Hey developers!
It’s been a Year on Roblox like no other! You’ve wowed us with all your incredible creations and your drive to push the Roblox platform into new, unexplored areas. As a small thank you, we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the incredible and innovative things you’ve made that use some of the new features that came to Roblox in 2021.
Here are just a few examples of what you were able to accomplish this year.
Layered Clothing
In November, Layered Clothing started to roll out and we’re already seeing great new fits coming out of it. Check out these fashionable Robloxians!
CoffeeNerd
phoca & Browniieee
Spatial Voice
Bringing voice chat to Roblox was an incredible achievement this year, and we’re thrilled to see how you’ve applied this to your projects. In Ro-Speech, you can use Voice Chat to learn new languages from other users. The lounge-like experience lets you set your native language along with any languages you are interested in learning, and Voice Chat gives you the ability to put your skills to the test.
Lie_Star and PmainolsChill
MemoryStore Service
MemoryStore has empowered developers to easily sync data across servers. It can be particularly useful in instances where data needs to be updated more frequently—such as player inventories or matchmaking services. Both Real*Strategy and DIVISION23 have leveraged it to build cross-server matchmaking systems to be able to quickly scale matches with available players.
RealStrategy
DIVISION23
Attributes
Attributes rolled out this year to bring an incredible level of flexibility and time-saving with how you are able to customize and modify properties. Slerp found a creative use for attributes by using them to track how much food has been cooked. Metatablecatgirl uses attributes to make on-the-fly changes to a whole subway system!
Slerp
Metatablecatgirl
Caged Mesh Deformation
Caged Mesh Deformation has been a game-changer for bringing new life (and new meshes) into experiences and giving them dynamic movements. Here are a few examples from Parwaz Studios and maycoleee2331.
maycoleee2331
Parwaz Studios
Surface Appearance and Better Indoor Reflections
Future is Bright continues to receive updates with tech like Surface Appearance and Better Indoor Reflections allowing you to add a new level of detail to your projects. TimesNine and Grif_0 made some environments that appear so realistic that you might ask yourself: is this Roblox or real life?
TimesNine
Grif_0
New Particle Emitter Shapes
BlazeImperium leveraged the newest particle properties to bring energy and dynamic effects to their experience.
BlazeImperium
These updates represent just a few of the features that have been rolled out this year! Others include:
- Unified Smart Mesh Importer is making it easier than ever to bring in meshes.
- 9-Slice Editor has taken the coding out of 9-Slice!
- Speaking of less code, Luau-Powered AutoComplete is a huge time-saver.
- Pivot Editor saves time by allowing you to efficiently pivot points.
- Light Guides now visually depict how a light will function.
- You can reach a whole new level of detail with the Reduced Basepart Size.
- Adjustable Plane Lock allows for perfect precision when making terrain.
- We added a new Dynamic Head schema that standardizes controls for Facial Animations.
- And so much more.
Major strides were made outside Studio as well!
- Did you see the new Studio Logo?
- Luau went Open-Source, opening a new world of possibilities.
- The Game Fund was introduced, a program for limit-pushing developers to receive funding to build experiences that are unlike anything else on the platform. Interested in applying? Learn more here.
- The Talent Hub platform beta was released to empower any creator to find someone to collaborate with.
- We kicked off a new content series called Level Up where we host game design workshops and roundtable discussions with knowledgeable developers.
- Display Names allow quick and easy updating of your name (without needing to change your username).
- If you weren’t able to make it to RDC 2021, you can watch breakout sessions, panels, and Game Jam presentations on the Developer Relations YouTube channel!
- Plus, a pile of great improvements to the Forums themselves.
These features, efforts, and the things you make out of them continue to help push Roblox forward. Thank you again for being a part of our growing community. We can’t wait to see what is in store for 2022!