Roblox Developers’ Journal

We put out another huge release today. Big improvements have been made to the graphics engine and the ROBLOX Catalog.

Graphics

We now have beveled blocks and they look beautiful! If your graphics card has 256 MB of video RAM or more, they will be turned on automatically. Also Wookong’s graphics engine is now the default, so if you weren’t seeing the cool new explosions in-game, you will be now! Furthermore, users with slow computers may see huge speed improvements in large levels, especially in multiplayer games. ROBLOX will now detect when your FPS (frames per second) drops in large games and try to start drawing fewer bricks, speeding things up. Matt and I were wandering around in the Roblox Museum level the other day and the speed improvements were amazing. Try it.

Bevels

Beveled bricks look like candy. If ROBLOX decides your graphics card is not good enough to turn on bevels automatically, you can force them to be drawn (though they may slow down your game slightly). This is not a supported feature, so if fiddling with your settings messes up your game, just click the Reset All Settings button and forget about the whole thing.

How to turn on Bevels manually:

1. Open ROBLOX Studio
2. Goto Tools -> Settings -> Rendering
3. Set Bevels to ON.
4. Make sure graphicsMode is either Direct3D experimental or Automatic
5. If you have a really good graphics card, also set Antialiasing to ON, it will make the bevels look even better!

ROBLOX Catalog Improvements

How many times have you been shopping for a quality battle armor, only to get stuck paging through 100s of useless shirts made by noobs? I say, no more! Let there be search!

In addition to adding search, Matt was able to squeeze in comments for hats and shirts. The ultimate goal is to extend the comment system to places, but that didn’t get into this release. For now, if someone publishes a really cool shirt, you can leave a message saying that you liked it. Or you can brag about how awesome your Teapot Hat is.

Longer list of improvements

• Beveled bricks
• Rendering speed improvements from culling
• Search for catalog
• Comments for catalog
• Improved First Person camera mode
• New graphics now the default on all machines
• Many crashes fixed 

- Telamon

People keep trickling in to the party! It’s getting sort of packed. I really am astounded how many people have shown up. It’s a block-buster! Telamon is still handing out the hats and will be doing so for a few days more. Take a look at the zany things people have come up with for their costumes…

These are the players who received the Bluesteel Bat Helm for attending the party.
MACGEEKPRO with Pumpkin Head	MACGEEKPRO with Ski Cap
MUFASA has a Head Stack of different emotions	CRUCKSHANK is a high-tech futuristic Robloxian
Here’s NYTTYN as a Robloxian wearing a Bigger Head	DINGBA as Builderman
PERKYNS wearing a Red Stetson	SALAMUNDO & NIGHTLURKER12 worked on this one together
DOCTORWHO1216 has a TEAPAWT!!! It’s made of fabric and wire. ILLUSIONS has a BAT HELM!!! Telamon was stoked about this photo.	JULIANNE as a boxy eBay Robloxian
KMAN786 as Are92	QUEENOFHEARTS as herself, in a sewn costume. Isn’t she a doll?
	TWILA27 & JET26 as combatants. Check out their movie below!
MADAMJAVA as the Feed Bob place	YOSHI322 as himself
FAMILYGUYSUPERADDICT as himself, the Master Cheese	SONICMETAL2 as a Zombie

 
WIZARDARRAC posing as the home page of ROBLOX. Shown large for detail.

Here is the movie of Twila27 and Jet26 bloxxing it out. Who will prevail?!

These are the players who received the Jester’s Cap for attending the party.
POKEMANHERO with Pumpkin Head	EJOB with an agonizingly ugly fake Builderman shirt. His words!
DARKRAI1002 as Builderman	DOXDOX as himself
VIDEOBOB as a Green Robloxian	SLICERGOLDEN as Godofnature
1112 as himself	ZST123 as himself, with a stick guy on his shirt

We are so glad you all have sent in photos so far. It’s truly amazing the work that went into these.

The party will be officially in full throttle on Halloween night! The subject should be Costume Party. The email should include:

1. Your Roblox username.
2. A description of what the costume is supposed to be.
3. How you made it or put it together.
4. An image file.

Your costume should be ROBLOX related. What does that mean? Well, it can be a model, a place, a famous person, a hat. It doesn’t have to be you in the picture. It could be your family or a friend. Don’t send pictures you found on the Internet, or of regular Halloween costumes.

The last day to send in a photo is November 1 by noon (PST). Just a few more days!

-Reese McBlox

The ROBLOX Team got such useful information from the first user survey, we are doing it again!

Click Here to take survey

Why should you take the survey?

• Help us make ROBLOX be the game you want to play
• Make your voice heard
• Five randomly selected survey respondants will win 200 R$

The survey will only be up for a day or two, don’t delay!

- Telamon

Wow. We got a lot of people coming to the costume party now! I guess they heard it was THE place to be. Telamon’s been handing out hats at the door. We have so many people I’m going to have to break it down a little differently than before. The official guide for this event can be found below.

These are the players who received the Bluesteel Bat Helm for attending the party.
YOSHIMIN	WOLFVENOMSILVERSURFE as MIKED
VINCEYOUNG66 as a pirate of Robloxia	VOLDEMORT as a Retro Robloxian made of boxes and fabric
RERBO	NINTENDOBOY & CHELS both worked on this costume
CLONEGAMMA62	NEPTUNE7000 as himself
HANGCAT	FIREFOX5 as a ROBLOX Hotel
SUPERMARIOFAN64	SUPERLUIGIWII & SM64 in matching costumes
DUFFUMZ with a Vegetable Hat	DRAGONYOSHI66
CHARBLOK	DON457 as himself
TOFU as Builderman	KASHTIN in a Bucket Head
SENRO as himself	NIGHTFIRE445 as a Roblox zombie
LAYLABOOKHEART & SUMAKA as the two parts of ROBLOX HQ
HEROOFTIME101 with a Fruit Hat	NPINSKY Watch the movie below!

NPINSKY’s Costume Movie. NPINSKY’s brother is in the costume.

More partiers have shown up! These are the players who received the Jester’s Cap for attending the party.	MICIHGAN207 as Matt Dusek
SLIMSHADY as Stealth Pilot	SCOOBY95 as Builderman
LAVAMASTER’s Teapawt on boxes	KOONTAY’s KITTY IS A ROBLOX BLOK
LAVAKID as JJ5×5	BLACKSAGE as MIKED (minus a hat)
ARMYMEN3DO1 as an Army Man	EVILDEMON1123 as himself
PICHI123 as a fat bigheaded Robloxian	STAIRDUDE as himself

The party is still going strong! The subject should be Costume Party. The email should include:

1. Your Roblox username.
2. A description of what the costume is supposed to be.
3. How you made it or put it together.
4. An image file.

Your costume should be ROBLOX related. What does that mean? Well, it can be a model, a place, a famous person, a hat. It doesn’t have to be you in the picture. It could be your family or a friend. Don’t send pictures you found on the Internet, or of regular Halloween costumes.

The last day to send in a photo is November 1 by noon (PST).

You guys are great!

-Reese McBlox

A series of stories describing the origins of Roblox. This is the beginning. More entries will follow.

First, there was nothing.

And as Nothing was, it was absolute. Emptiness. Void. Without being, there was nothing on this measly plane of existence; nothing shone, nothing was created, nothing was revealed.

Nothing was thought.

And then nothing became no more. For what come through the void but a light, infinitesimally small, yet there. Something, and nothing didn’t like it. Nothing didn’t like the light. It didn’t like how it shone there, how it cast it’s rays upon Nothing. It didn’t like how it conflicted with Nothing.

Nothing hated it. Nothing wanted it destroyed, to go back to it’s blankness. And so Nothing sought to destroy the light. It cast it’s shadows upon it, tried to crush it under the weight of emptiness. But the light was resilient. The light didn’t crush, didn’t go out.

Nothing surrounded the light, it tried to destroy it

It grew. Bigger and bigger, hotter and hotter, the light grew more and more, shining brighter and brighter. Nothing was furious. It cast it’s shadows all around the light, but the light pushed on. Bigger and bigger, the light kept expanding until Nothing could no longer contain it. It burst forth from the shadows and expanded even further. But not just light came from this mass, but Matter. Grouping in the corners of Nothing’s existence, falling into place amongst other Matter, emitting more light.

And still growing.

Soon Nothing gave up on the light, it let it grow, and expand, but Nothing still took up the space between the Matter, but it let Light through. It moved Matter, it shaped it, and made it grow tighter and tighter, until it began to shine.

-MrDoomBringer