculate how long it takes for the mummies to reach the human. N <=100,000. The time limit for the program execution is about 2 seconds and straightforward simulation won’t count as a solution.

Of course we don’t want to lose out on such promising young programmers who can with ease solve difficult tasks. So Pavel Ponomarev will soon join our team. He will develop AlternativaPhysics technology together with Mikhail Okunev.

While we are preparing report about our business trip to E3, we offer you to vote for Alternativa3D at E3 Bright Idea Awards.

Since June 7 till June 9 Alex Karpovich, Anton Volkov and Ivan Zykov will be defending pride and honor of AlternativaPlatform at E3 2011 conference in L.A. This time event is held in B2B format. At the conference we will represent Alternativa3D 8 engine, using browser-based MMO 3D-action Tanki Online 2.0 to demonstrate all the benefits of the technology. You can visit booth #2647 at South Hall to see everything with your eyes.

We are back from KRI 2011 conference. The summary of our trip is the Best Technology of KRI 2011 award for Alternativa3D 8 engine. Dynamic lighting, shadows and high-poly models in Flash Player were appreciated.

Best Technology of KRI 2011 award in the hands of engine programmer Vladimir Babushkin

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.

Want to stay informed and stay up-to-date on all the latest info concerning Alternativa3D? Check out wiki.alternativaplatform.com. It’s open and anyone can be an editor.

The site already contains plenty of useful articles for developers, designers and modelers. But what we really want is your help in creating the most complete resource for everything Alternativa 3D. We are counting on you. At the wiki you can add new details to published articles or create new ones yourself. We need assistance translating wiki articles into different languages and would appreciate any help you can offer. If you want to learn how to manage our wiki, check out this article (currently only in Russian).

And remember you can always discuss the wiki on the forum.