BubbleChat's Epic Makeover

[coefficients]

Hey developers,

BubbleChat is one of the few aspects of Roblox that has hardly changed—in functionality or appearance—over the years. It’s time to give BubbleChat some love, y’all!

Meet the new-and-improved BubbleChat, featuring:

• Brand new visuals powered by Roact
• Animated transitions that make it feel more alive
• Better performance under the hood
• Many new customization options

Ready to see this glow up? Check it out:

Overview

Minimize/maximize behavior

Absolutely stunning!

The customization options available for this closed beta include:

• Setting bubble duration
• Maximum amount of bubbles above a single character
• Text font
• Text color
• Bubble background color
• Minimize/hidden distance

Now let’s talk about the release plan :

1. This feature will soon be ready for closed beta testing. If you’re interested in having it enabled for your game, please reply to this topic saying you’re interested along with a link to the specific Place ID. Your feedback on everything from performance to customization will be greatly appreciated!
2. When the closed beta testing is concluded, we’ll create API for ChatService to toggle and customize the new BubbleChat.
3. After we’ve reviewed feedback and the new BubbleChat has been thoroughly tested, it will be made public.

We want to make the new BubbleChat as accessible and friendly as possible - customizing it should be as simple as toggling a property.

Differences between new BubbleChat and current BubbleChat :

The new BubbleChat will be a CoreScript because it relies on many libraries and we don’t want to pollute the development environment with those. Unfortunately, developers won’t be able to see the source or fork it to make their own customized versions, but we hope to provide enough customization options that forking becomes unnecessary. But don’t worry! If you would rather stick to using the old BubbleChat, you will still be able to use it or fork it like normal.

Give us your feedback!

We want to know:

• What kind of additional customization features would you like for us to add?
• Are there any other features or improvements related to BubbleChat that you’d like to see?

We’re looking forward to getting your thoughts on these improvements!

Thanks,
Developer Relations

[M_caw (Macaw)]

You know what would be amazing? Giving developers the choice to turn the following features on and off:

Italics with two * asterisks *

Bold with four ** asterisks **

As having the ability to emphasize words would really help!

Maybe even an option so that all words are auto-capitalized or vice versa.

And maybe even having to always use uppercase/ lowercase so you always have to talk like THIS or like this… always screaming or always vibing.

I’d also love new animations to show that someone is typing. That would be super fresh and up with the times. The “far away” text already shows the ellipses (…) so adding that in when someone is typing would be neat.

Another thing… what about BubbleChat/ Font size? some games may want the text/bubble to be smaller or larger.

I noticed how after the text popped up, it then expanded upwards ever so slightly. Is that intended?

TL;DR: Italics, Bold, Auto-capitalized/ Vice versa, Uppercase/ Lowercase, Typing Animations, Bubble/Font size, and minor popping issue.

(Remember… all these should be toggleable if you’re not going to let us fork it.)

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Something that still needs fixing though… is how chat sometimes gets cut off. Hopefully this update will fix that.

Chat and chat bubbles sometimes get cut off and don't show whole sentence

What issue are you having? Describe what is happening when the bug occurs. Describe what you would normally expect to occur. My chat cuts off whenever I try sending/typing with the bubble chat feature. It presents only a cut version of the text, and some empty space with it. I usually expect an complete sentence, making it harder for me to communicate with other players ingame. Does the bug happen 100% of the time? Yes, the bug appears 100% of the time. If so, are there steps that repro…

Great update regardless. :]

[TheCarbyneUniverse (Carbyne)]

Wow, this absolutely satisfying to look at.

As per customization here are some suggestions:

• Animations — we should be able to customize the animations of each bubble when it pops up and disappears, as well as minimize/maximize. For example, the current ones look professional in terms of a simple fade-in animation, but certain games like Adopt Me would benefit more from a “bounce” animation.

• Transparency – a transparency feature would be nice to allow people to see through the chats a little bit so their screen isn’t covered with a bunch of opaque, white blobs everywhere.

• Shape – a library of basic shapes like trapezoids and parallelograms would be awesome especially for sci-fi games, in which rounded corners don’t generally belong.

Otherwise, this is already awesome!

[devSparkle]

I just finished coding my own chat bubbles…

PS: Despite all, good update. I’m glad because these changes improve the platform as a whole, as most games rely on the default chat system.

[Deferend]

This new feature is great! Kudos to the engineers that worked hard on this. I strongly encourage Roblox to reconsider making this a CoreScript, though - being able to fork and modify is a key feature that I’ll find useful. At least being able to view the source would be valuable. If not, I’ll await the hopefully extensive API!

I’d like to see the ability to modify the bubble itself, including what image is displayed, not just the background color. Also, is rich text support for bubble chat a possibility? If so, would Markdown be a more user-friendly way to handle this?

@ItsMacaw

I love the new animations to show that someone is typing.

Are there, as @ItsMacaw notes, animations for typing? And if not, how likely is this to become a feature?

Also, as some in the DevForum server brought up, will this clipping issue be fixed so that the bubbles look smooth and flawless?

I’m interested in participating in the closed beta for this program. The place ID I’ll be using is 2627187944.

[alex_ander]

I am interested in having it enabled on my script testing game. Place ID: 3737666180

[VegetationBush (FartedWayTooHard)]

Although the new bubble chat is aesthetically pleasing, it really is focusing on one genre, in this case, more cartoony. But, in some games you need a quick reaction, sharp boxes, and static movement, and this doesn’t really help that. If we can have customly made bubble chats, that would be great. For example, if you wanted to change the background image you can do something like:

game:GetService("ChatService"):SetBubbleChatImageId("0000000000")

If we can customise the bubble chat it would be nice, these are some things you might consider: ImageAssetId
Custom Font
Offset(Offset from the head in Vector3 )
Sound(Played when chatted)

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Overall this is a great feature, keep improving Roblox!

[Arch_Mage]

Exciting stuff!

We’re interested in joining the closed beta: [🎃] Rogue Lineage - Roblox

Just out of curiosity - will it be possible to change the corners on the bubbles? Some games might look better with a more square bubble.

[HeyItsKent (Kent)]

Hello! I’d like to test this feature on my place: CHRISTMAS! 🎄 Ivy Cafe V3 - Roblox

Thanks in advance!

[loueque (paperbagger)]

Sweet update, I would like to use this in my games and see other games use it as the Bubble Chat as it looks so much more modern and with the tweening when zoomed out and in, it’s just so good! I do wish the chat got a make-over…

Question: Would it be possible to add in gradients for text or the background itself? I would like to see gradients have more use to the chat Engine and other components!

Another Question: When will a change to the chat be available anytime? I feel like it’s a bit too bland with the Bubble Chat improvement/makeover, would love an answer to that.

Quick Question: Will we get the chance of having the setting to disable/enable Bubble Chat and Classic Chat?

Here are my Place ID(s) as I would love to test this out: 5367051423 & 5685712549

[scripting1st]

Henlo, I would like to test out the new bubble chat update! Link to game:
ID: 5062990332

scripting1st's Place Number: 1

Edit: Chat is disabled on my server, any reason to this?? I mean like the chat text shows up on the top right but the chat bubble does not show up at all.

[metatablecatmaid (metatablecat)]

Opinion on it being a CoreScript: no
Opinion on it being based on Roact: no

Just gonna dump the current BubbleChat before it gets removed.

The animationbs look pretty slick tho.

but this clipping issue triggers me

[FruitySama]

What about an option to enable something that makes it so that theres a bubble displayed with (…) whilst a player is typing.

Also great update,

interested in closed beta: [2XP + STORY MODE] Ken Omega - Roblox

[popeeyy (pop)]

I’m interested in having this enabled in my game.

PlaceID: 679498303

Bakiez Bakery 🧁

[sjr04 (uep)]

This is great, but, will the chat itself get a makeover as well? It’s been the same for over 4 years, so love applied to bubblechat would be great if applied to the chat itself too

[AbstractAlex]

Really cool!

Something that stood out in that video - could you fix those grey edges on the images?

[B_rcode (Barcode)]

No wonder the old bubble chat has had a visual glitch that was never fixed for months loool

Anyways, I would like to try it out but on my game’s test place Test Place - Roblox

[Nasa_155]

Looks great!

Can I get my game added to the closed beta?

The Jedi Temple on Coruscant