Put a GUI on That Surface!

By Max Volkov - December 13, 2013

In mid-November, we released GUI rotation, which allows you to rotate a GUI for such purposes as a clock or compass, among other things. Now, we’ve taken GUI functionality one step further with the release of SurfaceGUIs, which give you the ability to place a GUI on the surface of a part. This is a small piece of functionality with big potential, as it opens up the possibility of creating interactive vehicle dashboards, virtual computers, and elevator buttons, and better 3D integration of menus and important player information.

To use SurfaceGUIs, we recommend you first create your GUI as a standard ScreenGUI object in ROBLOX Studio. Once it’s created, you add a new SurfaceGUI object to the part on which you want to project the ScreenGUI. This can be accomplished by selecting the part and double-clicking the new SurfaceGUI object (View > Basic Objects). Finally, you add the components of your ScreenGUI to the SurfaceGUI by nesting them beneath the SurfaceGUI object. The SurfaceGUI will then appear on the part.

Build Bigger Than Ever Before

By Arseny Kapoulkine - December 7, 2013

When we released voxel terrain in 2011, we realized that creators had to adhere to a narrowly defined set of rules. As with any major release, we kept a steady ear to the ground and gathered as much feedback as possible to determine how to improve the feature make it a more viable and enjoyable tool for building. Though we’ll be updating the overall “look” or our terrain the coming months, infrastructural changes first had to be made to broaden the scope of terrain capabilities. We distilled your feedback into three significant improvements, each of which we’ve been working to address.

New Building/Scripting Tutorials Now Available on YouTube

By Alan Fackler - November 25, 2013

We want as many people as possible to jump into ROBLOX Studio, build anything they can imagine, and contribute to our ecosystem of user-generated games. We realize it’s a complex application, and we’ve been talking for a while about refreshing our instructional Studio tutorials. We’re pleased to announce that we’ve released four videos on our YouTube channel that will help you with the basics, from low-level building tools to scripting! Here they are:

Six Builders Collaborate on Boston 1763–and It’s Awesome

By Alan Fackler - November 11, 2013

Step into City of Boston 1763, and find yourself immersed in historical detail. The place is a collaborative effort between many prolific ROBLOX builders and scripters from around the world: BritishLeader (formerly known as cooldude215), Solyx (formerly known as FighterAce), eaglestrike999, scott12341, bruck and JulianVidiVici (formerly known as juliane14). These six individuals have joined forces to realize their collective vision of colonial Boston, from the booming harbor to the city streets and taverns. I got the chance to have a chat with Solyx and BritishLeader about the process of creating a large city–with contributors scattered far and wide.

Do You Use ROBLOX for School?

By Alan Fackler - November 7, 2013

That’s the question we asked our Twitter followers a week ago. We encouraged them to take a survey about how they’ve used ROBLOX for school assignments and projects. The feedback we received showed us that not only is ROBLOX helping young technology enthusiasts learn the skills they need to turn their passions into careers, but helping them have fun while earning great marks in school. We sifted through the submissions in search of creative uses of ROBLOX in student educational endeavors. Here are four of our favorites.

Spotlight: Taking Flight with BuilderAtWork

By Alan Fackler - November 2, 2013

When you first join Avionic by BuilderAtWork, the chats you see are much more professional than what you probably expect from a multiplayer game. The majority of the people inside the game are communicating simple orders with one another. “Clear for takeoff.” “Lining up on runway.” “Landing in TNCM.” Not your typical ROBLOX chatter–though this isn’t your typical ROBLOX game. This is a full-blown flight simulation in a massive 3D world.

This is BuilderAtWork’s grand design–one that represents the accumulation of his years spent on ROBLOX designing different types of simulations. He’s only been working on this particular project for a month, and the game has already garnered a huge following. Because Avionic is still a work in progress, it’s not always open. Players wait patiently for the game to open just to experience the rush of taking a plane into the sky, as well as the equally difficult (if not moreso) task of actually landing it hundreds of miles away.

New Material Textures Are Now Live

By Arseny Kapoulkine - October 28, 2013

ROBLOX’s streak of fantastic rendering updates goes yet another step further today with the release of updated material textures and a starter-pack of brand new options. The updated and new textures increment the visual quality of all games on all the platforms (desktop and mobile) we support, while simultaneously giving you more flexibility to build perfectly engrossing worlds and levels.

We’ve been carefully listening to your feedback as we’ve changed the look of ROBLOX over the last six months. For instance, we prioritized the development of dynamic shadows in our lighting engine and gave you full control over the appearance of outlines. While we’re not giving you the option to toggle new materials on and off, we’d like to hear your constructive criticism, success stories and requests for additional materials. If we notice many people sharing an opinion, we may tweak or add the material in question. The best way for you to make your case is to upload and share screenshots — whether the materials make something you’ve built look exceptional or flawed.