Developer Community 2021 Wrap-Up

[DVDsarestillcool]

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

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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!

[luisgamercooI231fan (Luis)]

2021 was probably the best year for roblox imo. A lot of new cool features. Also the STOCK MARKET!!! The stock market allows us to get cooler features Which is Coool! A lot of stuff came out that a few years ago we’d used to joke about. Like voice chat. I still can’t believe that we have voice chat now! I can’t wait to see what 2022 has!

[CookiesAndCream3861 (CookieCraft)]

2021 has been a great year for improvements and features on the Roblox website, Roblox studio and on the Developer forums. I can’t wait to see what 2022 brings. A big thanks to all the Roblox Staff for all the work they put in.

[c0re0s (Corey)]

Spatial voice is my favorite feature added, and im totally not biased because im on the social team

[GamersInternational (RIPWiiU3DSOnline0904)]

It’s definitely been a great year, although there is some changes that I don’t agree with, here’s some of my personal favourites:

@DVDsarestillcool

Attributes

Really useful change, now I can cut down on using Values!

@DVDsarestillcool

Display Names allow quick and easy updating of your name (without needing to change your username).

This is more an amazing change for players, but it still was good.

@DVDsarestillcool

Did you see the new Studio Logo ?

Some people didn’t like it, but it does look nice and made Studio more modern.

2FA via Authenticator - Now Fully Rolled Out!

Hey developers! We’re excited to announce that 2FA Authenticator is now available across web, mobile, and Studio. This feature adds an additional layer of protection to your account, which will better protect it from unauthorized access even if someone knows your password. When you log in, you’ll be asked to enter a unique security code from the Authenticator, an application that you download and set up on your cell phone. Only you will have access to the Authenticator app; no one else will be…

Much more secure, but I don’t agree with some of the things Roblox has done now that they’ve introduced this.

Group Name Change is now available

𝓗𝓪𝓹𝓹𝔂 𝓝𝓮𝔀 𝓨𝓮𝓪𝓻 𝓓𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓵𝓸𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓼, The time has come. We have officially released Group Name Change to all users! If you’re looking to change your group’s name, navigate to the Configure Group page and click the Edit button next to your group name [Configure Group Page] You will see the following modal appear with some details around group name changes. Things to keep in mind: Changing a group’s name costs 100 Robux You can change a group’s name every 90 days E…

Again a nice change, but I’m kind of put off by how much it costs to change.

[grif_0 (not_grif)]

2021 has been an insane year for me. I stepped out of my comfort zone and started to build which you can see in indoor reflections , tiny bits of animation, and learned a TON programming wise which I’m excited to apply to my game and finally release my first major game. Can’t wait to see what the future has in hold!

My favorite feature last year has to be all of the improvements to the lighting engine (hopefully more will come this year) and skinned + cage meshes, and the many amazing scripting features like the task library, attributes, etc. , and this year I’m really looking forward to (hopefully) the sound engine and its awesome and immersive features, aswell as hopefully parallelization!

Happy 2022!

[shadowflame63 (MiniiMann)]

Tons of super useful and long-awaited features were released this year, making many new tasks possible and others much easier. My personal favourite new addition was the task library, love the new functions it provides. Also thanks for including the clip from Burger Architect as an example for attributes, they make tracking custom properties of many instances a piece of cake!

[KristinaMoment (Kristina)]

2021 has been a pretty cool year with the new Roblox features. In 2022, we shall see new materials, new mesh importer completion and what else?? who knows…

[metatablecatmaid (metatablecat)]

More attribute based train systems coming down the tracks soon

Epic year lets see what 2022 has in store

2022 release predictions:
AvatarEditorService
Script Editor API for Plugins
Spline Constraints
Developer Subscriptions

If we get a 2022 wrapup, I’ll come back to this and see how many happen.

[Dementomancer]

Is anyone else obsessed with caged mesh deformations? This is amazing and I’m so happy it was added

[OH_202020 (OH23_rbLX)]

I remember all these memories of 2021. It was for sure amongst the best years I have experience during my Roblox developement journey. I really hope and look forward to seeing what possibilities can be unlocked in this new year as well as more awesome creations, from the most advanced developers to the starters.

[LucasMZ_RBX (lucasmz)]

how dare you guys not mention the task library

[TrulyChxse (Truly)]

I really enjoy how Roblox is becoming more interactive with developers and their feedback. It was nice to test out Spatial Voice, so we could give feedback and decide if it would be a good fit for our community.
Thanks for another awesome year Developers!

[metatablecatmaid (metatablecat)]

guess that got task.defer()'d

[CoostIer (Austin)]

2021 was great. I look forward to 2022 but 2021 I will always remember

[eric12095]

is eventually that year better and make them a new features. But shall have new studio for once on script properties then make too anyone who added developers anything else…

[yousefoyoy]

2021 was a big year for Roblox graphics. The game improved so much in just 1 year.

I cant wait for what 2022 will bring!

[DevSersponge (Bun)]

Those were all amazing updates, and it’s great to see the roblox player community is actually putting a good use to those freatures where countless people worked on. I sure do hope 2022 is an even better year with brand new awesome freatures!

[eko3]

Thank you for featuring me! I wish to push the limits of the Roblox engine and keep providing more dynamic and realistic maps that push the platform to its limits!!