Showcases have been a long legacy of roblox builders, showing their building skills in a distinct scenery to leave for inspiration or relaxation. These showcases are also quite often used to impress people, and are not nessecarily fit to be a game.
I have frequently thought of the question: When you build a showcase yourself, what do you wish to achieve with it and what is important for you?
Are you looking for self statisfaction or impressions? Or criticism on the build to improve?
I would like to share this discussion with other builders, share your works and be open to opinions! There is no shame in our builds, we can only learn to be even better!
For me it’s really just a hobby that I switch to when I get burnout scripting-wise. It’s a way to switch gears and slow down without taking a huge break from Roblox (that makes it hard to jump back into the development process). Granted people tend to really like some of the showcase work I do so that’s just a little icing on the cake.
Showcases to me are a form of a practiced attempt to replicate an otherwise complex emotion that I’m trying to visualize. As a writer, I find that words can only go so far in describing feelings, and that showing is always better than telling - even in written form. So for me, showcases are just a visual way to describe something otherwise non-visual - which really, is what narrative design in video games is.
What usually makes me want to make a showcase is I’ll get a word or abstract concept in my head and see where it takes me.
For a quick showcase The Simoomophone, I read a short story that mentioned a simoom - a dry dust storm in the Sahara, and thought about what is something that would actually like these massive storms, so I went with something that interacts with it to create something. That something is musical tones. It was also a way to practice a small script I’ve been meaning to write.
I have plenty of other half-made showcases (as I’m sure every 3D artist does), and they were all a way to give meaning to practicing something I otherwise had no reason to try.
Whenever I do showcases its ALWAYS to make a huge effort to improve my abilities to create. Whenever I create showcases, I learn so much about building and so much about creating. It also helps me learn to be more creative, even if I’m referencing something.
