Exploit in UGC that allows Transparent Items

Bug Reports Engine Bugs
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#44

To clarify, you implied a bit earlier that the texture itself should also be able to be used to input transparency into the mesh:

This was the part I was referring to. Of course it is simple to revert the Transparency property, which isn’t personally my concern in terms of developer control; rather, my concern is that we can’t analyse textures for Transparency to catch those items out. In fact, one item on the catalog appears to seemingly use that exact trick to obtain its translucency rather than the Transparency property.

Translucency is just naturally more expensive to render since you still need to render and depth-sort any parts behind the object, too. I’d recommend checking out my reply in the other topic if you haven’t already since it goes into a bit more detail about why Roblox’s current approach for translucency makes this difficult to acheive without visual artifacts; these are long-standing implementation details which have unfortunately existed and stayed for years afaik.

This behaviour isn’t documented anywhere. Maybe it is intended, but in that case, we should ideally wait for a staff to confirm it.

This can impact developers’ experiences, even more around the fact that many developers don’t/didn’t even know that this was a potential concern to worry about! Translucency is still very much hacky on Roblox, and it very much shows with a lot of broken enough behaviour when used in many cases.

6 Likes
#45

Yes, and it should stay that way. Roblox should be the only one who can upload transparent accessories.

It’s already unsurprisingly being abused by UGC “creators” who are copying semi transparent Roblox-made accessories and limiteds with this bug which is unfair on the people who own the original items as the accessories will become less exclusive and therefore less valuable, causing them to lose money/robux.

Even for non limited semi transparent Roblox-made accessories, it would still ruin and devalue their exclusivity. You are not entitled to this feature.

5 Likes
#49

I would have to agree with @EmperorDitto here. The fact that Roblox has already made the decision to extend the UGC program out publicly available for almost all, I believe was their part in enhancing and diversifying the Roblox catalog, noting that even with the current state of the catalog there are people who exploit certain bugs or glitches to their advantage for unintended purposes that Roblox had decided to make User-Generated-Content production publicly available.

I doubt Roblox would create a transparent accessory feature just yet as it can lead to more issues that are just not worth it as of now that have also been mentioned by @Abcreator like moderation of these items, “expensive rendering”, and games that can be unfairly or unintendingly played of the creators purpose. Maybe in the future there can be implemented a better system for semi-transparent items, as for now Roblox has better things to be worried about and should firstly remove or fix whatever method the “exploit” uses to create transparent items, as the catalog is rapidly being filled with them.

Lastly, I do not believe it is game developers responsibility to fix items that creators are making with this transparency “exploit”. If creators are using ways unintended by Roblox to create transparent items then they should be removed and not be extra weight put on developer’s shoulders. Roblox’s decision to publicize creation of accessories, bundles, and more I believe was a good decision for Roblox itself and it’s future, but has proven to not be perfect because of the constant glitches, bugs, exploits, debates, arguments, and whatnot. It is not time for Roblox to allow everyone to make transparent items, and rather should fix this “exploit”.

TL;DR: Patch/remove whatever method is used for creating these transparent items, do not create publicly available transparent items YET, and it is not game developers’ responsibility to fix these items in their games.

Roblox, please fix this!

6 Likes
#50

The only stance I agree with is that of abuse.

Listen carefully please, Limited owners should not feel wronged in any sense of the word.
If you feel wronged about your item losing value, you bought it for the wrong reasons.
Your Limited is a piece of Roblox History, it is an officially created Item by Roblox.
And you own a part of that history, which is what should give it value.
This cannot be replicated, copied or duped in a way to replace the authenticity of an official Item.
The Limited’s people own are given value by the collectors themselves.
They are the one’s who assign value to these items.
And decide how much they’re worth.

Your average Roblox player whom may see the item as merely cool does not understand this.
They do not understand this value, that you’ve so graciously bestowed upon these items.
They will likely never appreciate these items the same way you do.
And they certainly will never appreciate the fact that an Item has a price tag equivalently worth thousands of IRL US dollars.

These people are not the types of people who will buy these Limited’s or appreciate their value.
These are people who simply wish to wear the item because they think it looks cool and nothing more. They’ll never be able to lie and say they own the real deal.
Because you can verify that in less than 10 seconds.

If you are buying an Item simply because it’s expensive opposed to looking good or actually appreciating the item for what it is and it’s history or rarity. Then you do not appreciate Limited’s in the way I’ve described.

You only appreciate the perceived money that it can make you.
Instead of sharing in the collective understanding of the true value of these items to people who appreciate them.

But the whole point of this that I’m making is that.
If someone buys a knock-off, don’t feel cheated.

They likely weren’t ever going to buy your item to begin with.
They can’t justify it, because they don’t see the value in it past looks.

And that’s ok, there’ll always be others that do appreciate them for what they are.
And if ever a time should come where there isn’t.
Then they have well and truly lost all value.

I have a lot of respect for the trader community and just wanted to share my perspective in all this.

Additional: Just like in real life, there are knock-off brands for those who cannot justify buying the real deal. This shouldn’t be looked down upon, it’s ok if you cannot afford the real deal. And you shouldn’t be judged for not being able to afford these items or wanting to still own something similar that looks nice.

2 Likes
#51

I don’t see any issue with this?

1 Like
#52

I get what you’re saying and agree with most of it, but the point I was making was that semi transparency shouldn’t be allowed on UGC.

Most traders like myself do look down on this. I have no problem with people not being able to afford those items, and I have no problem with people wanting to own them. The problem starts for me when they feel entitled to owning/wearing them. The items are supposed to be exclusive, that’s why they’re worth so much in the first place. People don’t seem to understand that they’re not entitled to absolutely everything they want. It’s a fact of life.

Every limited item rip-off that’s been uploaded to the catalog shouldn’t have even made it past Roblox’s moderation. Even though they clearly break Roblox’s TOS, Roblox allows most of them to stay on the catalog because doing so makes them more money.

This hurts the original items as it devalues their exclusivity, the whole reason semi transparent accessories are considered “cool” (aside of it being semi transparent) is because there aren’t that many of them. That will all disappear the second that UGC creators start pumping out semi transparent accessories.

Only Roblox should be allowed to produce semi transparent accessories, as allowing UGC creators to do it regardless of whether they’re limited rip-offs or not would devalue the original exclusivity of all the Roblox-made transparent accessories. It’s one of the only remaining things (transparency, particles, sound hats) that UGC cannot replicate and ruin and should stay that way.

4 Likes
#53

Thanks for the report! We are looking into it.

9 Likes
#56

I love how these examples just show that Roblox needs to implement alpha maps for accessories because of its potential for optimized hair. None of this is even worthy of being called exploitative besides the obvious texture issue.

If anything, staff needs to look at this report and prioritize alpha map implementation on their plans for 2025.

5 Likes
#58

You need a couple hundred more for this to be a full list

3 Likes
#59

I personally believe this should become an official feature, as UGC creators we could create new categories and genres of items with transparent texture support. The thing with limiteds though is that people have already been uploading limited knock-offs, this isn’t going to be a new problem if they allow us to create transparent UGC. The good that can be done outweighs the bad. With proper moderation in place to take down fake limiteds we can return to a normal state in the Marketplace.

If any staff are reading this, please do discuss alpha support! Hairs could be greatly optimized, faces/makeups could be more accessible and easier to make, new innovative UGC could start new trends. I am currently brainstorming ideas & converting some of my UGCs to alpha (Hairs and makeups) if this feature will be coming in the future. :laughing:

Edit: A compromise could be limiting transparent or semi-transparent textures only for Hairs/Face Accessories. (think sunglasses, faces, visors, goggles, decorations etc) I do not believe transparent bundles or layered clothing should be allowed because of expensive rendering & misuse issues until Roblox has found a way to optimize this or has improved their QA Moderation.

8 Likes
#60

I genuinely feel like even though this is technically a bug, it should be something that can be utilized into a feature. Maybeu limiting to accessories only. Bundles and layered clothing i can see how it can potentially be maliciously used, which I’m pretty sure OP was probably considering on doing

3 Likes
#61

Praying this makes them add alpha map support for UGC :smiling_face_with_tear:

4 Likes
#62

Update from engineers since they haven’t bothered to post here themselves, which is disappointing:

3 Likes
#63

Yeah pretty disappointing after waiting this long. At least it’s a response and not nothing.

3 Likes
#64

Alright how about this, allow UGCs and other stuff like this in one condition: It must be below 40% of the opacity ratio. Maybe lower.

1 Like
#65

If we account in some conditions for this, then I agree with this one, opening new doors into new types of UGCs. That would be beneficial for many creators.

1 Like
#66

That’s what I’m saying. It would be awesome to see some more unique stuff in the UGC catalog.

1 Like
#67

Staff have already said stuff about this you can check it in the above linked posts.

#68

Have staff responded with additional information on this issue yet?

#69

Engineers have confirmed this has been patched in Layered Clothing, where items are now expected to have 0 transparency in validation.

However I’m not sure if this is the case for other item types. Can anyone confirm whether this has been patched for accessories? I haven’t seen any transparent ones uploaded recently, so I’m assuming this is the case.

1 Like