An Optimization for Lua Scripts

By Erik Cassel - February 29, 2012

Lua is a powerful, lightweight, scripting language, and is often used in video games due to fast execution and a short learning curve. World of Warcraft, Angry Birds and Mafia II all use Lua script. Today, Chief Scientist at ROBLOX, Erik Cassel, discusses a way to optimize Lua.

Tech Note: Scripted tools and weapons

By Becky Lee Herndon - February 7, 2012

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 inspired to create an Arabian Nights collection which included a Flying Magic Carpet, Arabian Knight Scimitar, Magic Lamp, Desert King hat, and the technically advanced Dagger of Shattered Dimensions. Once ideas have been selected, our team of 3D artists creates the item and hat models using Maya, Blender and 3DS Max. The models are then delivered to the gear programmers.

The Evolution of Voxels in Video Games

By David Baszucki - December 27, 2011

How do you represent objects and terrain in a 3D video game? A partial list includes triangle-meshes (very common), geometric primitives (ROBLOX), and height maps (terrain). Today I’m going to talk about another way of modeling objects and terrain – the voxel.

Voxels store information in a 3D grid. In the simplest case, all of the 3D space in your video game is divided into a grid, and each cell in the grid is either empty (air) or full (ground). To make the world look more realistic, each cell can be a different color or material. Just like with your mega-pixel camera or HDTV – the more voxels, the more realistic the game world.

A Brief History of Physics in Video Games

By David Baszucki - December 14, 2011

Objects in the real world operate under the laws of physics – so it seems quite intuitive that everything in video games (console, PC, online, mobile, arcade) should as well. The graphics world has evolved towards hardware acceleration on dedicated chips with better and better realism. The physics world is a long ways behind. There aren’t many video games today (in fact there aren’t any!) where you can take out a hack saw, cut off a piece of metal from a scrap heap, weld it to your car, and then have the metal bend when your car wrecks! Today I will review some of the phases in video game physics here and talk a bit about the future.

Early Phase – Special Purpose Physics Engines

ROBLOX Secrets Revealed: Fog Blog

By John Shedletsky - December 9, 2011

A new ROBLOX release went out late last night. It contained a lot of important performance improvements, but it also included a secret feature that some ROBLOXians have already discovered… atmospheric fog!