Normal maps aren’t the same as shadows or mesh deformation as there practically is no way to use them as a gameplay mechanic. Yes, it will look bad, but that’s the point of low graphics settings.
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Does anyone know when is the mesh deformation feature expected to release?
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Normal maps are used to completely change the way mesh’s look. Normal maps are not just used to give a nice grain to some wood, they can completely change the way a mesh look by faking its depth.
How’d you manage to do this? I’m not sure where to start
I would choose scale in animation so we can have as much control as possible when rigging. Also, scale in animation is very helpful when trying to rotate non spherical eyes.
Except that is a visual experience that cannot affect gameplay itself. As you said, it fakes depth, which means it can’t obstruct vision in any way, or change the way it interacts with other objects. Disabling it just makes your game look uglier.
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Yes, but usually when our games get “uglier”, we just roll back to the old features on lower graphics. But this would be going in the opposite direction.
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Lower settings are meant for people who can’t get good experience with higher details. I agree that some settings like shadows should be lockable, but normal maps are definitely not one of them.
I think that a player will hate your game more if it gave them seizures because of a slideshow frame rate rather than uglier overall imagery. I’d rather play a game that looks like runescape in first-person than something that turns my PC into a blast furnace.
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I disagree, I don’t believe shadows are as important. Normal maps should be a priority.
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In what way? Shadows can be used to detect players behind corners or something like smokes. Normal maps are just there to appease your eyes.
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This is going to be good for my horror game
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Might I ask how you’re getting the normal maps to work? I’ve tried using them and they just don’t load or are EXTREMELY weak and unnoticable. My models are fine in Blender, the normal maps are fully working! I don’t understand why they won’t work in Studio 
I am using the beta build as well.
Shoot is Phase 3 actually not until December?
I can’t believe some of the things I’ve seen so far, this is mass improvement!
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I would really appreciate any sort of rough date parts of this build will be in production.
I have a big new game in development that will be able to take big advantage of mesh deformation and it would be great to be able to showcase the technology on release.
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I agree with this. I have halted development on a project of mine due to this. I would also like to see mesh deformation launched soon. I hope we can get some rough expected release dates soon.
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Skinning will probably release by sometime Q1, e.g. by the end of March. No promises except that it will come out eventually. Could take longer.
I would not recommend halting development of anything for this. I’d recommend trying to produce the skinned content and try it in AvatarEvolution. That’s what it’s here for! Get a sense for if it works for you and how much it’s worth to you.
If it works there it should work when skinned mesh rendering hits production too. If something doesn’t work you can report bugs to us and we can fix them before it comes out.
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Does Q1 go for everything in the build or just skinning?
Side note: Will we get a 2020 roadmap?
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Just skinning and Bones. Most of the other stuff will take longer.
Probably won’t get a solid 2020 roadmap that’s anything beyond a list of features without dates attached. Estimating software production in general is hard. And priorities shift constantly on top of that. We sometimes implement things and then realize it’s the wrong approach and we need to start over. That happened with skinning earlier last year! That significantly delayed its release, but it’s better off for it in its current form. I can name a few other projects that went similarly at Roblox.
The fact that we’re a platform company that “takes the long view” makes everything harder. If we’re not confident we can support it for 10 years we shouldn’t ship it. Quality or schedule, choose one.
Posts above are a good example of why we need to be careful about setting expectations. We don’t want people making bets on things that might never ship. In a lot of cases we’d love to tell you when things will ship, but the truth is we usually don’t know ourselves until it’s out.
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I’m encountering an issue.
- I want to make this dynamic lighting flashlight shiny
- Metal is not nearly rough enough, looks like solid gold
- SurfaceAppearance overrides the mesh’s texture and makes it a solid color
- This tool is supposed to change textures when you click
- ColorMap can’t be scripted because SurfaceAppearances can’t, which I understand why.
Could it be made so there’s a way for SurfaceAppearances to take on the underlying texture, or is that like not possible with the way they work under the hood?
Also, I hope NormalMaps not working on some meshes is fixed soon enough, I made an awesome normalmap for this key model i found but it didn’t work (still looked cool and shiny though)
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