Every week, we’re busy telling the stories behind our platform, our technology and our place in the gaming and technology industries. For those of you who catch up with ROBLOX over the weekend, the Weekly ROBLOX Roundup collects the best stuff to hit our various avenues of publication in the last week. This time: how to make your dynamic lighting and shadows look amazing, renting plots of land in KlamKnights City, our weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area, tips for submitting to the ROBLOX Film Fest, Team Zombie Defence Tycoon, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

How to make your dynamic lighting look amazing

While there is a considerable benefit to simply enabling dynamic lighting in your place — that is, your parts immediately cast realistic shadows — ROBLOX builders have found many ways to manipulate the feature for much more impressive and immersive effects. In this article, we had four proven dynamic lighting aficionados provide tips, techniques and resources for creating amazing atmosphere. From beginner to advanced, there’s something for everyone who’s looking to make their mark with dynamic lighting.

KlamKnights City, a personal server where you earn the right to build

There are many Personal Build Servers on ROBLOX, but KlamKnights City separates itself from the crowd by renting out plots of land to members of the KlamKnights group. Having not seen anything quite like this before, Alan got in touch with the owners of KlamKnights City to discuss how they manage their land and what they strive to accomplish in their bustling, ever-changing place. To learn more about another example of how ROBLOX builders demonstrate entrepreneurship, read the complete blog article.

ROBLOX’s Maker Faire weekend extravaganza

We’ve been hyping up our “mini BLOXcon” at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 for the last couple weeks and, finally, this weekend, it happened. Alan and I were in the thick of the ROBLOX booth and exploring the Maker Faire grounds throughout Saturday, and we left the event with a nice gallery of photo evidence. If you couldn’t attend the event, live vicariously through us by browsing through it!

The booth.

Behind the scenes with the ROBLOX Client Team

By popular demand, we’ve been spending time with various teams over the past few weeks to convey to you, our valued readers, what the typical day is like at ROBLOX HQ. We’ve already covered both the Web Team and the Content Team; most recently, we went behind the scenes with the Client Team — the people who develop everything from our network code to rendering to physics. For the inside scoop, check out the article.

Tips for getting your Film Fest entry noticed

We’ve been accepting submissions to the ROBLOX Film Festival for the past couple weeks and have already accumulated more than 200 entries. We’re not even close to done, though; there are still two weeks left to perfect and submit an entry of your own. Since we’re at the mid-point, we decided to compile some tips for getting noticed and successfully navigating the rules and requirements of the contest. Good luck to everyone who enters! We can’t wait to see your films.

You should play this ROBLOX game

Zombie-survival games were one of the most ripe candidates for dynamic lighting — they’re almost always more fun to play when there’s an element of mystery and suspense provided by the night. Team Zombie Defence Tycoon is a game that got a breath of life with the introduction of dynamic lighting. As you and a crew of other ROBLOXians fend off waves of zombies, you have to use the power of light — in addition to teamwork and powerful weaponry — to survive, scavenge money and ultimately build out an impenetrable fortress. Maggymoo put an interesting twist on the tycoon genre by making it entirely collaborative and more action-packed than I’ve come to expect. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to sink significant time into this game.

Bits