Summary of the Creator Roadmap AMA (Oct 4, 2023)

[MightyDantheman (Fate)]

This summary will include all asked and answered questions, along with their response.

Asked & Answered

Q:

@CSJeverything

Hello!

Recent updates, e.g. Video uploads [Beta]: Add short-form video to your experience, Introducing the Verified Badge!, require ID verification. However, if the account is <13, when will Roblox finally allow people to verify their account with an ID?

While I certainly agree that some features need to be restricted to 13+ users, there is currently no way for <13 accounts to verify their account with an ID, which should be proof enough to have their age updated. This is severely impacting my and many other developers’ experience on Roblox.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask. This issue is very important to me and many others.

Sincerely, @CSJeverything

Allow age changes with ID verification even when underaged

A:

@lowercasecreator

first, thanks for the question. to clarify, at any age, you can verify your account using your email address or phone number. for ID verification, we do require users to be 13+, and some features, such as video upload, are currently limited to 13+ users . more about age verification can be found here.

---

Q:

@YasuYoshida

At RDC, it was mentioned that the Creator Marketplace will use fiat at the beginning of next year. When this happens, will we be able to sell all types of assets instead of just plugins? Or will that happen later in the year?

A:

@lowercasecreator

right now models and plugins are the assets most used by our community in Creator Marketplace, and we believe they have the highest potential for earning for our creators today. currently, the plan is to expand Creator Marketplace to allow selling of models in addition to plug-ins.

we are always looking to expand the ways creators can earn, so we are considering other asset types in the future. some of these may have significant IP hurdles that would need to be addressed, so we are not supporting those yet.

---

Q:

@KinderDev

Will there ever be a time that we can sell models, audios, decals, etc and not just plugins on the Roblox marketplace for Robux? I’d love to be able to sell asset packs, and other similar things in an easy to get to place.

Thanks!

A:

@lowercasecreator

as mentioned in my response to YasuYoshida, we’re not yet ready to support selling other asset types beyond models and packages, but are certainly looking into it!

---

Q:

@ChipioIndustries

Hi!

How does Roblox plan to address security and safety concerns around requiring its developers to verify their accounts with phone numbers and IDs? It seems like they’re only being added to more and more features.

A:

@skywise84

Privacy is of utmost importance. When a government-issued ID is scanned for verification, an anonymized value is generated, which allows Roblox to verify ID without risking exposure of the user’s real identity. If you’re 13+, ID verification is sufficient to access all features and capabilities for creators on Roblox, excluding 17+ content and experience development.

It’s important to note that age verification is entirely optional. Creators can continue to enjoy Roblox without going through this process, and if they’d like to gain access to features that may be limited/restricted by age, they can consider ID verification.

---

Q:

@porttoport

Hello Nick & Tian!

A question about “Roblox Connect”, which was announced and showcased at RDC.

Will Roblox Connect support groups (group calls w/ multiple people)? Something similar to popular communication applications, so users don’t have to rely on third-party applications, or roblox VC for in-game communication.

Thank you in advance!

A:

@skywise84

Roblox Connect will launch with one to one functionality, with API’s available to developers. After launch we’ll be working to expand the capabilities to include group communication.

---

Q:

@BuildIntoGames

Any more plans with highlights? I asked last AMA and didn’t get a response. There’s a limit of 31 highlights and they don’t work on mobile. We really want to use this feature more broadly.

A:

@skywise84

We are working to make highlights available on all devices. There are no plans to increase the number of highlights supported at the moment but we know this is a common request and are looking into how to best expand in the future.

---

Q:

@vvv331

Are there any plans dealing with restrictive nature of environment aspects, such as lights, skybox, and post processing?

The lighting currently suffers a lot from the following aspects i found:

• No way to adjust attenuation (basically the curve at which the light energy dissipates over distance)
• Cannot go over the light range of 60 studs, which makes it infuriating to light up large places
• Specular factor control (basically how much specular a light gives off to the surfaces)
• Spotlight shape softness

As for the skybox:

• No way to add a dedicated night skybox or make it procedural (although atmosphere instance exists, it doesnt provide that much of the functionality)
• Cannot adjust skybox’s energy for either day or night (basically how bright that skybox is)

And for post-processing:

• Not much effects to play with.
  • I really don’t know how to describe this but UI’s and just in general we lack the effects that would enhance visuals of the game like for example sharpening or RGB split, or maybe dithering and noise overlay. We can’t blend UI’s either.

Sorry if this all seems poorly worded, if clarification is needed, I can answer those

A:

@skywise84

Our major focuses right now are bringing Future is Bright (FIB) to Android by end of year and rolling out a new GPU-based lighting system that looks much closer to FIB than the current shadow map system, enabling better scalability. We’re also doing a lot behind the scenes to significantly improve terrain performance, as well as other improvements to physics and environment like grass length and wind.

Thank you for sharing the specific aspects for improvement, we’re always trying to work on smaller improvements in parallel with our larger features.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

Are there any plans to increase server memory? It’s no secret that games in ROBLOX are getting much more realistic functionality wise and visually, and I feel like we should be equipped with more memory to maintain these higher realistic projects. I understand a lot of it is on the developer to optimize and use resources sparingly, but eventually some developers will hit the ceiling of the current 6.25 GB limit of server memory (before the server crashes when it hits the limit).

Here’s a post with better reasoning and in-depth detail, along with many people wanting this:

Increase server memory or provide better memory tools

A:

@skywise84

We are looking at ways to grant creators more control over memory usage and other aspects of the experience runtime. This means better tools to understand current consumption to assist optimization efforts as well.

---

Q:

@Elttob

I want to start by saying: thank you for the announced changes to the creator marketplace. I remember mentioning this to you at RDC but it bears repeating. The changes you announced are huge and solve long-standing issues. I’m sure I speak for the entire community when I say that these changes are much appreciated.

The questions:

1. A large portion of the creator base (teenagers) likely do not have control over a bank account of their own. If developers are required to cash out to a bank account before purchasing development goods with fiat, this could be a problem. Can revenue earned on-platform be used for buying plugins and other development goods, without having to go via a bank account?
2. In my recent video, I run some numbers on plugin dev wages. Part of the reason why the old marketplace didn’t make business sense was not just the bureaucracy, but also because creators were compelled to match the prices of others, who tended to price too low. How do you plan to help keep pricing in the creator marketplace sustainable and livable for creators?
3. Also - I’m enthusiastic - when can we get it? I’m itching for it!

A:

@lowercasecreator

• using earned revenue in fiat currency to pay for creator marketplace assets is not currently on our roadmap, but we will take a look into what’s possible, as we want to provide as much flexibility as possible.
• currently, we have price floors but are planning to update them around the time we launch the changes to Creator Marketplace we announced at RDC.
• we said 2024, but obviously i’d want it out ASAP too!

---

Q:

@MasterSapphireFrost

I’m interested in learning more about this upcoming update in particular:

• Community-led Marketplace - Anyone can publish avatar items to the Marketplace (Late 2023)

Have the conditions that must be met in order to publish avatar items to the marketplace been determined and if so, what are they (ex. “Any fee to pay (ex. 750R$) per UGC upload?”, “Active Premium subscription requirement?”, “Asset geometry requirements (ex. vert. tri. etc. limit)?” etc.). I was thinking perhaps the current conditions would change for the public release by tightening or loosening the current upload requirements. Maybe it’ll just stay the same. Would appreciate a clarification.

I’m interested in learning this information so that I am prepared for the update as a Roblox user interested in investing into UGC.

A:

@lowercasecreator

thanks for the question. it’s a big change, and we’re being extremely thoughtful about changing the requirements. we are still finalizing the requirements for avatar items for opening up creation to everyone. the economy team plans to share a detailed post with final requirements in the coming weeks.

---

Q:

@ScriptOn

Hello! I have two questions

Can we have an update on Android Future is Bright? The creator roadmap says mid 2023.

Secondly - when will games have access to user uploaded videos? I’d love to have users display their videos in my experience!

A:

@lowercasecreator

oh this is a great question and what an interesting idea. as you know, we just launched video uploads today. videos are private for now, but we are looking into making audio and video more easily shareable with groups and friends (it’s on the roadmap) by the end of the year and other asset types next year, which could make your idea possible. let us know how it goes!

we’re excited to see your interest in Android Future is Bright, and we’re currently targeting a beta release before the end of this year. we’ll have more information to share as we get closer to the release.

---

Q:

@PablitoTheChicken

Are there any plans to allow developers to use different material variants for terrain simultaneously? Currently, you are limited to using only one variant of each material for the entire game. Additionally, will you also enable us to paint the 3D grass over any material, rather than just the grass material?

A:

@skywise84

Thank you for your question. We’re currently focused on improving our terrain’s overall performance and scalability. Internally, we’ve started to think about the future of materials on Roblox. This is a great request, and we’ll take note while we explore the best solution for all creators.

---

Q:

@MightyDantheman

Will we get more control over terrain?

---

Examples:

• More water properties, such as flow direction.
• Being able to modify water/grass uniquely from one area to another. (Non-global properties)
• Ability to edit voxel size. (Including smaller than 4 studs)

A:

@skywise84

We’re currently focused on improving terrain’s performance and scalability. We’re always open to hearing feedback and suggestions from creators. If you have any specific asks around what type of controls you’d like to see, we’d love to hear it.

---

Q:

@dvdko

I’ve seen that Roblox is adding a new feature for webcam upper body tracking and has recently launched on the Meta Quest. Will there be any future plans for Roblox to support full body tracking for VR?

A:

@skywise84

We don’t currently have plans for full body tracking, but in 2024 we will be extending our facial tracking tech to the upper body. Working seamlessly with our existing Facial Animation Stack, this real-time animation of your avatar’s upper body will work sitting, standing, and when the body is partially hidden.

---

Q:

@nakoyasha

This is a bit of a technical question so it probably won’t get answered but – is the redesigned Studio based on QT 6? or is it still QT 5? Maybe based on a completely different framework? Asking this because most of Studio’s issues (especially the issues with hidpi displays and docking) seem to arise from the fact that it’s still on QT 5

A:

@skywise84

The plan is to be on Qt 5 (Qt 5.15.9 to be accurate) for the redesigned Studio. The docking issue is not related to the Qt version and has already been addressed for >99% cases and we are rolling out this month a change that will address it completely.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

I know this is a very frequently asked question so I’ll post it here and ask on the behalf of many, so it can be answered officially:

Will there be any plans on increasing DevEx rates? The economy is changing both in ROBLOX and the world itself, however DevEx rates don’t reflect the changes. I won’t go too much in detail, but the post below gives great reasons:

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/roblox-needs-to-increase-devex-rates-and-why/1533966/

A:

@lowercasecreator

hey thanks for raising the topic. in general we’re always looking for responsible ways to give creators more ways to earn. it’s part of the reason we announced the creator marketplace changes with 100% of the net proceeds (excluding tax and payment processing fees) to the seller. while we’re constantly discussing this internally, we have no additional updates to share at this time.

---

Q:

@sirvko

Hello,

I would like to know how the Accessory Adjustment Tool is going to work. Will it allow you to position the accessories by using tools similar to how you move and scale parts in studio?

Thanks,
@sirvko

A:

@skywise84

Yes, the accessory refinement tool will allow you to position accessories. Launching in 2024, the API will help you build tools in your experiences to fit accessories perfectly to any avatar. It will allow you to move, scale, and rotate any accessory, including hats, glasses, clothing, etc. This will first be released as an API for developers to add to their experiences. Eventually, we plan for it to be part of the Avatar Editor.

---

Q:

@MightyDantheman

Will we see anything related to GUI API?

---

Examples:

• Pixel color at screen point
• Invert/Mirror images/UI elements (via negative size) (Especially ViewportFrame)
• UI render effects (such as blur)

A:

@skywise84

At RDC, we recently shared that we’re working on flex layouts for responsive design and style sheets that let you change the look and feel of your UI–and 3D elements–with one click. We’re always looking for more ideas. If you could wave a magic wand, what one improvement would you like most?

---

Q:

@Noble_Draconian

Hello again! Thanks for doing another AMA

Since I just found out about this AMA right now, I’ll post an abridged version of my primary question, which is the same thing I asked dave in-person at RDC (which did not result in a response with any meaningful substance) : When will transparency and communications about the status of programs improve for the better, and what is Roblox actively doing right now to achieve those? Right now, creators have no way of knowing what’s going on with a given program, where it’s heading, or why it’s being shut down, nor can they give any feedback on them. The accelerator, stars, devawards and verified badge programs have all either randomly halted or been axed, typically with radio silence from Roblox on the matter. This leads to a lot of problems and frustration towards Roblox as a company!

I’m super happy to chat about this problem further if it’s desired, my DMs / email are always open. I have a lot of feedback on this matter that simply would not fit in this reply:

A:

@lowercasecreator

appreciate the feedback nobledraconian! we’ve had to make some tough decisions around sunsetting programs over the past few years. as our community grows, much of what existed previously no longer fits our global community today. we have issued statements ahead of the sunset of the programs you mentioned (i.e. Accelerator), and we are always looking for new opportunities to empower our evolving community with programs and tools that fit them today and in the future.

that said, we are actively addressing the backlog for the Dev Awards, and recently shared an update on the Verified Badge to share more detail on how it works.

---

Q:

@Entelogical

Hello hello! I know there are plans to rework groups “from the ground up” and was wondering if you all could provide any more information on what this entails?

I currently am the owner of a group that holds all the experiences I’ve created. I’d like to have more granular control on which developers can interact with the places under the group. Right now I have to give developers access to all the places under the group if for example they want to upload an animation to it. There’s also the issue with distributing group funds, is there plans to add the ability to distribute group funds based on an experience and not the entire group funds?

The overall idea would be to treat groups like organizations, and within these organizations could have “groups” that have finer control over experiences. This prevents having to create a new group per project which in return then allows you to grow a centralized fan base in one organization rather than having them spread apart against a lot of different organizations.

This is an area I have always felt was lacking and am excited to hear if any of these changes are planned or are being implemented!

A:

@lowercasecreator

hi thanks for the question! in general, we are absolutely thinking through sophisticated use cases like yours, as well as the needs of larger organizations. we want to simplify collaboration, access control, and revenue sharing. we are working towards a future where you can be more granular about who has access to do what within your group (for example, providing edit access to only a specific experience, rather than all of them).

for revenue, we’re also looking at providing better tooling so that you can configure payouts in a way that more accurately reflects your collaborator’s contributions to various aspects of your group (for example, an individual experience). we’ll share more about our long term vision for groups in the coming months.

---

Q:

@Reditect

Roblox needs to listen to the community more about discovery. What is Roblox doing about that? I’d like some form of discussion with those who work on discovery and the entire community.

Here’s something for reference: Discovery does not respect the community, and desperately needs to change - #2 by Reditect

A:

@lowercasecreator

thanks for raising this question. it’s a very large topic of internal conversation as well. we absolutely hear the feedback and are working internally to help find the right long-term solutions for the ecosystem that continue to create opportunities for more diverse content.

there will be a post on discovery soon that should give more detail on how the algorithm works.

---

Q:

@FastPotatoDude

Hello there,

With the upcoming release of customizable grass height, does this also mean we will be able to have different grass heights in different areas? For example, the left side of the map has short grass, while the right side has tall grass. Additionally, will we ever be able to change the texture of the grass in the near future?

Thank you.

A:

@skywise84

For this first release, it won’t be possible to have different grass height in different areas. In the future, we plan to offer much more flexibility, such as the ability to edit density and have different lengths of grass in different regions of your worlds, among other things. We’re excited to share more information on this soon.

---

Q:

@PolarisWasInDenial

Are there any plans in future to allow for developers to let our users select a Lighting technology of their choice? Currently, the main game I work on uses voxel lighting due to wanting to remain accessible to as many users as possible, but we’d love to be able to use future lighting for users who are willing to accept the higher computational cost. To my knowledge, this couldn’t be changed without rejoining a game as the lighting technology gets initialized during client loading, but would still allow for much higher visual fidelity without a reduction in player counts due to players perceiving lag.

A:

@skywise84

We don’t currently have plans to allow for this. Our philosophy is that users should not have to worry about these details. Roblox will automatically pick the ideal lighting based on a user’s device and various other factors.

---

Q:

@Coasterteam

Hi Nick & Tian, love these AMAs!

With the announcement of the Banning API at this last RDC, I am curious to learn more about it.
Specifically, whether or not this is a combination of internal Lua APIs (like Player:Kick()) and a web panel for developers, like in developer stats.

If there is a web panel involved, is it planned for it to be customizable for who can access/manage bans?

A:

@skywise84

Great question – we’re scoping it out and building it right now. We’d love to hear what you’d like to see included.

---

Q:

@whatplayer5858

Hello and thanks for the ama.
Will we ever have custom grass? triangles are kinda bad now.
And will we have editable normal map density like in unity? It will be REALLY useful, currently we need to use third party apps to edit normal map’s density which takes a lot of time and effort.

A:

@skywise84

We’ll soon be releasing controls to let you change grass height and density. In the future, we plan to offer ways to make these controls per-region, and we’re looking at additional possibilities to customize grass (and more). We’ll have more information to share on this soon.

---

Q:

@Gruntyrant

Is it somewhere in the plans to allow developers to read pixels in screen coordinates, or alternatively a version of :GetGuiObjectsAtPosition() that doesn’t return UI elements whose image is invisible in those coordinates?

A:

@skywise84

We don’t have any current plans, but we will take this suggestion into consideration while we continue to make a better experience for all creators. Thank you for the feedback!

---

Q:

@PolarisWasInDenial

With future changes to voxel lighting, is the implementation of a more visible representation of PBR normal map effects planned? Currently, that’s the main thing (other than translucency) holding back my projects that use Voxel lighting from a much higher standard of quality.

A:

@skywise84

I’m assuming you mean making the impact of the normal map more visible? Have you tried adjusting the Environment*Scale parameters? If so, could you share an image of the lighting setup you’re struggling with and information on what you’d expect to see?

---

Q:

@ShrekSimpy

Are there any plans to add different texture filtering modes, for example, Nearest neighbor, Trilinear, and Anisotropic? It would be very useful for pixelated textures and general graphical improvements.

A:

@skywise84

While we don’t currently have plans to offer these specific options, we’re always looking for ways to improve our tooling. Could you share more about what you’re trying to do, and where you’re facing challenges today?

---

Q:

@MightyDantheman

Will we see more tools to improve testing in Studio?

---

Examples:

• Simulated hardware limitations for a given hardware profile. (Preferably with the option to add custom profiles.)
• Solve minor parody issues between simulated and live devices. (An example would be a particular issue with text scaling in a scrolling frame, but I had found another solution around it a while back.)
• Being able to enable/disable or switch between emulated devices while in test mode.
• Simulate lower/custom network speeds. (Ping.)
• Fix test server closing. (It only closes all studio windows if you click “Clean Up” in the server window, and no other window.)

A:

@skywise84

Improving testing in Studio is one of our key objectives for 2024, and we are planning to improve our emulator workflows so that creators can have a more representative idea of how the experience will run in a broad spectrum of devices in production. If you have specific bugs (and it looks like a few of these that you mention are) feel free to direct message and we will get on it.

Network Speed/Ping can be simulated via Studio settings > Network > Diagnostics > Incoming Replication Lag.

---

Q:

@pyxfluff

I’m ranking my questions based on priority now, so here’s another:

How much of a priority is it to improve Hyperion to patch more exploits which lead to executors/injectors continuing to work? Right now, even after the 64-bit client, anti cheat is still a high priority because of people using injectors, mainly via the UWP app.

A:

@skywise84

Hyperion is coming to Windows UWP shortly, which will make a major dent in current exploits. After release, we’ll continue to work to improve Roblox’s anti-cheat solutions so that everyone has positive, exploit-free experiences.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

Will there ever be better tools to debug memory leaks? What we have currently is semi-decent, but I’d love more in-depth tools such as origins or objects that take up a lot of memory.

A:

@skywise84

We don’t have any current plans, but are considering what we could do.

We are increasing visibility creators have of their experiences in production through Creator Analytics, and client-side memory usage is a good one for us to consider. The Microprofiler in engine should be helpful for more detail of memory consumption, and we are interested in doing more. Please let us know what sort of tools you would most like to see.

---

Q:

@ObviouslyGreen

Hello Nick and Tian, thanks for hosting this AMA!

I was wondering what the plans are for DynamicImage and DynamicMesh, is there any estimation for a release date or for some kind of announcement surrounding those two? I’m really looking forward to it, I’ve had a lot of fun testing them out but I would love to be able to use them in a real game!

A:

@skywise84

We’re aiming to have a beta out before EOY and can’t wait for you to try it.

---

Q:

@ImFarley

At RDC 2022, the common sentiment amongst the Studio team that I talked to was the desire for developers to use Roblox Studio and no 3rd party tools (VSCode etc.). With “Fitting Your Workflows” it seems that Roblox’s thoughts on 3rd party tools may have changed.

Is the goal to enable developers to use 3rd party tools? I’m namely interested in VSCode as Rojo has been the only option for 3rd-party coding for years now.

A:

@lowercasecreator

our goal is to enable developers to use whatever tools and workflows make them effective. we intend to provide an immensely powerful and innovative toolset in our Studio, but are also opening up our platform to make integrations with 3rd party tools easier.

---

Q:

@SilentFish20

Is there any chance we will ever get a skybox update? Skybox as it is right now is not very customisable. Here is a nice thread stating changes that could be added: Skybox Overhaul

Another thing that would be nice is an update to water. Water hasn’t been updated for a longgggg time (Not including the shorelines beta). And it would be nice to see water AND TERRAIN get an update. Here is another nice thread: Overhaul Smooth Terrain Water

A:

@skywise84

Could you let us know what capabilities you’d like/what you’re struggling to achieve now? We’re not actively working on it but happy to listen to requests and reassess.

---

Q:

@Roservia

I’ve worked a little bit with the new UI design myself. I haven’t explored more to know all of its current capabilities, but I was wondering if sometime in the future if GUI could be based on a grid to help with the sizing on different devices?

I know we could create something similar as this with the grid layout, but when a person makes websites with HTML and CSS, they make grids and declare what each column and row size are if they choose to do that.

I think going this route would be the perfect way, considering a lot of GUI can be positioned like that. That way it makes it easier for the creator to create and the player to navigate. I always found it difficult myself on centering UI items on the screen, and I usually found the best way to do this was from the layouts. However, I found it difficult for the screen size being changed and the GUI going weird at times. This is why I suggest going into a route that CSS takes with creating a grid.

A:

@skywise84

We think our upcoming flex layouts feature, which provides responsive UI layouts across devices, will help a lot with this. After you’ve had a chance to try it, please let us know if it’s not meeting your needs.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

Will there be different graphics settings for the ROBLOX client? Currently, the client only has a single 1-10 bar to adjust graphics, which doesn’t give players a lot of room to adjust certain aspects about the performance of the game. I’d love to see different options such as effects, post-processing, rendering distance (up to developer StreamingMaxDistance), anti-aliasing, shadow quality, and a lot more.

A:

@skywise84

Our long-term goal is to have excellent automatic tuning and optimization of features that adapt to the unique capabilities of the end user’s device, so we have no plans to extend the graphics settings for the client.

---

Q:

@OrbitectGG

Not directly related to the announcements made at RDC, but are there any plans to improve on the universal client? Since it’s release 80% of the client is still just a browser pop-up & the performance leaves a lot to be desired.

A:

@skywise84

Yes!

Most of our effort to date has been focused on shipping the Universal App on all existing Roblox platforms (and a few new ones). With the release of the universal app for Playstation and Xbox on 10/10, we will finally have all Roblox clients leveraging a single Luau codebase to power the app experience. The massive technology forklift is done!

The interesting thing about technology forklifts is that you generally spend a ton of resources changing stuff under the hood, but with the intent that the user experience doesn’t change. Now that we have an aligned codebase across all of our supported platforms, we expect the pace of user-facing changes to accelerate dramatically. We already plan to ship a bunch of improvements to the homepage, search, social features, and the in-experience controls and UI.

---

Q:

@lilmazen1234

Are there any plans for us to get more UI features such as sliders, UI blur, etc?

A:

@skywise84

At RDC, we shared how we’re working on style sheets, to allow you to change the look and feel of your UI–and 3D elements–with one click, along with flex layouts, to allow for responsive design. If you could wave a magic wand, what one improvement would you like most?

---

Q:

@EuropoorSimulator

Why can’t we as creators view the sales of our assets in the creator dashboard or the API?

A:

@lowercasecreator

great question; we are aware of this gap and, as announced at RDC, in Q4 we will be launching the ability for creators to track sales and revenue for each avatar item.

---

Q:

@MightyDantheman

Will we ever have API access to AI?

---

This one is more out there, but I’d figure I’d ask anyway.

Examples:

• AI language model for use in NPCs or story generation, as an example.
• Live generation of 2D and potentially 3D assets in an active server.
• With the scripting AI: Use explorer context when generating results. (Reading the explorer data to produce more accurate results.)

A:

@lowercasecreator

yes. long-term we intend to expose all available AIs through Open Cloud, similar to other Roblox services. right now we’re focused on ensuring the quality is high and we are working to reduce costs so that the feature will be appealing to the largest set of users.

---

Q:

@pyxfluff

Due to the slowmode I was unable to edit, here’s the post again;

First off, thanks for trying to improve clarity and community communication. I think it’s essential to try and get feedback from everybody, and I’m glad to see if starting to happen more. As for the questions, I only have a few basic ones (mostly relating to UI design):

1. Will we ever be able to expect a native Figma importer solution? Now that VSCode support is being added along with Git, I think something to allow us to make UI in Figma or other tools such as Adobe XD is past due. I’m using a 3rd party plugin at the moment which is half broken, I’d love official support. Along with that, will we see the built in Figma features (such as Blur, both Layer Blur and Background Blur (acrylic) ) imported properly into this as well? The reason we couldn’t get this years ago was due to “performance”. All modern iPhones and most modern Androids use Acrylic material in their home/lockscreens, so there’s no reason that Roblox can’t run it because of performance anymore. Layer blur is useful for menus and images, and background blur is useful for effects such as acrylic blur.

That’s all I have for now, thanks for doing one of these once again.

A:

@skywise84

Our approach here is to provide the API surface through Open Cloud that enables content import from all sources - we are working on this now! We may choose to implement sample integrations like the currently released Blender plugin but our hope is that the API is clean and easy enough to access that the community can build any solution they need.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

@skywise84

Roblox will automatically pick the ideal lighting based on a user’s device and various other factors.

Is this a current feature or a planned feature?

A:

@skywise84

Currently, Roblox will automatically gracefully degrade lighting when running on a weaker device. In 2024, you can expect us to also enhance lighting on stronger devices.

---

Q:

@shadowflame63

The PerAxis ForceLimitMode for AlignPosition that was released recently has been very useful and made transitioning from BodyPosition to AlignPosition easy.

I was wondering if a PerAxis ForceLimitMode property is planned for AlignOrientation too? So that it can behave in a similar way to BodyGyro and it’s MaxTorque property, allowing developers to transition away from that too. (Using a new property called MaxAxesTorque, similar to MaxAxesForce)

A:

@skywise84

We have this on our roadmap but at a lower priority as it hasn’t been a common request. It’s great to see it brought up here, and we’re always happy to reconsider priority if we see more requests from our creators.

---

Q:

@Dekkonot

Howdy!

What are the plans if any for more concise and open communication between developers of tools like Rojo and Roblox? I’m one of the maintainers of Rojo and while we’ve been getting more clear communication from engineers over the last few months, it’s been off-platform and not strictly in an official capacity. Is there a future where developers of 3rd party tools are given a more proper seat at the table, so to speak, so that we can talk about things that impact us while the features are in development rather than just being given notice by an engineer if they happen to know how to contact us/want to?

Also, I know that this is violating the rule for multiple questions per response but hopefully you’ll forgive me: Would it be possible to have more concrete release schedules for things in the future? It’s difficult to respond to weekly updates as-is, but when things are announced and happen either days or months later it makes it stressful for everyone.

A:

@skywise84

This is a great question. One of the things we’d really like to do is to work more effectively with the thriving open source communities that exist around development on Roblox. They inspire us, and they are a key part of developer productivity on the platform.

Tools like Rojo enable workflows which we would like to better support at the platform level as well. We try to think through the impact of releases on developer workflows and provide lots of heads up if relevant changes are being made, as we recently did with some new Script APIs . We’re always up for feedback on what more we could do. Let us know!

With regards to your question on release schedules. We’re always working to be transparent with our creators, and you can expect our creator roadmap to become richer and more comprehensive over time.

---

Q:

@ItsKoiske

Hi Nick and Tian!

First of all, thanks for staying transparent with the community. You’re absolute legends for doing so.

I asked this during the last AMA but it was never answered.

As someone who works with translations in my work, the manual localization tools are very lackluster and broken at best. It has forced us to move entirely off-Roblox with localization and utilize the downloadable .csv file.

While that has its ups and downs, will we see improvements coming to the Translator Portal?

Right now, the translator portal just outright rejects any and all strings that trigger the filters without telling us what exactly has been filtered out, nothing distinguishes the AI translations from manual ones at a glance and there are a few other QOL things that the portal desperately needs (made a devforum post about it in Nov '21 and there are still no changes, hell the new localization portal made some of the highlighted issues worse.).

Roblox pushes for connecting the world pretty heavily but looks to have dumped the translators somewhere on the road there and isn’t looking at us at all. I hope to hear from you guys about this

A:

@lowercasecreator

hey, thanks for the great question and feedback. we’re very invested in improving translations in general. we have plans in early 2024 to provide text filter feedback by giving translators access to a tool where they can test their translations before publishing.

we also have a lot of other improvements coming to the portal based on community feedback (e.g. keyboard shortcuts, CSV upload/download from web, analytics improvements, removing experiences), as well as releasing automated workflows (e.g. continuous machine translation model improvements, enabling players to give you feedback on translations, and many more).

---

Q:

@MightyDantheman

Will there be any new rendering capabilities?

---

Examples:

• New rendering effects. (e.g. Warping effect.)
• Custom render effects written in Lua.
• Render order. (Being able to change the layer that something is rendered on, so it can be in front or behind of other objects.)
• Masking. (Being able to “cut off” a part of an object, and hopefully UI elements too, without actually cutting it off. Just preventing a masked part from rendering/being visible. There are other uses for masking too.)

A:

@skywise84

We are continuously working to improve our rendering capabilities. Right now, the rendering team is focused on:

• Bringing “Future is Bright” (FIB) lighting to Android
• Building a new GPU-based lighting model that performs similarly to the current shadow mode with better scalability
• Improving terrain’s performance and scalability
• General performance/scalability improvements

Please let us know what your top request is for additional capabilities, we’re always listening.

---

Q:

@YasuYoshida

When packages and models become sellable assets, will we be able to create custom thumbnails for them just like plugins? Because right now the Toolbox displays a 3D view of models which can be extracted since they’re simply underneath a ViewportFrame. I don’t think something like that would work for paid models. Hopefully that makes sense.

A:

@lowercasecreator

we absolutely want to make it easy for anyone to showcase their work on Creator Marketplace. to support model and package commerce, we’ll offer a better 3D viewer for packages and allow creators to upload custom images. these will launch when you’re able to sell packages on Creator Marketplace.

---

---

See also:

• Summary of the Creator Roadmap AMA (June 2023)

---

This post will be edited as more questions are answered.

[MightyDantheman (Fate)]

Ran out of space, so I’ll be continuing in the replies.

Asked & Answered

Q:

@Abcreator

My question is very deep-rooted, as of recently we have seen Roblox pushing a lot of harsh updates that impact our workflow deeply, think Experiences using Marketplace Items - Policy update, the polar-opposing opinions (both positive and negative) of the new CoreGUI “upgrade” (discussed here ) and the previous audio-privacy update.

These “updates” are major changes made to developers’ workflows, sometimes with little to no notice and seemingly no developer consultation before release. Is there anything being done to reduce the amount of these harsh updates and / or ensure that no developer is unfairly impacted by a decision made that clearly did not respect the creative vision of their experience?

A:

@lowercasecreator

we value your feedback and concerns. each of your examples has a lot of nuance. we do not want any change to feel ‘harsh’ or ‘unfair,’ and our team’s job is to make creation better for you.

we are working to improve and are changing our internal processes to catch more of these potential issues earlier. we review DevForum on a daily basis for feedback, for example, and we’ve been rolling out programs to gather feedback directly from the community in advance of product launches, such as our community feedback program and research panel.

we know we need to improve, and we’re working on it.

---

Q:

@Mauio64

I believe you’ve misinterpreted the question. Currently, creators who accidentally set their age to be <13 are LOCKED into that age group, and cannot fix the age, even if they have an ID proving they are above 13 (hence “verifying with ID”)

A:

@lowercasecreator

you can contact support and provide evidence that you are 13+. in the future, we are working on a self-service age correction flow in case someone accidentally provided the wrong age.

---

Q:

@oliwieer4

Will there be any form of decrease in Roblox’s Fee and/or Tax percentage?

At the current moment on our platform, we make a lot of purchases even if it’s not development-wise.

I made a pretty clear board summarizing the entire list of whatever I could find that has a fee or tax.

I do predict that Roblox will keep on improving and introducing more and more features that include a fee or tax them, but at the moment I am not so sure about Subscriptions if they will include a fee of some sort.

I apologize in case this question is insulting in some sort of manner.

A:

@lowercasecreator

thanks for the question and the detailed diagram.

there are many additional costs that get incurred when you’re off-Roblox. Roblox gives you immediate access to 65.5M DAU across all platforms with no need to go through app store approvals and fees or console certifications and fees, or the need to set up and pay for your own back end services. specifically to your question on subscriptions, the fees are the same as any in-experience product: 70% to the creator, 30% to Roblox.

that said, as i responded to another question, in general we work to do our best to give as much revenue to creators as we can.

---

Q:

@mrkbx

Will we ever get official support for control over the avatar editor backgrounds and VR home enviroment? Currently it’s unoffically possible by tinkering and swapping the mobile.rbxl and the file responsible for the home enviroment. I gave it a try and it looks pretty cool, the only downside that the skybox outside is theme-colored alongside with a thick fog.

A:

@lowercasecreator

appreciate the suggestion. we are always looking for ways to make the home page experience feel more personal but have nothing to announce right now regarding user customization of the background. definitely something we are keeping in mind as we work on our roadmap.

---

Q:

@XenoDenissboss1

Any plans for actually expanding the engine past the current limitations and issues it has right now? Right now it’s very hard to see a future in witch ROBLOX can allow the creation of large, detailed and complex experiences without running into heavy performance issues and engine limitations. While you guys will often praise showcase experiences (like most of roblox), it’s pretty clear that those experiences somehow suffer from performance issues while not really offering a visual fidelity more advanced than what could be seen on something like Crysis 1 (2007 AAA game) while even STILL having an area of exploration 50 by 50 studs at BEST. Other games that do try to offer higher visual fidelities, larger worlds, etc… often have to rely on hacky optimization tricks that can easily chip away at the games quality in an attempt to make the unreasonably low performance engine take away resources. Another issue i have seen with the ROBLOX engine (and that will continue to be accentuated) would be the fact that the engine itself keeps getting more and more bloated with new features that are forced to have baked into their games regardless of not those features will ever be used. I do not believe simply having a “Disable” button is enough as even THEN those features will be present in memory and still take away some valuable resources regardless.

With all of this, i personally do not believe ROBLOX itself can go too far without tripping over most obstacles due to the lack of a proper game engine. Would there be any chance of the ROBLOX engine getting a major “rewrite” or something similar (in order to alleviate the issues it has right now)? Would there be any chance for ROBLOX themselves to take a more “modular” and “open” approach with the engine so developers have way more access to everything? While i do understand that opening the engine up would leave the chance for many bad actors to create many relatively “harmful” experiences, i personally believe that these sorts of risks have to be taken in order to elevate the engine AND the developer space to higher grounds for a better future.

A:

@skywise84

We’re always prioritizing performance improvements, and we have some significant things in the pipeline. Upcoming examples range from rendering features like occlusion culling to deep technical optimizations around locking on Android.

Roblox has a unique challenge in that we enable you to write once and run your experiences everywhere. This means that unlike optimizing a specific game for a specific console, the same experience might have different performance issues on different devices; i.e., CPU-bound on one and GPU-bound on the other. Our vision here is that the engine will become increasingly sophisticated on high-powered hardware, and gracefully degrade on less powerful devices.

Separately, if you disable a feature, it should not be taking any resources. Please let us know if you have an example where that’s not happening and we’d be happy to look into it.

---

Q:

@mikebramble202

there is only speculation about when audios can be made public that being 2024 could we have an official date? its been 2 years of silence and only hints of a potential date. any information on the topic would be greatly appreciated

A:

@lowercasecreator

thanks for bringing this up. we’re working hard on it, but it’s more complex than it might seem! we’ll share updates as we have them, and will aim to add milestones to future roadmaps.

---

Q:

@BandaidKidd

Along with the new topbar update, will the inventory/backpack ui ever get a redesign?

A:

@lowercasecreator

this isn’t something that’s on our roadmap at the moment. perhaps make a post under feature requests on what you would like to see from a redesign?

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

Are there any plans to increase server memory? It’s no secret that games in ROBLOX are getting much more realistic functionality wise and visually, and I feel like we should be equipped with more memory to maintain these higher realistic projects. I understand a lot of it is on the developer to optimize and use resources sparingly, but eventually some developers will hit the ceiling of the current 6.25 GB limit of server memory (before the server crashes when it hits the limit).

Here’s a post with better reasoning and in-depth detail, along with many people wanting this:

Increase server memory or provide better memory tools

A:

@lowercasecreator

we continuously evaluate our RCC per-experience resource allocations and update them based on various factors (engine efficiency, new feature needs like voice chat, data center capacity, and more). we have no short-term plans to increase memory, though.

---

Q:

@vector_create

Will we ever be able to register be able to register and deregister controls in the help tab of the Roblox menu?

A:

@lowercasecreator

as mentioned in the original post , our intent is to allow creators to add their actions to the new experience controls. the team is still figuring out what will work best for users and creators.

---

Q:

@NotRapidV

Are there plans to hide models under the Creations tab of profiles? This was asked in a previous AMA, but nothing was done since. There is no option to hide the models section currently which can lead to leaked assets and updates.

A:

@lowercasecreator

this is definitely on our radar, and a strong request from the community. we’re pushing hard to fast-track this but it has some complexities that make predicting a launch date difficult.

---

Q:

@metatablecatmaid

I had asked this in the previous one but it got locked.

Whats in the pipeline regarding plugin functionality, one feature I’ve been requesting for a few months now is deeper access to the underlying analysis tooling (AST tokens etc.) to make reading script behaviour and shape easier.

A:

@lowercasecreator

we are constantly looking to expand our plugin system and capabilities to enable developers to build efficient workflows. for example, we are currently working on a customizable ribbon, which will enable more efficient organization and access to plugins. we are also evaluating existing APIs in Studio to see what can be opened to plugin access. more to come!

---

Q:

@FastPotatoDude

Hello again,

As of now, the Export Selection in Studio only allows you to export as a .obj file. Will there ever be support to export as other formats, such as .fbx and .glTF?

Thank you.

A:

@skywise84

Yes, we are evaluating this. Likely we would support .glTF as the future-looking format.

• If you’re looking to use .gifs early, you can try this: [Model] Gif UI Element Misread this completely, but I’ll leave the link here regardless.

---