Update preview: In preparation for the release of the new remaster maps I have started work on supporting them properly, alternativa added a new quirk to the format that made the current version of the plugin unable to load the maps correctly, the work in progress updated version of the plugin is available in the mapmodelsa3dfix branch on github. Oh and I forgot to post an update post about how I added A3D export support so you can export custom models in a3d format for whatever reason (abit rough but it works).

Quick blender render of the upcoming cross remaster without textures.

The devs have completely ported the game to the Unity engine already, it is the version used by the Nintendo Switch iirc. All new content for the game is already made in unity and then just ported over to their custom html5 engine, a good example of this is the Remaster maps and the fairly recent particle effects which are all exported from unity. I can't remember where this was said (either in hazel interview or vlog) but the Unity port is to help put the game onto console platforms (as we have seen with the Nintendo release), but we have seen the Unity client running side by side with the html5 version on PC in one of the vlogs. Regardless the main platforms (PC and mobile) both still use html5 under the hood, even the downloadable client is still html5 (it is just a browser that only runs tanki), but the mobile client didn't used to use the HTML5 version and used to be a proper app before they switched in version 2.00 (this was also covered in vlog). I have seen some people mention Tanki X but Tanki Online has already benefitted from Unity behind the scenes: like the new particle effects and Remaster maps that were created in Unity. We already have some Tanki X assets that have been recycled or ported into Tanki Online (Twins + Mammoth sp, supply sound effects, one Tanki X prop exists in the Remaster maps) and I think we'll possibly see more content from Tanki X come into Tanki Online in the future. In my opinion HTML5 doesn't necessarily limit the performance or quality of the game but it is certainly harder to use than something like unity and has more room to go wrong, but you have to remember that Alternativa Games has successfully been using and developing their own custom engine since 2009 so they have definitely learnt at least a few things since then. Unity can also be deployed to HTML5+webgl but I have limited experience with it personally (iirc you are limited to more of a mobile-like feature set compares to standalone PC builds) but the Unity client has only recently been released to the public on switch and so is probably not ready for this yet even if they would consider it.

Update: With the release of Parma Remaster I have uploaded the files to github (map, prop library) and updated the plugin to fix an issue with the new prop library. Features: No new features. Other changes: Fixed bug where the plugin expected the library.json props to contain a "sprite" member, this worked for Remaster and NY2024 remaster but Parma Remaster seems to just exclude it when there is no sprite Notes: Unlike the other Remaster prop libraries, the Parma library doesn't include any textures (they are not stored on the server), the game stores all the prop textures in the map's atlas files but the plugin doesn't support loading map atlases yet (I will update the plugin later this week to support this) so the map will have completely black materials with no textures applied for now. Showcase:

Update: I have finally merged support for loading map.bin into main, it is complete enough to load most map files without issues, it supports both legacy (non hd) and remaster maps however remaster maps give better results (non hd maps have some prop issues on some maps and I have disabled sprite loading). Features: Import data from BattleMap bin files: visual geometry, collision geometry, spawn points and material data Import lightmapdata files: ambient lighting, directional light and object shadow visibility Other changes: Import split normals from .a3d models, this means that the models should be smoothed correctly now Notes: Not all data is imported from map.bin because it is not needed in blender (such as atlases and batches) but this will be changed when I add map export support. Legacy maps (non hd) have issues with transforms due to the 3ds file plugin misbehaving so some props may be out of place but this should easily be fixable by manually editing. Lightmapdata importing allows sun colour and angle to be imported into blender, however, this does not match the sun angle in game (the value is probably changed by the server) but it is fairly easy to tweak to angle to match. Terrain mesh material is not yet automatically created and is just coloured fully black, I will update the plugin in the future to fix this. Showcase:

Update preview: Since my last update preview I have added support for importing collision geometry, spawn points and a very sloppy material importer that is nowhere near finished.

Update preview: I am currently working on adding support for more file formats that artists (or just people curious enough) will benefit from, one of these formats is the binary map format "map.bin" which is used for every map in Tanki. So far only supports remaster maps and may not work properly on all operating systems, the code can be found in the "binmapimport" branch of the plugin's github page, this feature will be merged into "main" when it is ready.

Demonstration: