Developer Roadmap Update: 2021

[IdontPlayz343 (FPS Enjoyer)]

The new built in materials won’t have performance issues, as was said in the original post about the new and redone built ins.

[RealRudraAmin (Randy)]

I don’t believe it will at all? It actually seems Roblox has been reducing restrictions caused by not having premium, as was made apparent by:

• Unifying groups joined limit
• Allowing non premium players to make groups
• Unified fees / taxes

[tnavarts]

SurfaceAppearance Studio Beta [Released]

Update: SurfaceAppearance is now out of Beta and enabled in all places. – Hey, Developers. At Roblox, we are continually upgrading our technology so you can create a wider range of content. Until now, uploaded textures have been limited to a simply-shaded, low detail style. Today we are opening up much more expressive controls. We are proud to present SurfaceAppearance, a new object for assigning PBR textures to MeshParts. [meshpart-vs-sa] What does SurfaceAppearance do? SurfaceAppearance …

[Eternalove_fan32 (FrostDracony)]

@FilteredStudio

Parallel Lua

Ok finally we get to a feature I might actually be able to elaborate on.

Paralell Lua is something we’ve needed for a long time, finally being able to take control of multiple cores on a CPU will push what we can do with the engine so much futher.

I’ve been playing around with the beta zueg released a while back, and there’s some previously performance heavy tasks that become so much less of an overhead.

I can‘t understand, what is this?

@FilteredStudio

So, basically Git but in Roblox?

I don‘t know if this would be a good idea or not, but if you think that there are children that don‘t know anything about git, then it may be a good idea

@FilteredStudio

Ok, now onto a fun one. The Teleport API in it’s current state is a complete and utter mess. When it was added back in 2013 or 2014 was it? The feature was simply just “Teleport”. And thats what it needed to be.

As more features like Party Teleports and Reserved Servers got added, the API started to get more bloated and confusing.

For example, Teleport is the only function (assuming you set the permission) that can teleport to games outside of the universe itself. Every other function is locked to the universe it was called under.

Simplifying the API to a single function, TeleportAsync , will definitely reduce the amount of bloat in the Teleport API and make it nicer to use, a bit.

I hope that using the new API, it will allow us to teleport like we saw in the HackWeek (Teleporting without Screen loading + fast teleporting)

[EK9Hatch (Aswuqs)]

So you think that removing benefits that premium had is a good move? By doing so they’ve made premium pretty much useless other than trading, and the occasional catalog discount.

Your response also has no correlation to my original comment regarding roblox monetising user made content.

[GlowyUmbreon (Umbreon)]

Is there any information about Data Store Improvements
Our team has a few concerns about key listing and are wondering how it will work.

[FIorentius (Florentin)]

• Roblox has been evolving quickly, but there’s still a lot to improve. This is just another terrain-related “rant” but from my discussions with other developers, most people would definitely support such a change. I suggest decreasing the size of terrain voxels in order to make smaller details such as rocks, puddles and many others possible without having to import the resources from a 3d modelling software. Imagine not having to make your rocks in blender anymore, and just making them out of roblox terrain.

• Another suggestion is making the LoD adjustable, and i put way more emphasis on this. Many times my large scale terrain projects ended up looking disappointing after hours of work, because all the details that i added, all the rocky ledges and the small valleys, all the boulders and little depressions would just end up mashed into a large, featureless mass the further away you got from it.

• Yet another suggestion is that you should make it possible for developers to apply actual textures over the terrain grass (decoration), as well as edit the density, render distance and size of it.

[comsurg (cog)]

Although you can already do this using MessagingService, a service just for storing data would be useful.

[Extingale (Ext)]

I think making the voxel resolution larger would be too taxing on performance, but I think it would be possible to automatically and randomly place some decorations on the terrain (like rocks/pebbles), which you could toggle or something. But to be honest this is entirely doable in a plug-in, so take notes, everyone.
Also I endorse the changes in grass. It’s been so long since it came out but we still can’t customize it at all which makes it really annoying.

[FIorentius (Florentin)]

Well, current voxels are 4x4 studs right? what i was thinking of was 1x1 studs voxels, that shouldn’t have a too big effect on performance after all.

[XAXA]

Reducing the size of voxels to 1 stud will result in a 4x4x4 = 64x increase in the number of voxels.

[FIorentius (Florentin)]

That wouldn’t be practical in the slightest for large maps, but would be amazing for showcases and smaller scenes.

[Rootie_DaHoodie (PapiRootie)]

I’d like to see some improvements to the crash rates analytical page, can we please get a revamp for crash rates on the analytics page?

For example, how many users are crashing on said device in which universe? Or even a way for us to see crash dumps.

It’s extremely hard to figure out crash reasons without guessing.

[TheSuzerain]

I believe there is some confusion here (at least I’m very confused).

What you’ve sent is a link to the SurfaceAppearance feature info, but on the roadmap, clicking on the info button next to the Custom Materials leads to New Terrain, and Parts, and Built-In Materials, Oh my!

Is this a mistake?

[tnavarts]

Indeed it is, I’ll see about getting it fixed. (EDIT: It’s correct now)

[Mukar]

My bad, I misread that. I thought it was about the new built in materials. I apologize

[GuestIsJustBest]

@FilteredStudio

The Teleport API in it’s current state is a complete and utter mess. When it was added back in 2013 or 2014 was it? The feature was simply just “Teleport”.

The original “Teleport” was added back in 2011.

Teleportation

[dragonknightflies]

We are still doing research for CloudScript. Given it’s high risk, we don’t show it on the roadmap but will definitely add it back once the scope is well defined.

[BronzedMocha (mochondrius)]

Definitely a huge improvement compared to last year. Frequent accurate updates is better for devs than hype announcements, and we always have RDC to show off any crazy features coming up in the pipeline

[RealRudraAmin (Randy)]

The original comment was asking how many of these features will be behind a paywall, if I’m not mistaken? I’d check but it appears to have been deleted.