Scaling Thumbnail Dependencies with a Rapidly Growing User Base

By Matt Dusek - June 6, 2013

ROBLOX allows users to upload images in order to create unique avatar clothing and environments. If you’ve ever uploaded a custom asset, you’ve undoubtedly come across a thumbnail image that says “Review Pending.” That’s because every single image that is uploaded to our storage cloud must be moderated for inappropriate content. Users can’t see the thumbnail of the content until it’s been inspected and approved. In this blog article, we’ll not only walk you through the approval process, but our recently changed process of creating and tracking every thumbnail you see on ROBLOX.

Let’s first step back and define exactly how thumbnail generation works. Uploading a place, model, clothing or decal automatically generates a thumbnail on our website–every one of these thumbnails has a unique ID that is associated with a unique asset ID. This association indicates that the specified asset was used to create a thumbnail of the specified content. The association between the asset and the thumbnail is called a thumbnail dependency. There can be more than one dependency record per thumbnail.

Bay Area After School Initiative STEM Goes Behind the BLOX

By Alan Fackler - June 5, 2013

When it comes to developing ROBLOX, we take to heart specific and constructive feedback from our community. That’s why we started Behind the BLOX, a chance for builders to come and play test with us every Friday right here at ROBLOX HQ. In our last visit, we tested with a local group of middle schoolers from Benicia, all of whom are members of an after-school initiative called STEM. The acronym stands for science, technology, engineering and math–so it makes sense that each of them are not only familiar with ROBLOX, but builders themselves.

Andrew Altman is the program coordinator for STEM, and put together the field trip to our office. He tells me that STEM actually uses ROBLOX quite a bit in their curriculum–every Tuesday and Thursday he has professional programmer Carl Edwards work with students to build newer and more complex things in-game. On their last “ROBLOX day,” they learned to script working trampolines. Altman says that ROBLOX is unique in that it’s able to teach kids a wide range of skills, while keeping their interest levels high.

Six ROBLOX Places That’ll Make You Say “Whoa”

By Alan Fackler - June 4, 2013

We’re constantly searching for new ROBLOX creations that catch our eye–the recent advent of dynamic lighting has really altered the way many existing places look, and brought forth a wide range of new environments. We enjoy it when we get the chance to share some of the more awesomely detailed and creative places we find on our platform, and love giving credit to the intrepid builders who are pushing ROBLOX boundaries in new and creative ways. To the right, you’ll notice the (dynamically lit) facial expression that stayed on my face while discovering each of these unique levels. Check them out.

The Fabric of Reality

The Fabric of Reality is a place that completely and dramatically displays our new dynamic lighting system–enter, and watch as cascading, individually lit framed cubes fall from the sky, lighting the area below before disappearing altogether. It’s ingenious in its simplicity, and looks like nothing we’ve ever seen in ROBLOX.

Get Summer Hats When You Redeem ROBLOX Cards in June

By Christina McGrath - June 3, 2013

Every month, we release a new set of gear and hats you can only obtain by redeeming ROBLOX cards from particular retailers around the world. That means when you’re turning your prized red slice of ROBLOXia into a Builders Club subscription or Robux, you’re snagging yourself a stylish virtual good at no extra cost. With summer just around the corner, our latest round of hats lets you prepare for fun in the hot ROBLOXian sun. No, we’re not talking about virtual sunscreen; this is the hippest of eye protection.

Weekly ROBLOX Roundup: June 2nd, 2013

By Andrew Haak - June 2, 2013

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: Virtual BLOXcon this September, the creation of Apocalypse Rising’s v5.0 update, a spotlight on UlrichStern25′s impressive pirate ships, impending contest deadlines, a ROBLOX build of Minas Tirith, and other bits and pieces. Enjoy.

Seven-day Blog Recap

Virtual BLOXcon is coming this September

Only a small fraction of ROBLOXia’s current population will actually get to attend the sold-out BLOXcon in person this summer. As much as we’d like to show up in every town and throw a live BLOXcon for you and your friends, we haven’t yet mastered the technology or hired the couple thousand minions we’d need to make that possible. We will, however, be making our way into your home on September 21st, 2013, the date of our virtual BLOXcon. For a general idea of what we’re planning to offer and why you should attend, check out our announcement from last week. Stay tuned for more concrete details in the coming weeks.

Developer’s Journal: The Biggest Apocalypse Rising Update Yet

By Gusmanak - May 31, 2013

Hey guys, Gusmanak here to talk about our most successful update yet, Apocalypse Rising v.5.0.0. ZolarKeth and I have been hard at work for the past 11 months, developing improvements for Apoc (sorry, I call it that in short) since its release in July, 2012. When I launched the game, I never thought I’d end up spending so much time on one ROBLOX project. I’m fascinated at Apoc’s popularity–why has this game maintained popularity for such a lengthy period of time? What are the most important factors in development of gameplay? What makes Apocalypse Rising special? With this Developer’s Journal article, I’ll answer these questions.

A Solid Foundation

ZolarKeth and I stood by one rule when developing this title: never add weight to something that can’t stand on its own. If we plan on releasing a big feature that will change the game, we will not expand on that feature until it’s solid, functioning, and stable. You’d be surprised how often developers fall into this trap. They become excited about ideas, and worry less about implementation. These half-baked ideas find their way into games, making for half-finished, unstable features. When developing a game on ROBLOX, problems will arise—the average developer hates troubleshooting these problems. When you’re caught in this cycle, the most exciting part of your day is fixing breaks, which isn’t very gratifying. More often than not, developers never fully finish these fixes, resulting in a broken game that causes frustration among players. Even worse, developers often find that in order to solve problems in their game, the game must be radically altered.

Last Weekend to Submit Your Film Fest and Poster Contest Entries

By Andrew Haak - May 30, 2013

Attention, directors and designers of ROBLOXia: we have arrived at the final weekend for submitting entries to the ROBLOX International Film Festival and the BLOXcon Poster Contest! Both contests close on Monday, June 3rd at 11:59 p.m. PT – if you’re planning to enter, now is the time to get creating. Polish what you’ve already started, or set aside some time to start something from scratch. It’s not too late.

ROBLOX International Film Festival

The Film Festival has been open to submissions for just under a month. While we’re seeking films within five categories, we have still received very few speed-building showcases and city-themed films. If you want to get noticed, go for one of those categories.