Tech Demo: Dynamic Lighting Exploration

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Dynamic LightingMy hack week project was to explore rendering styles and visual effects that would take ROBLOX to the next level. The ROBLOX rendering engine works in a difficult environment compared to traditional games –

  • ROBLOX places are made by our users
    (rather than by hired-on level designers)
    Usually game companies can control their content. They can impose a strict set of rules about how many polygons are used, how to place particular items, and how much of a level is static. ROBLOX is different – builders can come up with anything, with no restrictions and no budgets.
  • ROBLOX places are very dynamic
    In ROBLOX, any part is physically simulated by default – so it could move or change every frame. Even anchored parts could be changed at any point in time through scripting (they often do). Terrain is a great example – although it’s always anchored and cannot move, scripts and tools change it all time.
  • ROBLOX runs on wide range of machines
    ROBLOX works on 10 year old computers with a 32MB video card, as well as on the latest monsters with gigabytes of memory. Any rendering effects we use must gracefully scale down and up immensely.

Whenever we think about improving the look and rendering effects on ROBLOX we need to keep all of this in mind.

My idea for hack week was to export ROBLOX scenes to some common format that professional rendering tools can understand (like Autodesk’s 3ds Max or Maya). That way, artists can experiment with different shaders, effects and materials in a matter of minutes – instead of implementing all of them in the engine, which could take a long time!

Render_Tool_lighting

Now artists were able to use the full power of 3ds Max to play with different rendering effects! Here’s what we got one hour later:

Balance,_Shadowing_and_Ambient_Occlusion_lighting

Color_Balance_lighting

Shadowing_lighting

One thing we all realized immediately – it’s all about lighting. Lighting makes all of these shots look good – shadows on the bridge and on the house and occlusion on cracks between the terrain parts.  All the subtle darkening makes it look real.

The next step is to come up with the right mix of various effects and techniques to see how they all work together. Here is one idea we have for the future look of ROBLOX. Keep in mind, this is all completely experimental, just very early prototyping and brainstorming. Thank you to our friend Alexey Vlasov for his insights on this.  Honestly, we haven’t really decided if this is the right look for us at all – so tell us what you think.

Bonus: we are thinking about whether this is possible on an iPad as well. Check this out – again, this is not a ROBLOX engine build, but a sample prototype that just renders chunks of geometry with a particular shader to see what an iPad can do.

We did a poll yesterday and received an energetic response from our community asking for dynamic lighting.  These tech demos will pave the way to next generation lighting in ROBLOX.

231 thoughts on “Tech Demo: Dynamic Lighting Exploration”

  3. Judy I wish I could tell you! But frost dates are not organized by zip code. You lalrey need to go to the and follow the instructions. I just added a screencast to help walk you through the process.Depending on where you live, your frost dates may not be listed in my chart. I am working on a solution for those who have earlier frost dates.

  7. This is one of the most amazing things I have ever saw on ROBLOX. Everyone is always saying make it optional. But they dont understand that these are different shades.

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  13. I’m a little skeptical about this featureThough I see the incredible amount of people who love it, I don’t think anybody is considering how Robloxian characters will look in the background.Since its almost impossible to make Roblox clothes interact with Roblox games, I find that the average character will stick out INCREDIBLY in the new feature.

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    • I doubt they can, considering the 3DS’ screen, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t support multi-touch, like iPads and such.

  19. This is one of the best ideas you guys have brainstormed about so far. This could be one of those “Major Wow-Factors”. Even Tim Gunn would agree.

  20. Very nice design work. I never noticed the effects lighting can have on the way the game is rendered.

  21. If ROBLOX is trying to make itself look like Minecraft, then mission accomplished. But I do like the look.

    • I have to say, you’re gaining on Minecraft here. I’d love to film with a background like this.

  23. Serisously? Will those images be the new visual effects of ROBLOX, if they are going to be then EPICLY WELL DONE!!!! :D

  24. This is awesome guys! I want to see a new blog post on how you guys did that on the iPad and if you’re gonna release a demo soon!

  25. Remind me of one of those movies that use clay animation like wallace and gromit.

    Sweet!

      • This is better than Wallace &Gromit. This reality is so intense, my imagination can’t handle it.

    • That would be great, because I often see that the current sun/moon positioning is very unrealistic and doesn’t fit for most games.

  27. This would a great improvement! It seems more “realistic”, and would appeal to new users and potential members.

  28. This looks amazing, unfortunately many people have lag issues and this can very easily make it impossible for them to play ROBLOX.

    • I agree, but it is a great idea. people could have an option in the menu to turn this on and off. that would fix the lag problem, while still being able to have dynamic lighting!

  32. They should also add an instance you stick into a brick for light control in an area.
    Properties:
    Brightness(numberValue)
    LightColor3(Color3.new)

    I really cant think of any other properties, the light itself would be blocked by any type of brick so size is unimportant and automatic, say if there was nothing in the way, its brightness would just subtract by 10% every stud or 2 and would have less effect on the surrounding area.

    • That would be the best thing to roblox i think. I would love to make artificial light, it would add such a great feel to roblox, plus itd be so much easier than using yellow colored transparent cone meshes.

  41. I thought if dynamic lighting came out, I thought it would look something like BL. But WOAH! This is an amazing feat for Roblox! I am now really have high hopes for Roblox!

  43. I think this would be a great idea, it would add more atmosphere to the game; the clouds look awesome too, if you implement that then the game would look even greater.

  44. Wow!!

    You guys are working really hard to keep Roblox updated! :D

    I hope you guys keep up the good work.
    Roblox has advanced a lot since i came around in my others accounts! Thanks! :D

  46. This looks amazing!!!! Please work on this more so it can be avalible to Robloxians soon. It would be so realistic if we could do roleplays at sunset, sword fights at noon, and a survival game by the moonlight.

    • Yes it is a good idea especially in war games if you’re trying to snipe and hide in a tower of some sort your shodow goes through the floor! And i think that this would help a LOT.

  48. Impressive.
    I’d love to have this, It would be so much easier to make a city or something with the new roads, Dynamic Lightning, Fog.
    Now for some Timed Weather!

  50. The lighting is amazing, I have been hoping for something like this for a long time. But when you say shaders, do you mean shadows and stuff, or will we actually be able to change shader effects, like making a screen blurry, or stuff like that? Also, will light sources come with this?

  51. Man, this is really good. I like it! Nice how you guys can try to bring some more realistic content to ROBLOX. Thanks! Bye.

    • Once you think of it…this is would be a huge accomplishment for roblox. Since 2006 the only major changes with bricks have been some minor (and somewhat mediocre) shadowing. This would be a huge redesign and would change Roblox forever. Send me a message if you know if this could only affect previous games or every single one on roblox!

  53. Fantastic features! I also agree with Rocklee, and ROBLOX hasn’t had dynamic lighting for over 4-5 years now. I’d like to see changes to be made like this.

  54. I love it. But i hope you can make it optional- Because ROBLOX is fine so far, But this will make it amazing.

  55. Stunning work! When I saw those pictures I thought they were real life models you pieced together for concepts!

    • Tharts why players are also coming up with the idea of having the option to enable/disable this feature through out the settings of ROBLOX.

  58. I applaud you roblox for being much much more active recently and showing us what your working on and giving us something to look forward to and the videos are just icing on the cake it lets feel a bit more about what it is and that its not just a idea but a working project