Engineering ROBLOX for the iPad, Part 4 (Control Design)

By Andrew Haak - November 19, 2012

Thus far, our Engineering ROBLOX for the iPad series has focused on iPad development through a performance-optimization lens. It has seen us go into the trenches with several ROBLOX developers to learn about and document their roles in building a stable, smooth mobile gaming experience with the unique challenge of user-generated content as the centerpiece. In the final installments of the series, we’ll stray from the path and look at the development of interactive components, starting with control design.

ROBLOX Game Engineer Ben Tkacheff is an expert when it comes to iOS controls. He’s played a lot of iOS games and cites Gameloft’s titles as examples of consistently good, mobile-optimized controls. First-person shooter N.O.V.A. stands out to Ben; the game is unabashedly reminiscent of the Halo series, but it isn’t just a console game ported to iOS – it’s a mobile game, in large part due to great controls. For example, players can execute a 180-degree turn quickly – that is, without having to flick across the screen more than once – and camera movement is free-form, rather than tied to a virtual joystick that mimics an analog stick. These are both examples of controls that work with touch screens, rather than around them. That was the kind of approach Ben took to designing a mobile control scheme for ROBLOX.

A Look Behind What Happens When You Purchase Builders Club

By Alan Fackler - November 12, 2012

Let’s look at the facts: if you want to play or build games using our platform, it’s free. While it takes a lot of computing power to keep hundreds of thousands of gamers playing ROBLOX games, we want all our users to be creative and express themselves. But if you’re reading this blog, you probably know there’s a whole lot more to ROBLOX than that. Using the features bundled into Builders Club is essential to experiencing everything ROBLOX has to offer. When you purchase Builders Club, a lot happens behind the scenes at a very fast pace. We had ROBLOX Technical Director Matt Dusek explain what happens when you purchase Builders Club, and Creative Director John Shedletsky pick out some key benefits for newer users.

A lot of engineering effort has gone into making the ROBLOX payment-processing system bulletproof. We can process payments from a variety of providers (such as credit cards, gift cards, iTunes, PayPal and SMS to name a few) with financial-grade encryption and data security practices. Furthermore, our payment processing is 100% transactional–sales will be faithfully completed even in the face of hardware failures in our billing system.

Engineering ROBLOX for the iPad, Part 3 (Performance Optimization)

By Andrew Haak - November 10, 2012

If the first part of developing a well-performing ROBLOX experience for the iPad is ensuring stability through memory optimization, the second part is improving the frame rate to the point it’s as smooth as it is on a modern desktop or laptop computer. The process is a balancing act: push performance optimization to its limit without noticeably degrading the quality of the experience.

Engineering ROBLOX for the iPad, Part 2 (Memory Optimization)

By Andrew Haak - November 2, 2012

One of the most important parts of developing a high-quality ROBLOX experience for the iPad is ensuring smooth, stable, steady game-play performance. iPads are not as powerful as almost any modern-day desktop computer or laptop, which means our developers have to dig deep into ROBLOX’s code, uncover problem areas and tune them to run more efficiently, while keeping game-play quality in mind. The end goal is to have quality and performance exist in harmony; the challenge is pushing performance optimization to its limit without noticeably degrading the experience.

For the past month, the Client Team has been neck-deep in ROBLOX’s source code, identifying inefficiencies and re-engineering them in exchange for quantifiable and positive impacts on performance. One of the best benchmarks for illustrating their collective progress is Crossroads, a classic level the team has been using as an iPad testing ground since September. When we first launched the ROBLOX code stack on an iPad, Crossroads with eight players ran at an unplayable five frames per second (FPS). Today, it runs at a cool 30+ FPS.

Smoothing ROBLOX Character and Vehicle Motion

By Kevin He - October 27, 2012

When you see ROBLOX characters moving in-game, their motion occasionally appears to “stutter.” The problem is magnified in certain scenarios; for example, two characters standing in close proximity on a moving conveyor will appear to stutter dramatically in each other’s camera. ROBLOX Client Physics and Networking Lead Kevin He recently dove deep into this problem, as it applies to characters and vehicles, and has some observable improvements to share.

First off, let’s take a look at some before-and-after video. In both clips, there are three players in a vehicle and the video is captured from the camera of a non-driver passenger. On the “new” side, it’s clear that much of the vehicle’s motion stuttering has been eliminated.

Engineering ROBLOX for the iPad

By Andrew Haak - October 19, 2012

ROBLOX isn’t your typical video game company. We’re unique in a lot of ways, one of which is our openness about what we’re working on and our plans for the future. Today, we’re happy to stop teasing and start going in-depth on our progress toward releasing ROBLOX for iPad.

ROBLOX for iPad will launch in a couple phases. First, we’ll update the existing ROBLOX Mobile app, which has been available in the App Store since 2011. The update will improve the visual style of the app and is optimized for use on iPad. It will allow us to test all non-game components of the ROBLOX app.

Enhanced Water Physics, Vehicle Seats Support Rear Propellers

By Kevin He - September 25, 2012

We’ve talked previously about our ongoing effort to build robust joints and motors, and even touched on implementing seats for boats that support rear propellers. We’re still ironing out bugs with our soon-to-be released robust joints and motors, but we decided to release our new boat seat and water propeller support first. These features function independently, letting you experiment with propellers and watercraft today. Though this blog post features some pretty complex ideas in terms of building, we are hard at work on streamlining these building methods in the future so they’re intuitive for all uses. For now, check out what we’ve got so far.

In order to understand the changes we’ve made to ROBLOX’s water physics, let’s discuss how a propeller works, particularly in water. Like tires on a car, propellers convert power into forward motion by rapidly spinning at just the right speed, velocity, and most importantly, angle. The faster they spin, the faster your water-based vehicle should propel forward.