How To Create Neon Signs using an Image or Text Label

[blutzer]

In Roblox Studio and in any creative development, there are many different ways to accomplish any one task. In our creator documentation, there is a walkthrough on How to Create a Neon Sign using only 3d geometry and material choices. This quick guide shows another way, using textures and ImageLabels, TextLabels, and surfaceGUI.

1. Dimming the Environment Light for Neon Effect (optional)

Before creating your neon sign, adjust the lighting in your Roblox game to enhance the neon effect.

In the Explorer window, navigate to ‘Lighting’.

Adjust the ‘Ambient’ and ‘OutdoorAmbient’ properties to a lower value to create a darker environment. Experiment with the ‘Brightness’ and ‘Color’ properties of different light sources to complement your neon sign. You can also change the ClockTime to 0, to completely darken the environment.

2. Creating the Sign Base

Right-click on ‘Workspace’ in the Explorer window and add a new Part for the sign base. Use the Scale and Move tools to resize and position the part.

3. Adding SurfaceGUI

With the sign base selected, right-click and insert a ‘SurfaceGUI’.

4. Inserting an Image

Right-click on ‘SurfaceGUI’ in the Explorer and add an ‘ImageLabel’.

Set the ‘Image’ property to your desired image URL and adjust its size and position.

5. How To Avoid Image Distortion/Stretching?

In our example, we are using our Roblox Image with a 600x120 pixel resolution.

According to that resolution, we are going to change our image size properties accordingly, showing in the screenshot below.

Now, we have set up the base with a Part–>the SurfaceGUI and → ImageLabel assigned.

6. Applying Neon Effects

Now let’s apply the Neon Effect. To do so, let’s select the SurfaceGUI and change the LightInfluence Value to 0, which will then disclose a new field; Brightness. Next, we need to increase the Brightness value. The higher the number here, the more “bloom” effect will glow around the edges of the sign.

Since we want to have our Roblox Text White, we are going to change the image and make sure that the Font Color is white. The Background is transparent and the image is saved as a .png file that contains the transparency settings.

Let’s upload the new image and let’s make sure we are going to use that image as our ImageLabel. As a final result, we’ll get our Neon Roblox Sign.

7. Adding Text Label

Instead of using an Image Label, we can also use a Text Label. We proceed like we did before, but this time, we are going to add a Text Label to our SurfaceGUI instead of an ImageLabel.

In our example, we’ll create a text-based NEON sign. Once the Text is aligned to the Part of your choice, we need to change the Background Transparency and set the value to 1. Feel free to customize the ‘Text’, ‘Font’, ‘TextColor’, and ‘TextSize’ properties as needed.

Adjusting Pixel Resolution

Another important option you would like to adjust, is the Pixel Resolution of your TextLabel. In the property settings of the SurfaceGUI is an additioanl Sizing option. That allows you to change the Pixel Resolution to your liking. Please see screenshot below.

In our example, we used PixelsPerStud with a value set to 100.

By following all the steps above you should be able to create your own Neon Signs using the SurfaceGUI with a Text and Image Label.

Resource:

Neon Sign.rbxl (54.2 KB)

[TheReal4Cedar123 (Cedar)]

This is such a cool resource! Thank you so much for sharing

[Bobytoeburrito (Innovator)]

Very neat usage of tech. I assume this is more performant than neon mesh/union letters?

I really like how it can be combined with a gradient for further effects.

[IAmPinleon (Pinleon)]

Is there a way to do this in a ScreenGUI (on the player’s screen)?

[ibyfaha]

Thanks for pointing that out, I wonder what happens when you apply ui stroke.

[0xabcdef1234]

There are pros and cons for both of those methods.
With the tech specified in the post, you would get maximum flexibility such as using a TextLabel + gradient so that the content could be dynamically updated. Using SurfaceGui is probably also more memory efficient as it loads less mesh data.
The community plugins for creating 3d text with meshes such as Three text might be a bit memory/computational heavier, but would have the advantage that when taking a closer look it would be less aliased.

For example, in the screenshot above, the top one is SurfaceGui with TextLabel of maximum text size and the bottom one is mesh.
Also it could be viewed from all angles.
Similar result could also be achieved using a beam segment with pre-baked text textures, which provide neon style lit and built-in texture movement support as well as back-face visibility.

[blutzer]

Yes, you can also apply a UIStroke. Please see the screenshot below.

[traxy209]

A big heart for our roblox staff thanks for the tutorial.

[LetsSausage]

Wow I never knew we were able to create Neon Signs this way, this is a great resource.