Did you even enable the beta feature? If so, it may be something to do with the Environmental Specular Scale.
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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
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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?
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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.
- Indoor Environment Maps, which is just a fancy word for CubeMap reflections, only work under certain conditions.
- The calculations of weather or not a part will reflect its surroundings is based on AI, rather than giving full control to the developer, which is one of the many flaws of Roblox: not allowing the user full control over development.
- It only works on a really reflective part when EnvironmentalSpecularScale is turned upâŚwhy? Why canât we just have a reflective property/slider/map on (PBR) textures?
- They arenât even that good. The quality is subpar, they donât reflect decals, arenât parallax corrected, and they are anchored to a certain part of a room, not even to the part reflecting it.
- Roblox feels the need to call this dynamic, despite the fact that itâs a CubeMap anchored to a single point, and we donât even have control of the positioning of that CubeMap.
Again, I understand that this is in beta and that the Roblox team is hard at work trying to implement new features into the platform, but itâs just so hard to praise this update when thereâs so many things wrong about it.
And itâs not just for this update, Iâm talking about a lot of the new recent updates and features like ShadowMaps, terrain, Mesh import limits, etc. For a platform whose motto is âPowering Imaginationâ, thereâs 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.
Iâve come to a point where I intentionally lower my expectations on a new update because of what Iâve seen happen on this platform before. Using the excuse, âRoblox is about platform compatibility and making updates like this will ruin it!â, 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 isnât 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 Iâm afraid for the future of this update.
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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 itâs actually the same resolution. Itâs just outdoor shadows are more blurry. The quality is actually better because the og builds made everything look too metallic.
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Another downgrade I noticed was, back in FIB v15, there was actually a slider for PBR textures to control the intensity of Metallic/Roughness. Whyâd they get rid of it? NO IDEA. I donât even know why that had to be downgraded, it worked so well already, and I had so many plans to use it tooâŚ
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.
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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 itâs even more resource consuming than the bug.
I feel like youâre 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.
Comparison Screenshots
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.
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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. Letâs just hope Roblox doesnât screw this up as much as they did phase 3.
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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 wasnât it easier to just make it mirror the enviorment? It seems complicate how you explained it⌠I am just a builder though!
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Actually no. Itâs 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 Iâm 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 donât 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 donât believe the bug was removed intentionally, it was probably fixed with the new shadow system introduced in v16.
I deffiently agree itâs a lot more accurate but the reason why it changed is so itâs more visually similar to voxel. And even with that itâs 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.
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Completely agree with you. I think updates like these are a great step in the right direction. Especially in appealing to outside audiences who previously thought Roblox is a child-only game. These updates really show what the engine is capable of.
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Phase 3 is slowly getting fixed, itâs still quite laggy but @vrtblox is fixing it, I recommend following the Fib3 post for more info.
Looking at it now, after some more time to think, I have had a few things clear up.
This is basically an optimized way of getting reflections + improved indoor lighting for low-end pcs.
SUGGESTION
What if, you introduced more to this feature.
I was thinking, of having it so, maxiumum graphics introduces this + screen space reflections. 
Whereas lower graphics removes SSR and has purely the cubemaps.
That way the feature satisfies everyone, users with higher, and lower-end hardware. 
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I think Graphics 9 shouldnât automatically remove SSR but 7 or 8 instead.
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Yeah it was just an example, but it would be amazing to see it happen.
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Once again, I feel like youâre basing this off of wishful thinking, unless you didnât look at the screenshots provided.
I assume youâre talking about this post here:
This was faked using a mesh. It doesnât look nearly as nice and obscures your view. Volumetric lighting isnât in Roblox, and to bring back the real effect would need some serious modification to the engine code, not just a simple plugin.
Mesh used to fake volumetric lighting:
Fake Volumetric Lighting Demo (2.3 MB)
I advise you to look for information on topics rather than basing them off opinions and assumptions to get a better understanding and so you wonât misinform other people reading the replies as well.
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Wow! That looks amazing! What game is that? 
