Summer 2020 Recap 🌞

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Hey developers,

It’s been a while since our last recap and we wanted to take some time to put together a bigger, more exciting recap of all of the great things that happened in the world of Roblox development over the summer.

UPDATES (THE NEWS)

New fonts are live!

For a while, we only supported a handful of fonts for developers to use in their games. We’ve now added a bunch of new fonts for you to mess around with and see what works for your game! Check out the announcement for all the details and a list of the new fonts.

The Big Bubble Chat Rework

Bubble Chat finally had its big glow up! With this makeover, your in-game messages look more beauteous than ever. Read the announcement for all the details, including a breakdown of the customization options!

Grab These New Physical Dragger Features!

For some developers, building in Studio used to be a real drag. Models just didn’t move how you would have expected. Well, your anguish has come to an end! Featuring improvements to UI, workflow, and functionality, you’ll want to give this announcement a look!

SurfaceAppearance Studio Beta

Roblox has never looked more beautiful. Seriously. Check out this announcement - if a picture’s worth a thousand words, it would take several thousand to capture how awesome this feature is.

UGC Catalog Applications - Now Open!

We opened up the UGC Catalog program to applications to help improve the transparency around adding creators to the program and give a bit more feedback to aspiring participants. The maximum number of applicants has been reached and the current wave is being processed, but you should still take a look at the announcement to make sure you have all the right information.

Introducing Videos in the Marketplace!

Remember the One World: Together At Home virtual concert series that Roblox gave a stage to? Or perhaps the 7th Annual Bloxy Awards? These were some initial tests of a new feature: videos in the Marketplace. That’s right - your Roblox game can now have videos in it! You won’t want to miss this announcement.

Increasing Premium Payouts

We increased Premium Payouts by 67% (on top of tripling them back in April), meaning that Premium Payouts have grown 5x since we launched the program. It sure is a great time to make and play games on Roblox!

Skinned MeshPart Studio Beta

Skinned MeshParts allow for the appearance of characters and objects to be continuous and smooth rather than represented by rigid parts. Don’t know what that means? You’ll have to take a look at the pictures in the thread - and yes, those are all taken in Roblox.

Roblox + Monstercat = <3

Every day is a crab rave with this partnership! We worked with Monstercat to bring a huge collection of music for you to use in your games for free. Btw, that includes Crab Rave by Noisestorm. Raise your pincers!

Host Your Own Virtual / In-Person Meetups & Developer Events

Speaking of partnerships, we partnered with Bevy to create a program enabling developers to host their own events! All of the details can be found in the announcement post!

Future is Bright: Phase 3 - Studio Beta

Future is Bright phase 3 is now available as a Studio beta feature. Grab a pair of sunglasses and go take a look at the incredible assortment of screenshots from your fellow developers showing off how their games look with the new lighting technology!

NEW EMPLOYEES (THE NOOBS)

Say hello to the latest additions to our team:

Introducing Kairomatic!

All Hand Hoy! Introducing Pirate_Treasure!

Introducing BlossomYey

Introducing PilotGuy27

All Rise! Introducing Moxyll

Virtual RDC 2020

We had a great time hosting you all on Zoom and in Discord during Virtual RDC 2020! While it’s unfortunate we couldn’t be together in person, hopping into the Discord channels to hang out really did capture the whole “walk up to anyone and have a conversation” feel of RDC. From virtual HQ tours to sneak peeks at upcoming features, we hope you all had as much fun as we did - and enjoy your windbreakers!

Special shout out to everyone who participated in the game jam and, of course, the winners! There’s a list of all of the finalists and honorable mentions in our larger RDC 2020 Recap blog post and we highly recommend checking out all of the games!

That’s all for our Summer 2020 Recap! We’re looking forward to seeing the forms your imagination will take over the rest of the year!

Thanks,
Developer Relations

[M_caw (Macaw)]

Woah there, did you just call you @Moxyll a noob… beg your pardon, but they’re a Queen!

All new staff members are amazing!

@Pirate_Treasure might be my favorite staff member though… wait… I’m not supposed to say that…

Anyways, this summer was awesome- I started getting into the developer forum community just a bit more. All the updates were awesome despite these tough times and really helped expand the platform. My favorite? Probably future is bright phase 3. Love Future Lighting!

Keep up the great work, Roblox! (＾▽＾)

[Kairomatic (Kero)]

Hate to break it to you but… RDC was 3 months ago. Feeling old yet?

[Turtlepla (Turtle)]

Its unbelievable how many amazing new features and members weve recieved this summer! This summer was like Christmas day… but in the summer. Keep up the great work! Heres to Summer 2021!

[ButterrDev (Butter)]

A lot of awsome stuff added this summer! Maybe the best summer?

[Trelakor]

Loving the new updates! Keep up the amazing work, fellas.

[colbert2677 (ImagineerColbert)]

It’s been a while since one of these recaps were posted. I’ll be doing one of my long recap writeups in a bit after I finish some development. Great to hear back from Developer Engagement about what’s progressed through these months and looking forward to more progress with Roblox.

[IAmPinleon (Pinleon)]

Feels like Pirate_Treasure came a while ago. Weird…

My list of favorites:

• Bubble chat rework
• Videos in Marketplace
• Increasing Premium Payouts
• Future is Bright
• And all of the new team members!

I felt like there were more however… RichText, UICorner

[5bind (spy)]

How dare you call @Moxyll a noob!!1!1
She should be preferred to as “highness”…

[vlopste (Vercte)]

This summer was great! I started developing this summer, out of a (virtual) summer camp. I’m loving it!
I was also greeted with a handful of new features, ranging from the shiny new topbar to SurfaceAppearance!
Keep up the great work, DevTeam.

[Ty_Scripts (IAmTrulyGreg)]

I love the Monstercat update, allows us to play some nice music in our games legally. I also really like UICorner.

[vlopste (Vercte)]

UICorner, was the best for me ngl. Made my UIs look a lot more well made and professional.

[Qajor]

2020, and especially summer, has been filled with a lot of significant updates and quality of life changes.

We all appreciate these changes and hope to see ROBLOX evolve and grow even bigger and better in the future!

[CanadianCrepe]

A great year (for Roblox, anyway…) I hope more updates keep coming out.
By any chance could you tell us when VideoFrames are releasing?

[HawDevelopment]

Hello!

I really think that you guys should start catching up with those updates. Like the road map. You aren’t even started on the October - December and that’s the part with most updates.

But hey we can’t wish for all thing can we? I mean we just got the new skinned mesh part

[iWinterNation (mrbuns)]

Wow! Cannot imagine how many awesome features came out this summer! Imagine next summer…

[AwesomePossum212]

Wow, amazing how much new tech has been added to to the platform over the past few months. On the subject of RDC…

Are there any plans to release the rest of the RDC lectures beyond the keynotes?

I was really hoping to see some of them, but sadly I wasn’t invited. It’s been a few months, so I’d assume that the editing has been done. I’d be especially interested to see if my question made it into the Q&A panel.

EDIT: Looks like the RDC talks are on the wiki and unlisted on Youtube. Thanks @rogchamp and @mothmage!
I’ve been searching for these for months.

[Pirate_Treasure (Dumbledore)]

Can’t believe you called me a noob…