Participate in our first Builder Challenge!

[chewbeccca]

Hey developers,

Roblox is growing at a rapid pace, and its builders are integral to this momentum. Your creations, small and large, drive the quality of experiences forward. You excite the players’ minds with your worlds, you challenge players with your gameplay. Roblox knows how creative and skilled our builders are, and we want to showcase that talent to the world.

As such, we are happy to announce a new “Builder Challenge” that will do just that!

These will be an ongoing series of challenges. You, the amazing builders in the Roblox development community, will apply your skills, use your creative drives, and your knowledge of Roblox Studio to demonstrate the extent of your capabilities to the rest of the community!

Builders that win the contest will receive a special sort on the games page so everyone can easily observe your creation! We will also be providing the winners with special blog posts alongside a video showcasing them and their creations!

Builder Challenge 01

In this first challenge, we want you to focus on using your imagination to build within Studio, without using any external software. Studio is a powerful engine with a robust set of tools and you’ll be able to prove what is possible with it on its own. Not only that, but you’ll be providing valuable insight for Roblox staff to make improvements.

“The Ancient Forest Ravine” will be a creative challenge to build your vision of a mystical, low-poly style ravine. You should use the terrain system to shape your world, water systems and particles to fill it with movement and life, and our various mesh tools to fill the land you created with foliage and points of interest. Will your land be in the far flung future, where nature has taken over? Will it be a fantastic land full of magic? Will it be a calm, serene real world that anyone would want to visit? The choice of direction and outcome is yours! Roblox is Powering Imagination, but you, as the builder, will show the world what that means!

You can work by yourself or collaborate with up to four other individuals. When judging submissions, showcases will be categorized by team size.

Rules

General Scene Guidelines	Restricted Features
- Low-Poly Aesthetic	- No External Software
- Feature terrain, plants, water	- No Licensed Content
- Must use built-in materials to create flat material appearance	- No Gameplay
- Can use scripts to trigger events	- Cannot require Plugin/Tools to function
- Ideally design for first person view	- Cannot reference any external Roblox content
- All assets must be made by the individual or team for this demo	- No assets from the toolbox
	- No assets from previous games/showcases

Of course, you must follow Roblox Terms of Use.

Judging Criteria

Here is the criteria that will be used for selecting the winners:

• Consistency of environment (i.e. assets feel like they are made of the same materials and from the same world)
• Variety of points of interest (i.e. different zones or sub areas with unique points of interest within)
• General aesthetic qualities (e.g. color choice, density, focus of interest, etc.)
• Creative solutions to limitations within the engine

We will begin taking submissions for this contest in August and winners will be announced in October. Stay tuned for a link to submit your creations!

Thanks,
The Roblox Team

[TheCarbyneUniverse (Carbyne)]

Wow, this is awesome! Since I’m more of a UI designer, I’d love this contest to happen with UI, too!

So, this is almost like a showcase game, but it’s actually Roblox who’s hosting this. I’m so excited to see what people create, there is some awesome talent out there! And it’s great that they can get some exposure just by doing something they’re good at!

I know a lot of builders use external software like Blender, so because they can’t right now, it’ll be interesting too see what happens…

Also, let me guess, is @coefficients a judge? Please say yes.

[WoodReviewer]

Hi, are you looking for any additional judges for this?

[M_caw (Macaw)]

Oh my god, this seems like such an amazing opportunity! I will be sure to try to create something amazing. I love terrain! Good luck to all who participate!

But how will you make sure that participants haven’t used blender or any other software?
And what do you mean reference external content?

How will you make sure that people haven’t used the toolbox, or previous work?
And do you have a specific date? (Not just month)

And let WoodReviewer be a judge!!

(Man above me)

⸜( ˙ ˘ ˙)

[amboykid (Fallen)]

I better get to work for this challenge

[j0kha (Jokha)]

Wow! I am really excited to participate in this! Can’t wait to see what everyone else comes up with as well! Good luck!

[DevBuckette]

Since we’re not allowed to use external software, does this mean we are not allowed to use Blender for models, and Photoshop for textures? How are we meant to use textures if at all? If we are to use on-site textures, we cannot verify how they were made and if there was external software used in the process.

If you work with a team, there’s also the issue that you can’t exactly verify if they used an external program to create the assets they input, as well.

It seems very limiting as this will immediately eliminate things like custom particles, as you need custom images for said particles. Would like a bit more information on this

[thunder1222]

I think this is awesome! I remember when Roblox used to post tons of contests for users to participate in. It was a fun way to see how players would utilize new features, and to see what kind of crazy ideas people would come up with. It also brought the whole community together. I hope you guys continue to do more of these contests in the future, and not just quit on the idea.

[ReturnedTrue (Tr_uth)]

May give this a try and test my building skills, are there any plans for challenges in other sectors? (i.e Programmer Challenge)

[amboykid (Fallen)]

You can’t use Blender, it’s an external software. All you can use is roblox studio. For textures try your best just to use materials.

[LuaBearyGood]

I had the same question, however I came to the assumption that a game simply showing off a cool program thats been written is a lot less likely to gain traction / player interest on modern roblox then a showcase. Kinda sucks ig.

At the same time it would be cool to h ave like a remote game jam and a sort promoting the top entries from that.

[GalaxyGourmet]

This seems great! It’s a nice way of having talented builders get recognized by the community.

[Ahlvie]

This is a great opportunity, but I really don’t understand why using external software such as blender isn’t allowed since a lot of quality low poly builds are made in blender, that’s kind of the point. Using unions to create the same effect doesn’t seem like it’d make a lot of sense considering how unreliable they are.

It would be incredibly unoptimised to make quality and aesthetic low-poly plants and trees using unions, for example.

To expand on @DevBuckette’s point, using custom particles would be impossible without a software like photoshop. Especially considering the theme is:

@chewbeccca

“The Ancient Forest Ravine”

I feel like something like this needs the ability to create interesting particle effects. And how do you do that without the toolbox or external software? There is only so much you can do with the mere three particles we’re given in studio.

[cheeseandbiscuits11]

This is such an amazing oppurtunity! I think it is great that the challenge is based off pure skill and not who has the best software. I think it is really good that builders can have an oppurtunity to gain recognition in a way like this. Thank you! Edit: One thing though, what does must not require plugins to function mean? Can we use our own plugins for this challenge that we have made in just studio or is that not allowed?

[Lugical]

To any who are doing this event, good luck! This is a wonderful event and challenge for others to showcase their skills, and earn the recognition they deserve:

I do have one question though, regarding this:

Are we allowed to use plug-ins for this challenge, or are those restricted as well?

[boatbomber (Zack_Ovits)]

I’m particularly curious about the “Low Poly” aspect here. You say “aesthetic” and “style”, so it’s ambiguous whether you mean the build must look like a flat cartoon or if you allow texture detailing on meshes that literally use few polys.

For example:

Image credit

The right-hand model is low poly, but high detail. Do the rules permit this?

Edit: Obviously not, I’d misunderstood point of the entire challenge. You’re supposed to make things using nothing but Studio tools, so it’ll look like 2009 builds.

[DevHumor (loser)]

Scripting Challenge When? :

In all seriousness though, this is a nice challenge to take, though, I’m not primary a builder.

[fly_san (fly)]

I love this idea!
As mentioned, this is an opportunity to showcase Studio’s potential:

@chewbeccca

Studio is a powerful engine with a robust set of tools and you’ll be able to prove what is possible with it on its own. Not only that, but you’ll be providing valuable insight for Roblox staff to make improvements.

Which is why I believe it is totally valid that we cannot use external resources, such as Blender or Ps. Due to CSG’s limitations, I admit this may have an impact on how “realistic” the buildings can be, but it does not change the fact that studio is a powerful development resource.

In my view, this challenge is a way to push Roblox building to its limit, to see how far we can go with the tools we currently have, and to clear the road for suggestions and improvements.