Hello developers!
I make this post to be able to give you everything I have learned this year, so that somehow (those who still do not know everything I will mention) can improve their constructions or use the following as tips.
The topics that I’ll cover:
1. Plugins
2. Optimization
3. Lighting
4. Textures
5. Terrain
PLUGINS:
Open
-The plugins (depending on which you use), can speed up the construction time in your experiences or games, as well as they can give a totally different look to your environments I will leave a small review followed by a youtube tutorial, so that you can get an idea of how you could apply it in your developments:
1. Atmos (Link: Atmos - professional skyboxes and lighting - Roblox)
This is plugi is not for free (150 Robux), it is a perfect plugin to give a very professional touch to your game or landscapes with ready-made and customizable lighting.
Video
Getting Started with Atmos - YouTube
Examples:
Without Atmos (Lighting-Future)
With Atmos
(Some may not be surprised, but I recommend them to those who use lighting a lot in Future or to give extra details to their Showcases)
2. Building Tools by F3X (Link: Building Tools by F3X (Plugin) - Roblox)
This is the plugin of the best known by Builders within Roblox, if you are not familiar I would recommend trying it! The use that I give it the most is to move and scale objects, since it offers you options that Roblox does not have yet.
Video
HOW TO USE F3X: The Basics - YouTube
Examples of how I use it:
If I wanted to reduce the size of this multi-block model, the entire model would be reduced.
With the F3X scaling option I can individually scale all the objects within a model, this is useful for me when creating wall or edge cuts without having to do it manually block by block.
3. Archimedes 2 (Link: Archimedes (v3.1.7) - Roblox)
It allows you to copy and paste objects according to the selected axis, it is perfect for making cylinders or shapes such as cones, stairs, curves, etc.
Video (this is not a tutorial but it demonstrates the potential that this plugin can have)
Archimedes || Roblox SpeedBuild - YouTube
4. Brush Tool 2.1 (Link: Brushtool 2.1 - Roblox)
If you like to make organic environments for your maps, buildings, etc. This plugin will solve your life!
Allows you to use a brush which copies and pastes the selected model, you can adjust sizes, rotation, balance and orientation to your desire, randomly and to your measurements.
Video
- YouTube
Example
I did this small scenario in 4 minutes, the copy and paste can be seen, nature is not so organic, you don’t get to see so alive and if we take more time it could even be in vain
This other scene was done in 2 minutes. It has fewer empty spaces and more randomness in its design, it is more organic (it is not beautiful but it serves as an example).
5. Celestial Body Dragger (Link: Celestial Body Dragger - Roblox)
The function of this plugin is very simple and does not need a video tutorial, move the location of the sun and the moon in your Studio.
6. Part To Terrain (Link: Part to Terrain - Roblox)
This plugin is very useful to quickly convert blocks into land, it is very useful to make pools or rivers as desired.
Same as the previous plugin. His use is simple so it does not need a tutorial.
7. Stravant GapFill - Extrude (Link: Stravant - GapFill & Extrude - Roblox)
Are you tired of your connections between blocks not being precise and exact? With this plugin you can automatically forget about that problem!
How to Use And Install The GapFill Plugin | RobloxStudio - YouTube
8. Stravant Model Reflect (Link: Stravant - Model Reflect - Roblox)
This Plugin is very useful when making symmetrical constructions, you only select the face where you want the model to be mirrored and voila!
It can also be useful to make the reflection of your construction on the floor
9. Texture Library Tool (Link: Texture Library Tool - Roblox)
This Plugin is one of my Top when decorating my structures, not only does it come with a wide variety, if you can please give this plugin a like and favorite, it really needs a lot of recognition.
10. Waterfall Generator
And finally and as a small detail, a plugin to make waterfalls, you just have to click at the beginning and end to insert it, it also gives you realistic or cartoonish designs.
-As you can see, the plugins that I recommend are very varied, from plugins to improve the environment of our projects, some for symmetric construction and others as shortcuts to get out of complicated or complex problems.
Optimization:
Open
Here I want to talk about several points, when one is new to constructions, your knowledge or understanding of the use of blocks is poor at this stage, so here I will give tips, to avoid that your constructions eventually end up lagging and sadly are impossible to play .
What I will comment on in this optimization topic is based on my experience and the various comments that I have obtained from posts, groups, comments with different perspectives from Builders, Scripters and Modelers. Which I have tried to generalize
Let’s separate two points first. If you are looking for a “commercial” game for all players within Roblox, with the least possible lag, you should make sure to use the least amount of parts, textures, effects, etc. We could even talk about meshes made in Blender, but we won’t cover that program in this post.
NOTICE: THE NUMBERS THAT I WILL BE GIVING SHOULD BE TAKEN AS SOME KIND OF REFERENCE AND NOT AS OFFICIAL NUMBERS, ALL THE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN COLLECTED BY ME OVER THIS TIME AS A BUILDER AND WITH THE HELP OF MANY TESTERS
For the following examples, I will use the Brick Counter Plugin, which tells you how many blocks are in your Place, and how many blocks each selected model has.
(Link: Brick Counter - Roblox)
The following Image has 2 window frames, one is made of 4 blocks, and the other is a single mesh made of 2 joined parts, one positive and one negative.
- (If you don’t know how to make joints, just go to the Solid Modeling option in the Model tab).
- (When using unions it does not mean that we can make 2 or more parts be recognized as 1 only, this is only to give an aesthetic example)
Now, I will mention 2 important details about saving 2 parts, and using unions.
Being the example, a window frame, let’s say we will make a 10-story building, with 5 windows on each side, which would be a total of 200 windows, or 800 parts
And our second model has 400 Parts
Why is part optimization and reduction important?
Let’s say your project is a city of 100 buildings, if you use the first building as the default building for your entire city, your game would take 80,000 parts, which is crazy and for some devices, it might be impossible to play (At the end of this optimization topic I will be giving numbers that I use as limits for each type of game).
Now with the second building we would cut that number of parts in half (40,000). but … can we reduce it even more?
I feel a little more crafty, what I did was make walls in the shape of #, which reduced the model to 68 parts, at this point, we just reduced the initial building from 800 parts to almost 12 times less than its original amount, and yes We cloned this new 68-block building 100 times, we would have a city of 6,800 blocks! that new amount if playable.
And if you are still not satisfied with that number. we can make a similar building but made from blender as 1 single meshpart.
Before explaining the following that you will see, you should know that each 3d face, is composed of 2 triangles, they will always have triangles.
If we use the WireFrame Rendering option, we will be able to see in X-rays the Triangles of the mesh of our buildings, in this case, our part building is cleaner and has less trix (triangles) than the one made by Blender. Here the use of Meshes and its efficiency will depend on how clean their topology is made and how much you can optimize them so that it is worth changing it for the one that was made by parts, in the case of my Mesh made in Blender, I could clean plus everything so it uses less trix, but this was just an example.
Well, we have talked about parts and how they can be reduced, but … how many should our limits be?
This point would be good if you have it saved, since it can be used for all your projects in the future.
I have made large constructions without interiors and with interiors, streets, cities, I have seen how the quantity affects and I have tested all my constructions hundreds of times with many testers, to be able to ensure that the games can have 5-20fps +
From my point of view, and with ** MY ** experience, if you want to make a game that does not lag, your maximum blocks should not exceed 5k within the rendering area of the players, for example, if the players have a visual loading distance of 300 studs, within these 300² studs, there must be a total of 5k pieces.
Now this is very relative as if you implement textures or materials they can add extra burden to players.
(This number is the result I got from my testers,)
In order to ensure that your buildings are well optimized, a house / building without interiors should not be limited to 100/600 parts.
Obviously we are talking about a game with few details.
So … is it impossible to make a whole country?
No, it is not, I present to you the streaming option.
This option is located in Workspace, what is its function? Players will load the parts up to a defined limit, for example, it is selected as default at 1024 studs, but you can increase or decrease it as you wish.
Streaming Off
Streaming On
As you can see in the images, the load of the buildings is reduced, that is why in the last photo, the buildings do not appear, they will appear, if your loading area approaches them.
This option is very useful for creating maps that are very large and contain many details, in fact, it is activated in many games
What else Lags?
Well, we already talked about the parts and how important efficiency and optimization are when using them, but are there more things?
Yes, Materials, and here I want you to take note again, Neon material is the one that consumes the most of all materials, due to its brightness it greatly affects devices that do not have VRAM (or we could say, graphics cards) . And the Smooth Plastic material is the one that could give the least lag. For this reason, simulators or tycoons do not usually use many materials, only smooth plastic, thus ensuring the experience of the players
Here I was trying to do a test of how many fps I can download by spasming blocks with neon a thousand times, but apparently my PC is not bad, but I will leave data obtained from my testers. And to finish this optimization section, I will put the other data:
(I clarify that there are 7 testers that I have used, so as not to put the characteristics of each one, I will tell you an average. I also have 3 other testers with medium and high gamma, but they are not relevant for these optimization data)
Type 1 tester:
- Processor: Pentium (R) Dual-Core 3.20Ghz
- Ram: 2 GBs
- Graphics card: Intel (R) 4 Series
- 32-bit Windows
Type 2 tester
- Processor: Pentium (R) Dual-Core 3.20Ghz
- Ram: 4 GBs
- Graphics card: Intel (R) 4 Series
- 32-bit Windows
(Yes, maybe in the middle of 2021 there will be many more people with better devices, but we are doing the test to make sure that “nobody” has lag)
The lag scale was measured from 1 to 5:
- Null
- It doesn’t affect much
- Affects
- Has Lag
- Strong Lag
Dynamic Clouds: 4.5 / 5
Neon and Glass Materials: 3/5
Lights: 3/5
Day and Night cycle using scripts: 1/5
(I wanted to try this since I thought that the change of the shadows could give lag)
What things reduce Lag?
I also tested what things could reduce lag and the scale on which it reduces it for them.
** The lag reduction scale was measured from 1 to 5: **
- Null
- It doesn’t affect much
- Affects
- Reduce Lag
- Reduce Lag a lot
The use of Haze in the Atmosphere 3.5 / 5
(This may be because it reduces the render of the map)
Streaming On 4/5
And last but not least, how many parts did it take to start giving the testers lag?
The testers had 60fps with less than 5k parts, from 9k parts, they started to have fps of 25-30fps.
That is why in the previous paragraph, I said that 5k should be a good limit so that you are 100% sure that there will be no players with low fps.
Is this limit mandatory? No, the testers I use were specifically chosen to test how much my limit would be to know that no one with a PC, mobile, tablet with low characteristics is affected by the lag. If your game is focused on an audience that will have better devices, you can do your own tests.
Lightings:
Open
This theme is shorter, the lighting may or may not add more realism, life and warmth to your game. I will speak quickly only each one of those that seem relevant to me.
We start with the “Technology” section, by default we will always have it in ShadowMap. This option should be your first option if you are looking for a well optimized game, if you are looking for something more demanding and with better lighting and shadows, we will switch to Future.
In Future, both the shadows are better, as well as the reflection and the behavior of light with the materials.
ShadowMap
Future
Now, we will give life and we will see the before and after having added several filters to our lighting.
This will be our test scenario, we will keep it during the day to see the filters, and then we will bring the night to see the lights and their effects well.
The first filter I will use will be Sun rays, as its name says, it adds sun rays. (Below)
I don’t really use the Blur filter, its function as its name says, is to blur, we can have a better effect with the following filter (I remove the Blur filter).
With Depth of Field, we can focus and blur according to the area we want, in this case, blur the background of the stage.
The Color Correction filter is widely used for games such as Tycoon or Simulator, you can contrast the colors and make your games more vivid and less boring.
We only have the Bloom Filter left, but to better appreciate it we will do the stage at night.
The Bloom effect will make light and neon more intense when shining. (Above)
But our stage still lacks something else, maybe stars. for that we will eliminate the Depth of Field (it will not let us see the stars). And we will put a Sky in which we can make the moon bigger and we can add a greater number of stars.
And in the case of Day, we will add Clouds, which are found in the Terrain option, within Workspace.
It seems that Jesus is about to come down from heaven, this is due to the Bloom Filter, which increases the reflection of sunlight in the clouds, so we will configure the Bloom filter a bit and bring back the Depth of filter. Field.
Before
Later
TEXTURES:
Open
Roblox materials are sometimes not enough, so decals can make a big difference when building.
This will be our new scenario, but not before adding a bit of filters as we had talked about before.
Before (without filters)
After (with filters)
I could be better, but I’ll settle for this.
Now, we need the textures, for that I will leave 3 links of texture pack models:
*Texture Pack - Roblox
*Free Texture Set - Roblox
*Texture Pack V2 - Roblox
We already have our Low Poly textures, let’s see how much difference is after using them.
As you can see, there is a big difference, although they have not been the best textures, it gives a more lively and pleasant tone to the environment. Now, maybe I will regret this, but we will use other textures and materials at the same time to try to give realism to Low Poly constructions.
Even using better quality textures, we can camouflage the fact that Low Poly buildings totally change their style. (I know it looks bad but it’s just an example)
(Textures taken from the Texture Library Tool plugin, Link in the first Plugin Theme)
TERRAIN:
Open
As a last step, the Roblox Terrain can be very useful to give a small example of how we can take advantage of grass, I will use it for the garden of previously used houses.
I will convert these two white blocks to Grass with the Part to Terrain Plugin
And now I’ll lift everything until only the herbs are visible
(I had forgotten to put textures on the pavement)
And now we have a well-used little street
Before textures and terrain
Tastes depend on whether you want something simple, something more lively with Low Poly textures or more detailed textures.
We can also change the color of the terrain material according to what we want.
Examples:
We will use another scenario
Another use of the terrain that some people usually do and which is not my favorite, is to use the water as a reflection for the floors, for this we will do the same as the Grass, we will insert water and raise the construction to the surface of the water.
And finally we set the speed and size of the waves to be firm. always with the WaterReflectance at 1.
END OF THE GUIDE
I hope this has helped you to improve your constructions, if you have tips and other opinions about this post, please write them and I will be reading them! Also tell me if it was useful to you as new or experienced, thank you very much for your time!
Things I forgot to mention:
-Don’t forget to anchor your constructions, the movement of parts causes lag.
-I made this post originally on spanish, I translated it to english, so Im sorry If im was not good in the traslation
