You’ve probably noticed by now that the lights are on in ROBLOX Mobile. As with many significant rendering updates, getting dynamic lighting to illuminate iPhone and iPad screens was a tricky endeavor that brought our engineers face to face with some very specific technical hurdles. We got the chance to sit down with Graphics and Rendering Specialist Arseny Kapoulkine to get the scoop on porting dynamic lighting to mobile devices.

Shaders

To understand how we pulled this off, let’s start simple. Computers that can support dynamic lighting (about 97% of the computers running ROBLOX) are able to do so by utilizing shaders built into their graphics card. So our first question was, “will we be able to utilize the graphics technology bundled into iPhones and iPads to utilize shaders?” Lucky for us, iPads and iPhones 4 and higher have shader support baked in.

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We’ve been keeping tabs on your ROBLOX Mobile feedback, and today we’re happy to report that some of your requests have been fulfilled. Vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, even skateboards) can now be controlled using the standard controls of ROBLOX Mobile. We’ve also added chat functionality to the app on iPhone and iPod Touch, so those of you with such devices can communicate with one another in-game.

Driving a vehicle on a touch interface is a tricky notion–we elected to go with a straightforward solution. You can drive vehicles on ROBLOX Mobile the same way you walk; the virtual joystick on the bottom left corner of the screen. Pushing up on the stick accelerates your vehicle, while pulling back causes it to brake (and reverse). We were able to do this by updating the code in our vehicle seats to recognize different types of devices. We’re very interested in finding out how our mobile builders will utilize this in the coming months.

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–Update–At the time this article was being written, we were informed that three exclusive items have hit the iTunes Store, available to iPad users and (soon!) iPhone and iTouch users as well. The iBot, iFace, and iJet, will turn your ROBLOX character into a jet-strapped robot from the future, with a tablet device for a head to boot. If you want to check them out, pop over to the iTunes Store on your iOS device and pick them up for $0.99 each.

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ROBLOX Mobile has officially been available for a week. In the time since its launch, we’ve been closely monitoring the app to ensure a good user experience and listening to your feedback. Today, we’re pleased to announce all ROBLOX games are available to all users on ROBLOX Mobile. This should give you a great opportunity to enjoy ROBLOX — whether you’re a Builders Club member or not — during your travels and free time over the upcoming holiday break. You can log into ROBLOX Mobile now and play all of the millions of games you and your fellow users have created. Simply touch the “See More” button under All Games.

If you need game suggestions, check out our recent look at what games ROBLOX users are gravitating toward on mobile.

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ROBLOX Mobile has been available in the iTunes App Store for almost a week now, and we’ve been keeping a close eye on which games users gravitate towards. We’re interested for several reasons, the main one being that we want to know which games work best with our touch controls. As time goes by, users will begin developing games that will be optimized to work specifically for mobile devices. For now, we’re curious to see what existing games are most popular among our mobile audience.

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With the release of ROBLOX Mobile, you have the power to distribute your creations – whether character clothing, models, virtual worlds or hardcore games – on a new platform and potentially to a new audience. We’re only a few days into the release and, at the moment, the mobile ROBLOX gaming and game development scene is a bit like the Wild West. Everyone is still observing and learning about what makes a game work on mobile, and there’s an opportunity for you to help define those qualities.

What we do know is that what works on a desktop computer doesn’t necessarily translate one-to-one to a touch screen device. That’s the nature of different screen sizes and input methods. Still, there are a few things you can do today, in addition to your own experimentation, to design your game to adapt to multiple devices.

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Updated 12/14 at 3:37 p.m. PT: We’ve released an update to ROBLOX Mobile that improves performance and in-game control, and makes the White Earbuds accessible via the mobile catalog on all iOS devices.

I’m excited to announce to everyone in the ROBLOX community — new members and old — that, as of today, ROBLOX Mobile is no longer in beta and all users can play ROBLOX on their iOS device of choice: iPad 2+, iPhone 4+ and iPod touch 5th Generation. First off, there are a few ways you can get the app:

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