If there's any possible way to bring back the old smoke,

Feature Requests Studio Features
#1

I don’t want to sound like those ATR whiners for every site update.
However, this is a real issue, and I thought I would address this.

Developers don’t like for their game’s look to be changed, unless it is undoubtedly for the better.
This new one really bugs me, and now I’m questioning even working on my game anymore.

The smoke is what gave my game character. And now it’s being taken away from me.

Old smoke:

UulB1gY.jpg997×592

New smoke:

9MQ2H0F.jpg995×593

Old smoke:

vcsjotg.gif800×474

New smoke:

N0WfV4E.gif800×472

The thing is, I used the so-called “unrealism” of the old smoke to my advantage. It was a very flexible, and more importantly, stylized texture. I never planned on this happening. I built this with a certain idea and look in mind. Then, you all the sudden decided to change it. Just out of the blue, no warnings.

My real purpose of this thread is to discuss these updates. Roblox is not based on complete and utter realism. If it was, you might as well give us user meshes, access to C code, and everything.
Roblox is, and has always been, about style. Roblox has a certain aesthetic to it, which builders use as a building block to create something amazing. Then, when you release an update to change these textures and such, this happens.

I gotta say, the smoke looks a little more realistic, like real smoke. Same with the fire. But I have never actually used smoke to look like real smoke. It was always, and always will be, a little aesthetical ornament, used in a clever way to make things look good.

I don’t know if it’s plausible in any way to bring back the old smoke. But I just wanted to make this thread to point out:

True developers and builders like updates that allow them to make things better. Not updates that force to “make things better” for them.

Leave the roblox developers in peace. Leave their building blocks, their textures, alone, and only add, rather than change something that is already good.

I created a dds file, to be put in content/textures/particles for comparison of the old smoke.

1 Like
#2

Can you adapt to it? Change things around to make it work for your game?

#3

All I can really do is live with it.

I honestly don’t understand why there needs to be updates to change the look of everything for the developers, rather than simply adding options for the developers.

#4

This is a really unfortunate thing for you, but I’m sure this won’t be reverted. For you, I’d suggest joining the rally to get that cool particle project going, and I’m sure that would do all you need for your purposes and more.

I like your point on realism vs. stylism. I think a unified aesthetic is an important part of Roblox, at least for most of its games(That said, it should never be confining or limiting. It would ideally always be possible to break out of the “Roblox look” with heavy use of custom textures, etc.). The direction we are heading concerning nature of this general Roblox aesthetic with respect to stylism vs. realism is, I think, a really important point to discuss. Should we be headed in a direction for ultimate realism? Or keep our stylish five jointed characters and simpler aesthetics? Or perhaps alternately, open it up even more to developers to go for whatever they want, perhaps at the expense of loosing the unified feeling of aesthetic across different games?

I agree that things should be kept more stylish, if nothing else than for the reason that it’s easier to achieve when you’re going for something abstract or artistic, as opposed to your standard being reality, which is a goal that is becoming only slightly decreasingly impossible to achieve with computers. With things like smoke, like you point out, stylized textures are more flexible. You can use smoke for more than just smoke, as you do. Fire can be used for lots of different effects as well, like sparks. These adaptations wouldn’t look at all as good if the fire was photorealistic. Instead of “Ah, sparks!”, it would be, “Hey why’s the fire that off yellow color?”. Going for a realistic aesthetic limits the usability of these features in this way. The same idea applies for most materials.

#5

Yes! Finally this discussion is being had!

I wish material textures had a tiling size we could change. Things like wood, sand, and corroded metal have WAY too small tiling in my games, and they look out of place. I have to go back and make everything SmoothPlastic so it doesn’t remain ridiculous looking.

And so many of the old material looks were so much more multifunctional. I could use foil to make a yellow sphere in the ground look like a pile of coins. I could make towels in bathrooms look rough with concrete. I could use concrete for carpets, sand, snow, or any rough surface.

But now materials are SO honed in on one look, it makes no sense to even color them anything differently. Sand looks so much like sand that it’s pointless to use sand as snow. It doesn’t matter if we can get the colors we want, the material wouldn’t look close enough. The only solutions are to take this into consideration and revise/ have a plan going to improve everything for the better (And not for realism) or make materials for every imaginable surface. (Which would be horrible)

But I thought this thread was gonna be about how infrequent smoke is on low settings? They finally fixed it a while ago, and now it’s a problem again. Smoke only emits once every… 5 or 6 seconds. It’s completely useless.

#6

Yes! I would love to build castle walls with enormous stone bricks, or make floors out of tiny wood planks. The brick texture is good for buildings made out of red bricks, but they’re rather small for other types of bricks. The Texture object has this, why can’t Materials?

This too. I once made a roof for a house out of brown Fabric, because the texture resembled little shingles. When they updated the textures the house looked like someone had used some ugly brown carpet to make the roof.

#7

While on this topic, I just want to point out, with materials, I always use wood planks rather than wood, just because the wood texture is so small and hard to see.

#8

No.

#9

OMG YOU MADE ME SCRATCH AT MY SCREEN! I thought it was dust but it was your profile picture :c

#10

The shortest “Your argument is invalid” statement I’ve ever seen.

#11

I honestly think this looks totally fine. No character has been lost. I’d make the color of the smoke darker in the second image to match the original more, though.