Speeding ROBLOX Development with Continuous Testing

By Erik Cassel - April 9, 2012

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the new features and engine improvements coming to ROBLOX. But behind the development is a relatively unseen – and extensive – process that ensures the changes don’t break the game for players: Testing.

ROBLOX undergoes constant, rigorous, automated tests. Every time a developer “checks in” a new line of code, our testing system creates a trial version of ROBLOX and runs it through a battery of automated tests. This not only ensures the new code works, but also that it didn’t inadvertently introduce new bugs somewhere else.

Interpo-what? Smoothing the Motion of Networked Objects

By Yunpeng Zhu - April 8, 2012

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 Yunpeng Zhu is here today to explain how he improved ROBLOX’s physics interpolation, and to share some telling video evidence.

Anytime you take a video game online, there will be latency. The trick, for ROBLOX and other game developers, is to find efficient ways to manage the latency and keep players from perceiving it as lag – a freeze or slowdown in gameplay caused by a break in the flow of information between server and player.

How ROBLOX is Improving its Network Physics

By Andrew Haak - March 19, 2012

If you drive a real-life car into a brick wall, the car doesn’t simply bounce back. With enough speed, it causes the brick wall to come crashing down in a destructive display of physics. (Just trust us on this.)

To make sure these kinds of things happen in ROBLOX, as in the real world, ROBLOX Senior Game Engine Developer Kevin He has made some improvements to ROBLOX’s distributed physics engine. Today, he’ll show us the improvements with a number of video demos.

ROBLOX: Built for Cross-Platform Play

By John Shedletsky - March 16, 2012

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 compatible with Mac OSX 10.5. Making matters worse, our plans were destined to fail, as Aspyr’s Mac port doesn’t allow Mac and PC players to join the same online game.

The Best and Worst of GDC

By David Baszucki - March 10, 2012

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 modeler for AAA games. It’s awesome to see someone in person, pulling branches out of a trunk, like magic. Gives us ideas for advanced stamper parts in ROBLOX. Such as a tree that you insert with 3 clicks: 1) Click where you want the tree to go, 2) Click how tall you want it, 3) Click how wide you want it.

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 dream of LEGO Universe and its subsequent shutdown

By David Baszucki - January 30, 2012

Today LEGO Universe will shut down after being live for 15 months. The product is beautiful, and many good designers, engineers and animators poured their hearts into bringing it to life. From afar it appears that an unfortunate combination of organizational issues, high expectations, and complexity may have all contributed to the shutdown.

High expectations

The dream of LEGO Universe was captured in early press releases and video trailers. Trailers showed a bustling city made of LEGO, with vehicles, monsters, and highly engaged mini-figs. Demonstrations of “creating” were also very cool, with virtual translucent blue-prints and lightning fast vehicle construction. Users were captivated by the dream, and soon the press was talking about how the game might be bigger than World of Warcraft.