Hi Creators,
Starting today, you can publish and sell custom emotes on Marketplace and inside experiences. Emotes are short animations that an avatar performs, making it easier to communicate and celebrate with others, enhancing the experience to feel more social and lively.
In the future, we will also allow you to publish locomotion bundles, giving avatars a distinct way of moving - whether it be walking, swimming, jumping, or dancing - through the world.
Ultimately, this means another way for you to earn on Roblox.
For users, this is a new way to showcase their personality and entertain their friends. We’ve already found that 73% of users aged 13-28 think a full range of emotions your avatar can express (laugh, cheer, smile, etc.) is extremely or very important to helping them feel fully represented inside experiences. Users can discover emotes on Marketplace in Search, in a dedicated sort and under the “Animations” tab. Emotes can also be purchased inside experiences. Creators can track sales and monitor performance on the Creator Dashboard.
How It Works
To get your emote ready for Marketplace, you’ll need to create your animation and then configure it for upload in Studio.
1. Create Your Animation
You have the flexibility to author your emote using a variety of tools:
- Roblox Studio’s built-in Animation Editor
- Use Animation capture to convert a video to an animation sequence or manually animate a sequence of keyframes.
- Community plugins like Moon Animator.
- External software like Blender or Maya.
No matter which tool you use, your final output must be a CurveAnimation in Studio. KeyframeSequences can be converted to CurveAnimation using the Curve Editor.
2. Upload and Configure Your Emote
The current process requires two “Save to Roblox” steps:
-
If your animation isn’t a CurveAnimation clip, convert your animation to a CurveAnimation by opening the animation in the Animation Editor and selecting the curve editor button. Accept the prompt to convert your CurveAnimation.
-
Save your
CurveAnimationto Roblox. Select the … menu and click Publish to Roblox. This action publishes the animation itself and gives you an asset ID. -
Wrap the
AssetIDin anAnimationobject. Create anAnimationobject and set itsAnimationIdproperty to the ID you just received. -
Upload the
Animationobject as an Avatar Item. In the “Save to Roblox” dialog, select “Avatar Item” as the Content Type and choose the new “Emotes” Asset Category
3. Pass Automated Validation
All emotes undergo an automated validation check upon upload to prevent exploits and ensure a good user experience. Your animation must not:
- Move the avatar’s root joint too far from its starting position.
- Exceed a maximum frame-by-frame movement speed to prevent teleportation.
- Last longer than 10 seconds.
4. Publish to Marketplace
Once your emote is validated and moderated, you can publish it from the Creator Hub. You’ll find your emotes under the new “Emotes” tab in the “Avatar Items” section.
You will have the same publishing options as other avatar items, including the ability to:
- Make them Non-Limited or Limited.
- Price them with Regional Pricing
- Publish them via your creator group.
All emotes must meet our Community Standards and Marketplace Policies. New emotes will be reviewed for compliance with these policies before publication.
Fees and Publishing
To maintain consistency with other UGC asset types, emotes will have the same fee structure:
- Upload Fee: There is an upload fee of 750 Robux for each emote. For the time being, only one emote can be uploaded per day per creator.
- Publishing Advance: A Publishing Advance is required to sell your emote, which you will earn back through sales. The advance is 1,500 Robux for Non-Limited emotes and 10,000 Robux for Limited emotes.
- Price Floor: All emotes are subject to a price floor.
Intellectual Property and Emotes
As with avatars and avatar items, you should only publish items that you have created yourself or you are authorized to use.
If you believe that an emote infringes on your intellectual property rights, you can submit an IP takedown report through Rights Manager or via email following the instructions in the Roblox Terms of Use.
Known Limitation
- Community-created emotes currently cannot be used in the Profile Picture Editor. If you try to pose with a community-created emote, your avatar won’t pose. We are actively fixing this bug and will update you here.
FAQs
Will emotes have a price floor?
- Yes, all emotes on the Marketplace will have a dynamic price floor.
Can emotes be both Limited and non-Limited?
- Yes - just like other avatar items, you will have the flexibility to publish your emotes as either a non-Limited or Limited item.
Can emotes be priced regionally?
- Yes, Regional Pricing will be available for emotes at launch.
Can I publish emotes with PBR?
- Emotes are animation assets that apply motion to an avatar’s rig. They do not contain their own surface textures, so Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials are not a component of creating an emote.
