I know there were pretty much threads like that before, but I think now some changes were made on roblox and the situation could change so I’m gonna repeat the request. They were created pretty long time ago anyway.
As a Roblox developer, it is currently impossible to create multiple cameras on the one screen (splitted view).
If Roblox is able to address your issue, how would it improve your game and/or your development experience? Please be as specific as possible.
Making this would allow for example creating games which would support two gamepads and features such like that.
My idea how to make it:
possiblity to make than one working Camera instance
CurrentCamera property in workspace defining the default camera (the way like it works now - CameraScript)(changeable)
special GUI Instances show defined Camera Instance view
So for example to do the splitted view u would need to do two GUI Objects, link them with two Camera Instances and script (controls, Camera CFrame) etc.
EDIT: Editted the post to make it more clear what I wanted to say.
I think making it would give roblox developers much more possiblities and would make the interfaces better and better.
AFAIK there have been no changes that would significantly impact the obstacles blocking the feature. Any staff responses in old threads concerning performance problems are likely still relevant even though they were posted years ago.
VR also requires a beast of a machine specifically because it has two perspectives – it’s one of the major challenges of the industry, so definitely not something we want to use as a justification for a feature.
Split screen may be possible to to potential optimizations (even old consoles supported it), but I’m not sure about arbitrary cameras rendered across the scene (what multiple cameras are usually requested for).
Figured I should mention that Roblox had a Oculus Rift demo at RDC 2016, and the laptops were only GTX 980Ms. Considering the other amount of optimizations that have happened since then, my guess is this is less of a concern, in terms of multiple perspectives. Obvious problem is still mobile, which sometimes have problems with the single perspective like the iPhone 4S.
RDC is not a good sample. The main attendees were developers – the average audience isn’t going to have decent hardware, even on PC. Even with optimizations this feature would only be performant enough on a low proportion of user hardware, and even then its use would be limited (e.g. a $2000 PC can’t comfortably run 4 Vives at once)
There could be some rendering limits which would depend on device performance. Oh and I am sure too that it has been improved / optimalized to the present.
You are correct about that. VR’s two smaller-than-PC-monitor views that don’t depend on each other is a different beast from what the OP is asking for. Things like mirrors, security cameras on GUIs, etc. imply first rendering views to textures, which are then used in the final main scene render, much like any other texture or decal. Totally different problem, as expensive as it sounds.
I am talking about the splitted screen too… The Camera Instance idea is just a improved and way more complicated version of that. I know it would be very difficult to optimize. (editted the post to be more clear)
So just to be clear, we should never expect to see split-screen capability and RT cameras & in-game screens? Even if Roblox was able to make poor-quality versions that don’t eat up too much power?
This, on the other hand, is more complicated. Other games have similar features: Bethesda games, for instance, uses portals to connect two interior logical rooms which show the other side even though it’s not truly loaded, so that’s kind of like what’s being requested.
These generally come with constraints though, and are specific to the game. In Bethesda’s case, they suffer massive performance losses when you see a long tunnel of portals. The reason why you see constant stairs/turns right after rooms in Skyrim is partially for performance reasons. It prevents multiple portals from being viewed at once.
We have some really talented engineers at ROBLOX, so I wouldn’t say the answer is “never”. I’m sure they could implement something that would address user needs, but the major challenges are priority and design.
Design:
It’s simply not feasible to render many portals at once, so we have to constrain it somehow. The question is determining how we can constraint it that inhibits generic use as little as possible. We can’t do what Bethesda does because that isn’t applicable to other use cases. Determining how else we can constrain portals would require a lot of time decide.
Priority:
Split screen is a major use case, but it can be implemented in a unique way that doesn’t have the same problems a generic solution would. Past that, most of the use cases that have been presented for this feature are "nice-to-have"s, rather than critical needs. There are other features with higher priority, so this can’t happen until engineers have free time (never going to happen except during Hack Week) or we see top games finding critical uses for it.
As has already been described multiple times, the same arguments apply
Takes up too much processing power
^ (Hence not worth adding - if 90% of users can’t utilise it then the feature may actually be a hindrance considering it may mean 90% of players can’t play certain games)
Isn’t in a great demand
Isn’t exactly possible with the current rendering engine - at least, not at levels efficient enough to be considered.
Hack week is hack week. Don’t take it as a promise for the future or a promise of a feature being feasible on millions of different devices across multiple platforms.
