Material Sharpness / Transparency

[ChromeEight]

As a Roblox developer, it is currently difficult to control the sharpness of a part’s material. The only current way to do so is either to make the part transparent (which makes the whole thing transparent) or to place a semi-transparent part over it as an “overlay”.

I am therefore suggesting that similarly to how there is a numerical setting for Transparency, that there also be a setting to adjust the sharpness or transparency of the material’s textures.

That way, if we wanted sharper looking concrete, less glow-y neon, or faded-looking corroded metal, we could do so without having to resort to uploaded textures or sacrificing the transparency of the parts. It would also make the appearance of the parts highly flexible, as you can tone down or intensify the appearance of the materials’ textures.

Concept:

Material Sharpness / Transparency

I believe they mean some sort of transition from how the SmoothPlastic (basically default material) looks to a given other material, as seen here: [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] Especially for materials such as neon or concrete / sand, this can be useful for controlling the look of the material, and how rough it behaves - if I want to get whipped cream, I might want to use a sand texture to show the texture and feel of it, but not as appearant as the sand shown …

This is pretty much a more expansive version of someone’s suggestion to adjust the glow of neon:

Neon's glow as a numeric property rather than a material, or material layering?

As a Roblox developer, it is currently difficult to create convincing effects for, say, energy shields: the best effects I’ve seen so far use neon and particles, or the newly released glass. Both look good, but what if you want a part that glows and refracts light? Currently you have to use multiple parts, which probably isn’t all that efficient. So I propose this: a 0-1 property, like Transparency and Reflectance, but for emissivity/Neon’s glow effect, that way you can have the glow effect on …

[buildthomas]

Can you define “sharpness”? Maybe include a few pictures of what you mean with the first few sentences?

Is this a feature that would only affect Studio, or also in-game? If it affects both in-game and Studio, it should be in Client Features.

[As8D]

I believe they mean some sort of transition from how the SmoothPlastic (basically default material) looks to a given other material, as seen here:

Especially for materials such as neon or concrete / sand, this can be useful for controlling the look of the material, and how rough it behaves - if I want to get whipped cream, I might want to use a sand texture to show the texture and feel of it, but not as appearant as the sand shown at 1 sharpness in the above pictures - because it should look smoother.

Comparing

Edit: should be in #feature-requests:client-features , as it also applies to in-game use

[BULK_BROGAN]

I think thats what they mean too, however it should probably be referred to as texture transparency.

[ChromeEight]

Noted and done.

[bigcrazycarboy]

We’ve needed material intensity for quite a while now. I’d love to see this roll out

[BuildIntoTrains (BIT)]

I FULLY SUPPORT this idea

[lavafactory]

Support.

[OutlawArchitect (Outlaw)]

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to . . .

Use a Roblox provided ‘Material’ on a brick, without over-defining the piece. On some builds, there may be a portion that would normally call for concrete, wood, or another material item/section - however, using the Roblox-provided materials may over-define these pieces more than what you’d like or is necessary.

It would be helpful to have a material ‘transparency’ or ‘hardness’ scale. Allowing the developer to adjust how harsh the material is on the brick. Using thousands of textures in a build can be overkill and extremely time-consuming to achieve the desired look.

Example

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If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my game / my development experience because . . .

I would be able to use the rather neat Roblox-provided materials without needing to uploads hundreds of [image] textures for a build, without making the [Roblox] texture appear too strong.

This has also been requested here:

Material Intensity Property

Being predominantly a builder on Roblox, using the right colour and material is important to getting a build looking right. With somewhat recent changes to certain materials such as the Brick material, which i’m personally not too fond of, I have been thinking of ways to improve the customisation to materials. I’m suggesting a potential new property: MaterialIntensity! This would allow you to alter how defined the material texture is on the part, 0 being the normal texture, 1 being a hardly visi…