Then perhaps instead of bundling the old materials with the game file, they could be part of a separate download that would automatically download when a player joins a game that uses the old materials. That way, the materials wouldn’t be a part of the regular Roblox app updates. The materials would only be downloaded the first time a player joins a game that uses the old materials. Eventually, most games will use the new materials so many players would never have this pack downloaded at all.
I don’t have a good understanding of how updates or downloading assets like this works, so I could be wrong. Just an idea though.
I’ve made an archive of the old textures because of Roblox’s undying hunger for realism…
and blatant negligence to every developer who is sane and believes that replacing old textures is a bad idea.
The purpose of having built in textures is to provide an easy way to add color and immersion to an environment with little effort or finding or creating textures to color an environment. These textures are indeed an upgrade, and most look significantly better in my opinion (except for brick and a few others).
Where the problem arises is that Roblox plans to replace old materials which can completely ruin the desired feel of an environment by using textures in creative ways that they were not originally intended for. (An example being using grass as carpet or a rug.) This is a complete slap in the face to developers, seeing that EVERY game uses built in textures, so it’s bound to affect everyone in some form or another. Old games especially take the biggest hit of all, because this update is going to ruin the nostalgic aesthetic that many people appreciate.
Following this is Roblox’s refusal to change the direction of this update from replacing textures, to adding them as their own seperate textures, which implies that Roblox decides what’s best for the community, and not the community itself. This feels like Roblox has just completely blocked out any input from the community, despite the fact that the community makes Roblox what it is now.
With that said, here’s the link to the archive. I made this so we can preserve the old textures until we find a way to convert the .dds files into standard PBR maps (Normal, Metalness, and Roughness).
The fact that I had to do this rather than Roblox simply adding these materials as their own separate textures is unbelievable. It’s sad to see Roblox completely neglect developers, ruin builds, and block out any type of input regarding this update.
EDIT:
UPDATE: LEGACY TERRAIN TEXTURES ARCHIVED
Special thanks to @BravenwolfTFS for reminding me to archive the Legacy Terrain Textures as well.
I know, that’s how I was able to view them. What I meant by ‘convert’ is turn them into a standard usable PBR maps. The maps are very different compared to the ones that the SurfaceAppearance asset uses.
I am not really understanding why the old materials need to be so drastically changed. Cant you clean them up and make them compatible with the new lighting while still keeping their look?
I realize things must always improve and change, but this is really gonna hurt.
Surely there is some way to make the new materials more closely match the old ones. Games that need flat looking grass, and such, can import their own textures. Why force such a drastic visual change on the rest of us?
This does have a purpose, you don’t see it obviously. The current materials is fine as is and if you like them so much you can just make them textures and use them that way, but materials have been needing an update since 2019 in my opinion.
“If it’s not broken don’t fix it”
This rule should of applied to a vast majority of materials, as they simply were not broken and fine in their current state.
The community would of welcomed new materials with open arms with no backlash. But in your attempt to “improve” current materials you ended up completely redoing the older ones changing the style in an immense way,ultimately breaking a ton of builds to do so. (Also terrain coloration would of been accepted extremely well)
Along with that you’ve changed the overall roughness and style of a ton of materials. Everything now looks similar to “gelatin” as @M_caw has pointed out.
Now notably a lot of devs are complaining when their style isn’t actually that effected. However for games that need roughness in order to look detailed, this really is a game breaker.
Along with that WTF is going on with sand, it’s like, a bagilion more times rougher then everything else, tone that shit down and keep your style consisten god daym
(also my computers security program decided that part of this update was a virus and removed it and honestly good on it.)
This makes me feel sad for the team working on the tools, they work so hard to get community feedback and then these guys just go and ruin all that leaving roblox worse off.
@mrkbx This seams to be more to do with the team working on it and their style of development then investors
eh i dont know man i think they all know what they’re doing and the whole feedback gathering is just an act to keep us in the “oh they’re listening to us” illusion
I’m pretty sure this whole update is to make roblox look more realistic and more appealing to more people, therefore increasing profits for the company. When you get down to it every feature they add is related to profits, therefore this update is shoved down our throats with no concern for our opinions
The team working on roblox tools actually does take feed back and crtisism, I know from first hand experience when they changed the way CRTL dragging parts effects how they grow. Me and another dude said that when we press crtl and the part snaped to it’s origional position looked janky, @tnavarts replied and in the next update it was fixed.
This team seams to only look at the big shot developers and generally doesn’t take feedback.
So far, most of the complaints I’ve seen have been due to people using the wrong material for the job this whole time because they didn’t have any other options, but materials weren’t very accurate so it worked. However, now that the materials are being updated to look more accurate, they’re complaining because using the wrong material for the job doesn’t work anymore.
Yes, of course if you’re using sand for a bed it isn’t going to look right when sand actually looks like sand, BECAUSE BEDS AREN’T MADE OUT OF SAND.
That being said, I do have one complaint that’s been brought up by others in this thread, and that’s the tiling issues. Certain materials now have very noticeable tiling artifacts and that’s unacceptable. The materials look fantastic, but the tiling artifacts need to be addressed before release.
This here is true, fabric would generally be a better fit now. However sands extreme amount of depth and roughness is out of place in this update where everything else is getting smoothed out.
