particle/coloured shadows and proper back face shadows - not implemented
volumetric light - not implemented (and had better looking sunrays and bloom than now)
2015:
gamma correction - not implemented (was to be added with hdr)
1x1x1 outdoor lighting grid - not implemented? light leaks through parts less than 4x4x4 but light instances dont on future/realistic light
hard sun shadows - implemented in place of soft shadows
voxel based light shadows - not implemented, but was replaced with per-pixel shadows in 2020 with future lighting
ambient sky light - implemented with specular/diffuse scale but at a lower quality as closed off spaces are also affected by outdoor light
global illumination - not implemented
humanoid shadows - not implemented but was replaced by per-pixel shadows in 2020 with future lighting
2016:
improved specular and light fall off effects - implemented for future lighting
performance improvements for lights - not implemented (in 2016 future could handle 1000+ lights at 60fps. now it can barely handle 50 without some frame drops even on high end systems)
improved csg shadowmapping - implemented
improved bloom effect - implemented? rendered at a lower resolution which looks quite sloppy
hdr features - still… not implemented… (seriously how does this take 11+ years to add?)
improved global shadow quality - implemented
per-pixel light cast shadows - barely implemented. this only functions for parts and is extremely laggy compared to 9 years ago. this was also meant to be implemented for particles, beams, trails, etc yet wasnt even when it was in ftb’s beta in 2019-2020
13/23 features were added if you count the partly implemented ones. but the ones implemented as how they were shown in their reveal videos brings that to 8/23. thats only 35% of features shown off 9+ YEARS ago that were fully added, and roblox still looks the same as it did 10 years ago in some cases
the fact that most of these features dont get added is really disappointing. how do real time effects shown off a decade ago perform worse now than they did 10 years ago? why not just add these features that have been held behind closed doors for years that are clearly ready for public release going off how long ago they were teased and actually optimise them?
i get this might be “performance issues”, but they can just be disabled below certain graphics levels or system specs, roblox already does that for things like draw distance, and lighting, so why cant they do that with other things?
really should get to adding these, cause seeing these 10 year old features not being added is a huge let down for anyone who follows this stuff. like yea, i love a few of the features announced at events like rdc25 (which took way too long to add), but ignoring features teased before i even discovered roblox is just a massive let down
What about all of the new features or improvements mentioned in later hack weeks such as those shown in 2019? Here are a few I think that should really be added from the 2019 hack week:-
Imagine be able to do a lot and still intentionally limiting yourself to even implement simple things like performance improvements or optimizations. Almost like hack week innovation projects are just proof that Roblox engineers can do a lot of amazing stuff but the insane bureaucracy and out-of-touch and reality product managers are the real obstacle. I know a few things made like Global Illumination or real-time Ray Tracing are not feasible to add but why isn’t smooth, responsive and instant client app resizing there yet?!
i have not actually watched hack weeks past 2016 yet, but i can see why i should have before posting this
from what @LvieReal said, seemless teleport appears to be on the roadmap which is good
and @enzogamer123vv is right on partial pbr implementation due to the lack of some maps like emissive maps (which are gladly being added)
a lot of these though do seem like they should be in game already and idk why they havent been, cause 6 years is 100% enough to add all of these, and ive actually wanted atmospheric scattering for a while now
it is possible to have that “grids” system too, but its a really hacky solution where you move the workspace around the camera which doesnt move things like terrain, and can get quite laggy if a lot of instances are being moved at once
btw here is a list of all pbr maps:
Albedo (included in roblox)
Metalness (included in roblox)
Normal (included in roblox)
Roughness (included in Roblox)
Emissive (future)
Displacement (not included in Roblox)
Height (not included in Roblox)
Specular (not included in Roblox)
Bump (not included in Roblox)
AO (not included in Roblox)
So there is a lot of pbr maps for roblox to add in the future and i believe they dont add cuz of performance and yeah thats my opinion
@synical4 fr do wish some of these did get added. would allow for even a slight bit more creative freedom with game appearance where you wouldnt have to abuse engine bugs or come up with really hacky solutions
@enzogamer123vv probably is to do with performance. roblox could add these though if they just stopped supporting the low end systems that i dont think anyones used in years, or just not have them be enabled on low end systems
i do honestly think a lot of dx9 devices could support these
hell ue3, unity, and i think a few other engines got shaders a few years before dx10 released which came out not long after roblox released, and roblox is a far simpler engine than both, so it could be supported
just a shame they havent been. roblox really does need to work on actually releasing hack week features cause atp they are really getting behind on the triple A/indie quality i know a lot developers want to be able to achieve, my included, and adding stuff that was promised before i even discovered roblox should honestly be on some sort of low/mid-priority list instead of being shelved into obscurity
I’ve heard both that the reason Roblox doesn’t support these things is because of GL ES 2.0 (HEAVILY stripped down version of OpenGL 2.1) and that Roblox didn’t even fully utilize DX9 when it was supported
Support for OpenGL ES 2.x has been removed a while ago. I hope Direct3D10 deprecation is next even if it wouldn’t arrive with support for Vulkan or Direct3D12 on Windows.
it actually didn’t get removed and was delayed. also why do you want D3D10 removed?? removing an API that is already forwards compatible with D3D11 enough that D3D 10.1 GPUs can run a lot of D3D 11 games won’t magically fix anything? i’d imagine with how insanely similar D3D 10 and 11 are its just disabling features like lighting technologies on D3D 10 so they don’t appear visually broken
Yeah this is weird, DX10 can support basically nearly all features that DX11 on Roblox can. This would be a very different story if Roblox used DirectX12 though.
I’m fairly sure stuff like future lighting also works completely fine on DX10.
DirectX is Windows exclusive. These limitations are likely not coming from DirectX, but from old versions of OpenGL that are soon enough finally going to lose support.
