Hi Creators!
We are super excited to release Occlusion Culling in Studio Beta today! Occlusion Culling is an optimization that prevents the rendering of objects that are hidden behind other objects. It doesn’t require any work from you; the engine will automatically detect which objects don’t need to be rendered. 
As announced at RDC24, we are testing Occlusion Culling in production on a few experiences at the moment. We are working to make it available in production for everyone as soon as we are confident in its stability. In the meantime, we want to let you preview Occlusion Culling in Studio to get your feedback and ensure we address any issues you experience with it!
Wireframe view of Roblox’s Modern City (Left) without Occlusion Culling (Center) and with Occlusion Culling (Right)
How to use
Enabling the Occlusion Culling Studio Beta is as easy as enabling the checkbox under Files > Beta Features > Occlusion Culling. That’s it!
If everything works well for your experience, you should see no difference visually. You can confirm that Occlusion Culling is properly working for your experience by enabling the Wireframe View under View > Wireframe Rendering.
The Wireframe View will give you a “see-through” view. When Occlusion Culling is enabled, objects that are hidden behind others will not be visible. By moving your camera around, you will see objects appear as they become unoccluded. You can also compare the impact of Occlusion Culling by turning it on/off in the Beta Feature menu (requires a Studio restart).
Limitations
Occlusion Culling only works on meshes and parts (excluding avatars) for now. It cannot cull the following objects at this time:
- Avatars
- Terrain
- Lights
- VFX
- UI
These objects will be rendered as usual, even if they are hidden from the player behind other objects. We intend on extending our Occlusion Culling technology to cover more object types in the future.
Performance
The performance benefits of Occlusion Culling can vary from one place to another and between different viewpoints within the same place as well.
- Viewpoints with a lot of occluded objects will benefit the most since we can avoid rendering these objects (eg. places with interiors or buildings where objects are often hidden behind walls).
- Other viewpoints may not see performance benefits because there are not many objects to cull (eg. places with wide open areas such as an arena).
Made with love by the Engine team
Please let us know if you experience any issues with Occlusion Culling while testing in Studio Beta. For instance, please report if you notice your experience runs slower on test devices, if some objects don’t appear, or if you see objects “blink” in and out. Providing example RBXL files are the most helpful to help us fix issues quickly.
