Do not use reflectance
Reflectance is legacy and we are not planning on supporting it with env maps. If you use reflectance you won’t be able to to see env map.
If only custom materials could be applied on regular parts like in the beta again… 
Or had the sliders for the different values again… You HAVE to provide model and image IDs now.
Update the reflectance, so surfaceappearance actually works on it.
yes that is a bug. Thanks
I feel you guys. But that is an overall direction of Roblox engine and that is not something that we (engineers) can walk around… We need to stick with the vision. The way to go about this is usually: fully automatic, try to collect feedback, improve automatic solution as much as possible and if it is completely un-avoidable, then add some control.
Requesting control of the probes won’t change much at this point. We always want the best for the dev community, but there is also a direction we need to adhere to. We listen to You guys and will work on improving the envmaps. And we hear your feedback on how much you want the control and will keep it in mind!
Please try to post objective feedback, bugs and placement problems as detailed as you can so we can improve on this feature. Reports and showcases where the env map currently breaks is really appreciated.
Thanks
I love this new update, though, the only thing I don’t really understand is the reflective part reflecting itself, as stated in several previous posts.
Real life mirrors do not reflect themselves, ROBLOX one does. 
The indoor environment maps aren’t supposed to act as mirrors, if they were the environment map would capture from the part. Instead it captures from the center of the room
While I understand where you’re coming from, it’s replies like these that highly aggravate me as a developer. What’s stopping us from having granular control over features like these, while also keeping the engine’s easy onboarding process? E.g. for this feature, there could be a bool setting for toggling “automatic” mode and “manual” mode, with the default being “automatic”. This satisfies both audiences: new developers that just want to drag’n’drop, as well as more experienced developers who want control over the engine’s features so they can craft the exact game that they want players to experience. Part of Roblox’s vision is to make bigger, more immersive games - “immersive” is relative to the game, and different developers have different visions for their respective games, just like authors trying to convey meaning through their stories. Having the option of dev control lets us do that, helping satisfy that part of the vision.
then add some control
Again, why can’t we do both in the first place? It literally satisfies both audiences and meets the specs that product wants.
Is there somewhere we as developers can reach out to product to give our feedback on these decisions? I honestly feel like product is a complete black box sometimes, and it’s very frustrating.
Every competing game engine (Unity, Unreal, Godot, Torque3D, etc.) allows almost full control over what the developer can do with their game. Automated features are always OPTIONAL in other game engines.
Why does Roblox want it all to be forcefully automated instead of letting developers have full control over what they want to do with their game? I don’t want to be handheld or restricted by a bunch of features I can’t even choose to toggle or control. If any more features are forced like this, I can’t consider staying in Roblox as a developer, because I bet the next few automated features are going to conflict with what I’ve already worked on, including this current feature.
It’s nice that you acknowledged we want control over this feature, but we want control over every other feature too. This is a game engine after all, not just a “game” with a sandbox mode.
Does this update need to worry me?
I’m starting to get worried, judging by the post, that “ambient” and “reflectance” are legacy.
Roblox has had a history of removing legacy features. Do I need to account for the fact that these systems are going to be removed entirely? Because if so, that’s going to really sour my mood and be more nonsense I have to fix that wasn’t broken.
i kinda wish they did it how the source engine does where you place spots for cubemaps then objects going near it will slowly transition to that cube map
For me it just creates red light out of nowhere.
Did you even enable the beta feature? If so, it may be something to do with the Environmental Specular Scale.
I think the biggest weakpoint in the roblox lighting system is the voxel system right now. With 5 stud tall characters it is basically impossible to accurately represent an environment in 4 stud voxels. My not even that voluminous trees are getting more detected as indoor buildings than my actual buildings.
Walking around a medium complex environment the engine just doesnt know what is going on and my shadows randomly get lighter or darker as I walk about the place.
I would hope for the voxel grid to go as detailed as 1 stud or if possible less and also store diffuse color information of the environment with it, which could make a system like this more stable, remove the need for shadowmaps in many cases and could be worked into screen space effects like ambient occlusion, global illumination or reflections as a means of considering scenery that isnt directly visible in the depth map and maybe offer deferred shading entirely.
TL:DR/ conclusion
Currently theres voxels, screen space effects, shadow maps and now reflection probes, which are all fairly well implemented and do a decent job at what they are supposed to, but dont really work together, eating up each others performance and leading into this comparatively messy result
Hey, sorry for potentially going off-topic here but what about Attachment objects? I believe Attachments would be the closest to a lighting probe, no?
This update is 1 step in the right direction… and about 4 steps backwards. I understand that this is a beta and things are bound to change, but this has me upset about a few things.
And it’s not just for this update, I’m talking about a lot of the new recent updates and features like ShadowMaps, terrain, Mesh import limits, etc. For a platform whose motto is “Powering Imagination”, there’s certainly a lot of enforced restrictions requiring you to build inside the box. Roblox also seems to implement new features when the bare minimum of hardware takes a step up, sort of neglecting the part of this community that have powerful computers, capable of running demanding graphics, and forcing developers who want to make realistic games to find workarounds rather than allowing streamlined development. Some could argue that implementing ShadowMaps and other updates into Roblox is paying attention to those who want good graphics, but ShadowMaps have been around for about 2 decades.
Now that the rambling part is over, I want to adress my biggest fear for this and future updates: Roblox is going to leave us with something mediocre. Allow me to clarify; this has been done in the past with The Future Is Bright updates. The Future lighting we have now, is a low quality version of what was provided in the Beta Builds of FiB as seen here. Not only did it have higher quality Shadowmaps, it even had Volumetric Lighting.
In the end, when FiB finally came out, the update was rolled back 2 times, and left us with a lower quality version of what Roblox initially provided.
I’ve come to a point where I intentionally lower my expectations on a new update because of what I’ve seen happen on this platform before. Using the excuse, “Roblox is about platform compatibility and making updates like this will ruin it!”, is unbelievably dumb. Increasing Shadowmap quality, adding volumetric lighting, adding Realtime reflections, will not hinder compatibility in the slightest, or at least to an unenjoyable level. Also, seeing as how there was a showcase of accurate real-time reflection probes on Roblox it would be illogical to implement this sometime in the future.
TL;DR This update needs improvements. Roblox needs to stop enforcing restrictions on developers, and ease up AT LEAST a little. Based on past events, we might get something that isn’t as good as originally showcased, similar to the Future is Bright update. Roblox needs to offer more graphical options for better customization and users with better hardware instead of having them settle with mediocre, and I’m afraid for the future of this update.
Just wanted to say this but that was a glitch. It was never intended and was super laggy. But a person has managed to bring it back I believe.
Not really it’s actually the same resolution. It’s just outdoor shadows are more blurry. The quality is actually better because the og builds made everything look too metallic.
Another downgrade I noticed was, back in FIB v15, there was actually a slider for PBR textures to control the intensity of Metallic/Roughness. Why’d they get rid of it? NO IDEA. I don’t even know why that had to be downgraded, it worked so well already, and I had so many plans to use it too…
Also, in FIB v15 there were a lot more options to mess around with regarding the draw distance of shadows. Now, of course, they automated it… Great.
While yes, the volumetric lighting was never intended, it was very realistic and interacted well with the environment. And no, the effect was never brought back into Roblox. Whoever did that faked it with parts and it’s even more resource consuming than the bug.
I feel like you’re basing this off assumptions, opinions, or wishful thinking rather than actual facts and information. The lights and shadows in the beta builds were MUCH more better than the shadow quality we have now.
Everything below is default, with shadow softness set to 0.
Beta Build v15:
Current Roblox Studio:
Current Roblox Studio:
Beta Build v15:
Current Roblox Studio:
Beta Build v15:
Not to mention, but the beta builds had a more accurate light falloff.
Completely agree with this. They also removed more control over the individual light properties in the final release such as shadow sharpness and shadow cutoff. Let’s just hope Roblox doesn’t screw this up as much as they did phase 3.
It does not appear to be working for me too,
I have tried all of the previous solutions but none seems to be working for me.
Yes I am part of the Beta Program,
Yes I did set all the lighting values correctly,
Yes I did try it indoor with a thick ceiling,
Yes, I did try it with Custom Materials/Surface Appearance.
And, Yes, I did try it with all of my graphic settings to the max.
Has anyone had the same issue?
If yes, how did you fix it? I am struggling to understand this problem,
It just looks like a normal reflective part when I turn it on.
Also wasn’t it easier to just make it mirror the enviorment? It seems complicate how you explained it… I am just a builder though!
Actually no. It’s the same resolution. The person who worked on the hackweek project orginally said that its 0.1x0.1 studs. The one we have right now is 0.1x0.1 studs. If I’m correct this was also mentioned when that same person was comparing shadowmapping to voxels. The reason why the ones we have look more softer is probably because what they use for soft shadowing is probably more intense now. Or what handled better soft shadows in v16 is what caused this. Which was probably for the better because making shadows softer looked weird in the older builds.
Actually I don’t think they faked it with parts because I would notice and they need it to be set at future lighting so it can work cause it uses the shadowmaps. Just saying I don’t believe the bug was removed intentionally, it was probably fixed with the new shadow system introduced in v16.
I deffiently agree it’s a lot more accurate but the reason why it changed is so it’s more visually similar to voxel. And even with that it’s still a huge difference.
Sure FIB3 is not exact like in the builds. But does it matter? Not really. It still looks absolutely fantastic! Anyways this is getting off topic. If you wish to continue this we can go in dms.
