Rendering Issue (Beams, Trails, Fog, Lighting)

[1billybob1]

Hello,

Within the past day or so, I’ve been receiving issues from players regarding a potential new beam visual issue.

My game heavily relies on the usage of beams, so this issue affects my game greatly.

The issue revolves around beams that are set to be opaque, however appear transparent.

I’ve provided this graphic depicting the issue:

As you can see, the image on the left side is how the beam initially looked up until approximately this morning. The beam looks like this in ROBLOX Studio as well. However, the image from the right is the same beam with the same settings but the screenshot was taken in a game server this morning. You can immediately tell the difference. The left (intended design) is opaque and much darker. The right (unintentional design) is extremely transparent and light colored (my players have referred to it as ‘ghost-like’)

I’ve also provided the properties for the beam in the picture (top right) to ensure that LightInfluence, Transparency, and LightEmission aren’t mistakenly enabled.

As stated, I began to receive issues regarding this around this morning. I have made no changes to the game for the past two weeks, and the issue just began this morning.

To sum it up, beams seem to have been affected in someway within the last day or two. Opaque beams (at least in my game, not sure about others) are now extremely transparent and it is greatly hindering gameplay. I have made no changes to the settings of the beams, all I know is the issue began to occur within the last day. LightEmission, Transparency, and LightInfluence are not enabled.

If more information is needed, I will be happy to assist. This post is intended to raise awareness for this issue, as my game (and I’m sure many other games) rely heavily on beams and this issue is greatly hindering gameplay.

Thank you.

Note 1 (4/22/2020) {Outdated info}

(Note 1: To help clarify as well. The beam on the left and the beam on the right are both the same beam with the same settings, with the left screenshot from ROBLOX Studio and the right screenshot from a game server. These images were both taken today around the same time.)

Note 2 (4/22/2020) {Outdated info}

(Note 2: After reading some responses to this thread, more developers are reporting that beam visuals in studio are significantly different than beam visuals in a game server. Other developers are also reporting there is a noticeable visual alteration to trails as well. All of these developers are experiencing this issue within the last day.)

Edit 4/25/2020:

(I’d like to mention ROBLOX is aware of these issues, confirmed by staff on this thread.)

After a few days, observations and feedback from fellow developers indicate that more than just beam and trails are affected by this issue. I will be compiling a list of issues below that developers on this thread have reported, so please submit your issue if you did not see it on this list and it will eventually be added:

Compiled cosmetic issues reported: (as of 4/25/2020)

• Beam rendering is distorted (ex. Loss of gradient, extremely transparent/opaque)

• Trail rendering is distorted

• Fog is affected (appearing very thick)

• Missing Ambient Occlusion

• Everything renders slightly brighter

• Ropes are now fully visible underwater

• Ropes and constraints are fully visible in fog

[Zenith322 (noob)]

To add on to this issue, trails have also changed transparency so that they are also very opaque.

Also, I just updated my studio and also found that the fog in my game is incredibly thick now for no particular reason, and shadows don’t render for certain things like they used to. I changed NO properties in my lighting settings.

For context, I had none of these problems yesterday (or even a few hours ago)

[Archeonia]

I also noticed the sudden change. I use beams for my dragons’ wings.

Before

Now

Earlier the lines were barely visible and now they are much brighter. Also something changed with transparency. Earlier setting it to 0.9 resulted in barely visible beams and now to get the same result you need to set it to 0.995. Same goes for trails as person above me stated.

[MallocByte]

In Roblox Studio, the appearance of beams differs from ingame. The intended look is what studio displays:

On PC, the following appears:

As you can see, it is very ugly and definitely not what should be happening. There are no client log errors that indicate an issue with the beams, and I cannot manage to correct the issue on PC.

Thanks

[Shawnyg]

Same issue happened to me with the beams. To add onto this issue (assuming one changed caused all of this), I noticed interior shadows were affected. On the after pic, you’d notice the absence of shadows for the character/lockers.
Before:

After:

Similar Lighting TimeOfDay is shown on the phone screen (Still no shadows when it was exact)

Beam Issue:
Before:

After:

(Focus on spotlight beam)

[popeeyy (pop)]

This is happening in my game as well, we have some beam effects for our lighting, but now it looks like large decals hanging from the ceiling. Before:

After:

[144hertz]

(altered from my post on the other thread)

I’m also getting this problem, I have beams that simulate sun rays in some of the windows of a game I work on, and they now appear far too opaque compared to about 2 days ago.

on the left is the intended look, and on the right is how it appears now.
earlier this was only a problem in the player, but now it’s present for me in both the player and studio, as well as some strange changes in the behavior of fog. unintended side effect of the upcoming atmosphere stuff?

[boatbomber (Zack_Ovits)]

I’m experiencing this too, and it’s very annoying:

Beams Rendering differently in-game vs studio

I have no idea what’s causing this issue. My graphics settings are manually turned to max in studio and in game. The beams render… harsher? It’s supposed to be a subtle effect to create more believable lighting, but it’s just not working in game. In studio: (Edit or Run mode both display the beam correctly) [RobloxScreenShot20200422_102952213] In game: [Roblox 4_22_2020 10_29_39 AM] Beam properties: [image] Please let me know if you’ve encountered this and how you solved it. Thanks!

The difference is huge.

Before:

After:

[Ethan76167]

Experiencing the same problem here to, its kinda impacted alot of my projects.

Before:

Now:

[Aspa102]

I did appear to have some issues with beams, but it’s mostly z fighting.

[boatbomber (Zack_Ovits)]

I restarted Studio and it updated, and now the lighting update that broke beams is in studio too.

At least now it looks awful consistently /s

Please fix this soon, thanks!

[MallocByte]

My fear is that they will say this is intentional with the addition of atmosphere. The problem is that they never notified developers of this. I like the new features, but it seems Roblox is ignoring the backward compatibility model in favor of just force updating systems, even if it causes issues in games that have not been updated.

[Gu4rana]

Thanks for the report. These are cosmetic issues and our team is currently looking into it.

[MallocByte]

Thank you for the swift response!

[twinqle (Twin)]

Same thing is happening to me.

Before:

After:

[DataBrain (Amber)]

This change is affecting more than just beams and trails for me, but also things like fog and the general brightness of things in the game: The most recent update is rendering everything significantly brighter

[Cryoheat (Artiiese)]

I also notices that Ambient Occlusion got removed(it’s the drop shadow thing at corners in max graphic)

[unmiss (Jack)]

I am also experiencing this issue. It has ruined the look of my game.

P.S. Might want to unmark the solution until it’s actually fixed

[LaAeroooo (aero)]

Happened to me, every beam seems to have no gradient, as well as this they seem to be pixeled? And transparency has to be set very high to achieve similar effects as seen previously.

[LaAeroooo (aero)]

Ambient occlusion seems non existant aswell, and everything seems so faded.