LibreGrid

completelyhazel · March 19, 2025, 10:27pm

Open-source grid solution for Roblox

LibreGrid is an open-source grid placement solution for Roblox. It deals with all the math headaches for you and it is very intuitive and lightweight.

Get on GitHub / Marketplace

Why LibreGrid?

I have been developing my world-building game Wubby for some time now, and the worst problem I stumbled upon was getting the proper grid calculations when the player had to place down blocks. With this open-source module, I want everyone to have a perfectly calculated, lightweight, and intuitive experience to avoid more people from descending into the rabbit hole I went through.

Every other grid module I found is either very limiting, too complex to use, or just not what I’m looking for. I swear, I would’ve loved that a module like this existed while I was first developing Wubby.

LibreGrid emulates surface-based placement (like the one that Roblox Studio offers), getting rid of all the math-related headaches that would take coding it yourself, with support for both BaseParts and Models. Moreover, it allows for more customizations that developers can change in real-time to their liking. This means that, using LibreGrid, you can achieve a block-placing system (like Minecraft’s), a furniture placement system (2D placement), or a Roblox Studio-like experience.

This module is the result from months, if not years, of trial and error while developing Wubby.

Watch it in action

How do I install this?

You can either get it on GitHub or on the Roblox Marketplace.

How do I use this?

Check out the documentation on GitHub to see what every function does. You can check out a few examples here if you want to see what it’s capable of.

Lastest update (V.1.1.0)

completelyhazel · March 19, 2025, 10:41pm

pushed V.1.0.4 ! a small patch that fixes some readability issues ! :3

Dxrksidius · March 19, 2025, 10:45pm

This is going to be extremely helpful in developing my current project, Thanks for your contribution!

gravitycoil828 · March 20, 2025, 9:51am

Woah!!

I’m the creator of Rebuild, a Blockate remake, and I have been going INSANE trying to make a proper grid.
I hope this can help!! Thank you!!!

Edit: I seem to be getting an error about “unable to cast value to object” on Line 68.

Here’s my code:

block.Position = require(script.Parent.LibreGrid).GetCFrameAtMousePosition(block, 4, block.Orientation)

completelyhazel · March 20, 2025, 10:37am

oh! that’s a very easy fix! libregrid uses : when calling functions instead of .

pls change the . into a : when calling the function and it’d be solved

also!!! watch out!!! the rotation parameter is a CFrame, not a Vector3

gravitycoil828 · March 21, 2025, 7:50am

hi, that fixed the error

however theres sum problems with mouse offsetting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7vAFoZzZE - this is what happens if i use libregrid

its offset and it just disappears out of existence when i rotate
is there a way i could fix?

completelyhazel · March 21, 2025, 3:03pm

could you please show me the code that you’re using so that way we can see what we can do? thank you :3

AlexanderLindholt · March 21, 2025, 3:21pm

I don’t really see the use case for this.

Most developers would make their own system for placing, since you’d want to manually specify which instances are whitelisted for raycasting etc.
This module almost seems like a raycasting module, which it’s not supposed to be I assume.
The math for a grid is really simple.

completelyhazel · March 21, 2025, 3:36pm

hey there, i’m sorry if you didn’t like this resource. however, there’s a lot of reasons to use this module:

developers would use this module because it was meant to get rid of all the math-related issues that coding a grid system conveys. modules are made to avoid coding again what someone already did, specially if the task in question is a tedious one. trust me, it’s not “really simple” math if you’re coding a complicated system, like Studio’s.
LibreGrid is super good at customization and it’s intended to adapt to any workflow. moreover, it allows you to input your own custom RaycastParams when running the function, which allows developers to whitelist/blacklist certain parts. LibreGrid even returns a RaycastResult after an operation is done if you want to customize it even further.
a placement system requires raycasts. you cannot make a grid system w/out raycasts…

AlexanderLindholt · March 21, 2025, 4:13pm

Of course, I never said it didn’t require raycasts — rather, my point was that the grid math was minimal, so your module is 70% raycasting rather than the actual grid system.

On the positive side, it’s well made, has a good post, and is useful to numerous people. Keep going!

TheGrimDeathZombie · March 21, 2025, 7:48pm

A placement system does not “require” raycasts as it does not only happen on the client. Your module fails to account for the developer’s need to validate and ensure the position the client has provided is grid-aligned. The functions to grid-align & perform raycasts should be decoupled for this reason.

Correcting this since I did not realize that your module does actually have separate methods for raycasting and grid alignment. Though I still stand by the opinion that raycasts are not a requirement for a grid system.

Also as an FYI, this resource would be a bit more useful to developers if the Github repository was properly setup to work with Rojo.

RobloxWobot · March 21, 2025, 7:59pm

I really appreciate your hard work and that you are releasing this to the public. Thank you.

gravitycoil828 · March 21, 2025, 9:37pm

hey!!

heres the code!!

local function generateblock(usepos, target, isez)
	local block = game.ReplicatedStorage.Files.BlockTypes:FindFirstChild(script.Parent.Properties.Shape.Value):Clone()
	block.Size = script.Parent.Properties.Size.Value
	block.Anchored = true
	block.CanCollide = false
	block.Color = script.Parent.Properties.Color.Value
	block.Material = Enum.Material[script.Parent.Properties.Material.Value]
	block.Transparency = script.Parent.Properties.Transparency.Value
	block.Reflectance = script.Parent.Properties.Reflectance.Value
	block.Name = "PreviewBlock"
	block.Orientation = script.Parent.Properties.Orientation.Value
	highlight.Parent = block
	highlight.Adornee = block
	if isez ~= nil and isez == true then
		highlight.Color3 = Color3.new(0.337255, 0.796078, 0.0352941)
	else
		highlight.Color3 = Color3.new(0.00784314, 0.513725, 0.827451)
	end
	if script.Parent.Properties.Light.Brightness.Value ~= 0 and script.Parent.Properties.Light.Radius.Value ~= 0 then
		local light = Instance.new("PointLight")
		light.Parent = block
		light.Color = script.Parent.Properties.Light.Color.Value
		light.Range = script.Parent.Properties.Light.Radius.Value
		light.Brightness = script.Parent.Properties.Light.Brightness.Value
	end
	if usepos == true then
		block.Position = require(script.Parent.LibreGrid):GetCFrameAtMousePosition(block, 4, CFrame.new(block.Orientation)).Position
		print(block.Position)
	end
	return block
end

the “4” part in the getcframeatmousepos is meant to be dynamic, but i havent worked on said dynamic part yet so i could report this bug

completelyhazel · March 22, 2025, 10:54am

thanks for your suggestions! ill try setting up rojo although i have never tried it before :3

also, if you’re worried about the grid alignment server-side, instead of sending the cframe over, you could send every parameter needed to replicate the function there. although it might be a little bit complicated to figure out the ray if you’re using GetCFrameAtMousePosition, i’ll probably add better support for this in the future. thank you! :3

completelyhazel · March 22, 2025, 10:57am

you could use the NormalBased configuration (as explained in the documentation) which makes placement relative to normals instead of the ray hit for this use case :3

though, now that i’m realizing it, i forgot to add support for smaller sizes while this is turned on. i will try to add support for it asap!

completelyhazel · March 22, 2025, 1:29pm

LibreGrid V.1.1.0

V.1.1.0 is here!!! woohoo!!

LibreGrid now allows you to customize the rounding function utilized. this is to avoid weird, jittery behavior on bigger grid sizes:

math.round (default):

it’s jittery and doesn’t work as desired

math.floor:

works as desired

gravitycoil828 · March 23, 2025, 1:38am

i mean it “sort of” works but…

it does still seem to offset [if i have like, my params right].

is this normal? i think i enabled it with the params

		block.Position = require(script.Parent.LibreGrid):GetCFrameAtMousePosition(block, 4, CFrame.new(block.Orientation), {
			raycastparams,
			false,
			true,
			false,
			true,
			math.floor
		}).Position

i did also forget to mention, if my orientation isnt exactly 0,0,0, it clips to like hundreds of blocks above for some reason

p_droXD · March 23, 2025, 2:38am

Use CFrame.fromOrientation instead of CFrame.new for the orientation

completelyhazel · March 23, 2025, 9:17am

watch out! settings uses a dictionary, not an array!

this is a dictionary:

local dictionary = {
A = 5,
B = true,
C = "hey there"
}

gravitycoil828 · March 23, 2025, 9:36am

Pretty much fixed most of my issues.

My only two issues now:

How would I disable the overlapping of the block? like, if I aim at the front area of the wedge, it’ll clip into the white wedge [or the top], but any other area it’d build below.

Also this:

Whenever I rotate my block, it offsets now.