Aerodynamics [Studio Beta] April 2024 Update

Hey Creators!

A new update to the Aerodynamics Studio Beta is going live today that addresses two highly requested items from the original Aerodynamics studio beta release and the more recent Nov Update:

Improved force model

As promised, we are constantly trying to improve the aerodynamic force model that is used to calculate the forces in your creations. With this update, we have made improvements so your creations will generate higher lift to drag ratios.

You should notice planes, helicopters and other flying vehicles experiencing more realistic lift forces without having to ramp up the AirDensity property across your whole experience. For example, in the included GIF above, the air density is set to the default realistic sea-level value and the F15 model now has a much more realistic mass. As you can see, the F15 feels much more realistic lift forces that are able to offset its real-world weight now while still maintaining control.

The sample place files in the original Aerodynamics announcement post have also been re-tuned and updated to work with this new force model. Download them and give them another spin!

We are still optimizing the performance of this new model, but we’d like to get your feedback on its behavior. Our goal is to finalize the force model as much as possible so we can enable you to publish experiences with Aerodynamics. So, please try it out with your existing (or new!) creations and give us any and all feedback you might have on the model’s performance and behavior so we can make any final tweaks.

Ability to set FluidFidelity directly in geometry APIs

In the Nov Update, we introduced the new FluidFidelity property on MeshPart and PartOperation instances that gave you more control to balance performance vs. precision in your creations.

With this update, you can now directly specific FluidFidelity on the following APIs by passing in a FluidFidelity value in the options table:

Note: You will need to enable the In experience CSG Improvements studio beta to enable the new GeometryService APIs

We know everyone is waiting excitedly for when you can publish experiences with Aerodynamics. We are putting the finishing touches on the API, force model and a number of performance initiatives and want to ensure it meets a high enough quality bar before experiences take a dependency on it. We appreciate your patience and all the feedback your are providing and we promise it is Coming Soon™ :slight_smile:.

Stay breezy,
@beastierpanda, @chefdeletat, @FGmm_r2, @kckhem, @m0bsterlobster, @SmithVonMars and @vovoheli

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This topic was automatically opened after 10 minutes.

That feeling when Roblox physics are improving:

Although [unrelated to the meme] I wonder if developers who have made their own physics, like those of Pilot Training Flight Simulator would shift over or not.

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oh yeah no wonder why they messed up physics with silent updates because of this. GG

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I wonder if anyone’s tried making an ornithopter yet, or even just a general bird simulation. I imagine this update might make that task easier.

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This is awesome! I doubt this will happen but will there eventually be a airflow visualization tool?

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How cool that they want to give more work and love to roblox physics, this is totally cool and I feel that there will be cool physics updates coming

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wow ok aerodynamics yes here it happening!

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Probably not, from personal experience it’s much easier to control and modify a flight system that is all custom then roblox’s physical properties based flight model.

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Will we get more control in the future? As much as I like this update, I feel like in general physical properties based flight physics tend to cause unaccounted problems due to the lack of control , will this be addressed, can we edit the flight properties of each object?

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Related a bit to aerodynamics, will there ever be one way to stop wind indoors? it got mentioned before but it has been a bit of a long time from that

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We are actively working on wind occlusion for scenarios like these - we will post an update once we have a better estimate of when it’ll be released!

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With all these Roblox physics and facial tracking ect I’m starting to worry more and more about the removal of a beloved blocky characters

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The density of the air began to feel differently, as for me, rather for the worse, I would like to see the opportunity to return the old aerodynamics in the future

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POWER OVER roblox aerodynamics simulation IS POWER OVER ALL


honestly I bet moving objects in GENERAL will perform wayy better with this update, aerodynamics (as we all know by now) were a little wacky beforehand, so I for one am definitely excited to see what people do with this.

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Take a look at this reel: https://youtu.be/CcDHFmOGYyY?feature=shared&t=1631 for some ornithopter shenanigans :slight_smile:

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We’d love to hear any feedback you have on the specific controls/APIs that would help.
We do plan on exposing more knobs / customizations to the system incrementally based on creator feedback

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Probably should for more realism.

Btw is hydrodynamics next :eyes:

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I’d really like to know some more about how the aerodynamics model works behind the scenes. Accuracy and realism is an important point for me, so I’m not sure whether to keep using my custom implementation or not.

How are forces calculated? Are they calculated per face and summed up over the whole model? What methods and techniques are being used?

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Can we make a flag wave in the wind with bones?

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