Blog
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ROBLOX’s Encounter with a One-in-Four-Billion .NET Bug
On July 28, 2012, user Yaman100 did something thousands of users do without a second thought every day: put a new t-shirt on his ROBLOX character. Only, this time it was special. It set off a bug, with approximately one-in-four-billion chances ...
| September 4, 2012 -
Hack Week: Implementing Rotatable GUIs
During our annual Hack Week, ROBLOX developers shifted gears, working tirelessly to devise and present ideas fueled more by creativity than priority. This week, we’ll be featuring some of the most innovative ideas to come out of Hack Week. Our s...
| August 1, 2012 -
The Future of Groups in ROBLOX
ROBLOX introduced groups in 2009, and, today, there are over 600,000 users in groups. While our community already uses them to organize, communicate, and battle, there are improvements we’d like to make and features we’d like to implement. At ...
| July 21, 2012 -
RGC 2012: Prototyping the Future Look of ROBLOX
Over the past several months, Client Engine Lead Simon Kozlov has been working on some prototype videos that showcase the potential look of ROBLOX in the future. He shared them at ROBLOX Game Conference 2012, and now we’re showing them to the co...
| July 18, 2012 -
User Showcase: Procedurally Generating a “Zombie City!”
Procedural generation refers to content that is created algorithmically, as opposed to manually. It was originally implemented in video games as a workaround to the memory limitations of early hardware; for example, the 1984 computer game a used procedural generation to create a universe with eight galaxies, each containing 256 planets, that wouldn’t soak up valuable memory. Today, procedural generation persists, but instead serves as a method for developers to make each play session of their game dynamic. ROBLOX’s a, for instance, uses it to create a random swath of jagged terrain for each match. Cunning ROBLOX users have found ways to implement procedurally generated content in their games. Cunning ROBLOX users have found ways to implement procedurally generated content in their games. aa , an abstract – at least, for now – game by user , an abstract – at least, for now – game by user aa , known outside ROBLOX as Justin Phillips, is one such case. Each time a player starts an instance of the game, it procedurally generates an expanse of terrain and a complete city — littered with zombies., known outside ROBLOX as Justin Phillips, is one such case. Each time a player starts an instance of the game, it procedurally generates an expanse of terrain and a complete city — littered with zombies.
| July 3, 2012 -
Using Run Length Encoding (RLE) to Compress ROBLOX Terrain
ROBLOX released its high-performance terrain feature late in 2011, allowing users to create and play games significantly larger than anything previously seen on the platform. Many ROBLOX users have since taken advantage of terrain, particularly t...
| June 13, 2012 -
Preview Our In-Game Wardrobe Change Interface
ROBLOX is working on a new feature that lets players change their character’s clothes and preview their appearance in-game . User Experience Engineer Ben Tkacheff is here today to demonstrate the interface he developed and offer some insider inf...
| May 4, 2012 -
A Deep Look at ROBLOX’s Buoyancy and Water Physics
Boats. Waterfalls and geysers. Swimming and diving. Flowing rivers and deep pools. With version 1.0 of ROBLOX’s buoyancy and water physics, carefully crafted and researched by our Physics Team, these things are not only possible, but also realis...
| April 24, 2012 -
Promote Your Game with Video
Tim Brown’s Hack Week project has been finished and released, giving ROBLOX users a powerful tool to engage players. Back in January, we introduced you to a feature that would let you add a rich media gallery, including videos and images, to yo...
| April 11, 2012 -
Interpo-what? Smoothing the Motion of Networked Objects
Dictionary.com defines “interpolate,” in mathematical terms, as inserting, estimating, or finding an intermediate term in a sequence. As dry as it sounds, it’s the reason objects are moving more smoothly in ROBLOX. Software Engineer Yunpen...
| April 8, 2012 -
ROBLOX: Built for Cross-Platform Play
Last weekend, a friend and I set aside a day to delve into the trenches of Civilization V’s multiplayer mode. She purchased her Mac copy via Steam, slogged through the two-gigabyte download and fired it up – only to find out it isn’t compati...
| March 16, 2012 -
The Best and Worst of GDC
After a big week at the 2012 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, I thought I would share some of the collective wisdom of team ROBLOX. Here are our picks for thumbs-up and thumbs-down from the show. Thumbs Up Speedtree Ultra-fast tree ...
| March 10, 2012 -
Tech Note: Scripted tools and weapons
Our head gear programmer Deepak Chandrasekaran explains the steps that went into creating The Dagger of Shattered Dimensions . The ROBLOX creative team meets regularly to plan new items for publication in the Catalog . Recently they were inspi...
| February 7, 2012 -
Tech Demo: Video Thumbnails
Tim Brown’s Hack Week project would give ROBLOX developers a powerful tool for engaging players. ROBLOX is about user-created content, and our users have created a lot of content — so much that you’d be hard-pressed to experience all of i...
| January 26, 2012 -
Tech Demo: Dynamic Lighting Exploration
My hack week project was to explore rendering styles and visual effects that would take ROBLOX to the next level. The ROBLOX rendering engine works in a difficult environment compared to traditional games – ROBLOX places are made by our users (...
| January 20, 2012 -
Tech Demo: Water, Buoyancy and Ropes
Hack Week coverage continues with a unified tech demo by Dan Ignatoff, Erik Cassel and Tim Loduha showing water, buoyancy and ropes working together. Water and Buoyancy Dan and Erik teamed up on the water and buoyancy simulation shown in the v...
| January 18, 2012 -
iPad Tech Demo
This is a first look at the ROBLOX code stack running on an iPad. Product specs are in development and there is no announced ship date. The tap-to-move interface shown in the demo is a place holder for future thumb controls. Textures and skyboxes...
| January 14, 2012