It was hard not to be intrigued by aperson1890. On Saturday morning, he set up shop at a laptop on the build table. He pulled out a file folder of sketches and notes, thoughts and ideas. He turned on some K-pop via YouTube. He started building, his ultra-patient parents spectating from the booth’s fringe.

Later in the day, I sat down in an open chair next to him. He showed me his progress in translating sketched designs into tangible ROBLOX builds and, only half joking, told me he never finishes anything — and that these projects probably wouldn’t be any different. To my surprise, he did manage to complete a slightly less ambitious project on Sunday: back at what became “his” corner-booth workstation, aperson1890 built the Maker Faire booth in ROBLOX for everyone to see.

“I started playing Sword Fight on the Heights for a little bit but when I lost my connection I started building stuff since ROBLOX Studio doesn’t require an internet connection,” recalls aperson1890. “I didn’t really know what to build at the time, so I decided, ‘why not the booth?’ I worked on that for all the second the day and an hour of the first day.”

Just imagine hundreds of other people and exhibitors, and you're practically there!

He built everything from scratch by surveying the surroundings and translating a couple sketches (one of which was the big, red Maker Faire robot that stood outside our booth with its gorilla-like stature).

The ongoing project caught the attention of just about every ROBLOX staffer who manned the booth. We were impressed not only with his building prowess, but also his sharp, self-taught ability to write Lua scripts, Java and C++. After interacting with aperson1890 — or Dante, as he’s known outside ROBLOX — we even brought up the idea of having the 16-year-old spend some of his summer free time with ROBLOX developers at our downtown San Mateo office.

Right place at the right time? Maybe. But aperson1890 has been self-organizing and developing his technical chops for years. That’s the type of person we like. It all started more than four years ago, when he read a scripting tutorial on the ROBLOX Wiki that introduced what he calls the “dot.”

“Game dot, workspace dot, all that,” he says. “I got really interested in Lua coding, so I learned more. After a few years, I sort of mastered it, and then I went into other languages like Java and C++.”

Now, he’s constantly working on small projects. On the Monday following Maker Faire, it was Minesweeper and an ant farm, which he’s developing as a project for his AP computer science class. The ants randomly move around and respond to food and pheromones, and he’s planning to make it more of a game by allowing players to manipulate the ants and environment, and see how things shake out. He credits ROBLOX for giving him a medium of developing his coding knowledge and launching him into other programming languages.

There were plenty of other sights and sounds to consume at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013. For an inside look at ROBLOX’s “Editors Choice”-winning booth and other exhibitors, check out the photo gallery we published live from the event or watch this quick video of footage we captured in and out of the ROBLOX booth.

Last month, we gave builders an opportunity to write for the ROBLOX blog. We received a wealth of thoughtful submissions and quickly started working with potential authors on articles that leverage their unique experience and expertise. MahPizzaIsHere has established himself as a premiere builder and level designer, and today discusses his techniques for designing stylized, but efficient first-person-shooter levels.

Hello, I’m MahPizzaIsHere, and I’m a member of StudioMM. I’ve been tasked with designing and building all the maps for Borderline, a highly anticipated first-person shooter that’s been in development for some time now.

Crowd-sourcing: a fine line

Much of game development is focused on programming, and with good reason–the average ROBLOX game designer spends many hours slaving over their code. This means map development often gets put on the back burner. A common solution to this problem is to crowd-source maps, which has been attempted with varying degrees of success. Games that feature simple design aesthetics often find success with crowd-sourcing because asking builders to put a few hours into level design isn’t that big of a burden to anyone involved. Crowd-sourcing maps to a game with a more complex and detailed design aesthetic, on the other hand, is much harder. Borderline fits in the latter category, and that’s where I come in.

Grounded in realism: environments based on real locales

From the beginning, StudioMM wanted Borderline to have a certain element of realism, so building maps that exist in the real world was of paramount importance. This lead to the creation of several real places, including Corregidor, an island in the Philippines, Sarir Oil Field, the largest oil field in Libya, and Manhattan Project, based on New York City’s Manhattan Bridge. These locations are designed to tie into a storyline; my maps are not arbitrary. Realism and continuity create a deeper connection between player and map, and I want players to feel like they’re fighting for something meaningful.

Balance: size, detail and brick count

When I was originally tasked with creating the maps for Borderline, it was with the understanding that the environments would be large, extremely detailed, and low on brick count. I realize this sounds contradictory–and therein lies the rub. Having to balance size, detail and brick count is difficult, but I’ve developed methods that allow me to do all three.

One of the methods I’ve adopted is “dynamic terrain.” Dynamic terrain is a very important part of my style. Essentially, it is the use of CFramed parts to create an uninterrupted, but non-flat surface for the environment. Each brick is matched with the edge of its neighbor and rotated based off that edge. Although there are several methods that builders use, I prefer using Anaminus’s Command Utility v5 plugin. Among its functions is “edge select,” which lets you efficiently create dynamic terrain. Builders samaxis, finwei, and yours truly are considered pioneers of its use and have excellent examples in their places. Typically, I use rotate increments of five degrees. This way, terrain is neither too harsh nor too subtle.

Though it’s a time consuming method, dynamic terrain appears to be extremely detailed and uses very few bricks. It’s also the perfect solution to building extremely large maps–you can make the individual parts large, leading to a detailed map without using excessive bricks.

I’ve also learned to limit the temptation to copy and paste parts. Doing this may cause your brick count to skyrocket before you know it and there’s usually a more efficient way to achieve the look you seek. Every single decision you make when building competitive levels needs to revolve around being efficient. Though this requires more time, it ensures your work will be the most accurate representation of what you had in mind, as you’ll be forced to create several revisions. Re-visiting your work time and time again will help you catch bugs, both minor and major.

Balance: planning for gameplay

Borderline seeks to combine hi-tech vehicular combat with classic infantry operations, which creates a substantial problem: the infantryman obviously wants intense action, but armored units want wide open spaces to maneuver. I’ve turned to well known shooters (Battlefield 3, for example) for answers, and have found that these games have massive environments, but attract infantry to certain choke points and strategic objectives. On Corregidor, for example, I envision jets flying over the thousands of studs of island but perhaps 80 percent of infantry clustered around one objective. Ideally, my solution will please both parties.

Although maps tend to develop a flow organically as players learn the routes and tricks, planning how a battle will progress and take shape is a very important part in competitive level design. This is especially important in games with capture points or rush modes, where everything has to be balanced so both teams have an equal chance to succeed. I consider the distance of each team from capture points at any given moment, and space elements accordingly. Additionally, I plan out how much cover I will provide and its location. Corregidor, being very vehicle-based, is a lot of open space. Sarir Oil Field, designed to blend infantry and armored warfare, has a lot of cover around capture points but less in between, which will hopefully allow mobility between points but also encourage intense firefights. Manhattan Project is almost exclusively for infantry, and thus has dense cover throughout.

Style

My building style has been described as sweeping, industrial, and simple. I often use Google Images as a resource to refer to pictures of things that I can’t accurately picture in my head. I’ve been able to build oil wells, shipping crates, tankers and cranes extremely realistically by referring to images on the internet. To re-iterate, I build these structures with a question in the back of my mind: “how can I make this as realistic as possible while using the least amount of bricks?”

Maintaining interest

Having built for years on ROBLOX has taken some dedication. It’s very easy to lose interest in projects and quit before completion in search of inspiration elsewhere. In order to stifle this feeling, I’ve taken the lead in marketing Borderline. I’m constantly posting pictures of my maps on Twitter and reading the comments section of Borderline so I can process feedback in the form of place updates. The feedback loop keeps me interested in continuing to do high-quality work during Borderline’s development.

Final word

We’re hopeful that the Borderline project will be finished by the middle of summer. Working on this game has taught me how to be a creative problem solver, and how to work well with others (even if they are half way around the world). It’s been a really rewarding experience.

Seven-day Blog Recap

How to make your dynamic lighting look amazing

While there is a considerable benefit to simply enabling dynamic lighting in your place — that is, your parts immediately cast realistic shadows — ROBLOX builders have found many ways to manipulate the feature for much more impressive and immersive effects. In this article, we had four proven dynamic lighting aficionados provide tips, techniques and resources for creating amazing atmosphere. From beginner to advanced, there’s something for everyone who’s looking to make their mark with dynamic lighting.

KlamKnights City, a personal server where you earn the right to build

There are many Personal Build Servers on ROBLOX, but KlamKnights City separates itself from the crowd by renting out plots of land to members of the KlamKnights group. Having not seen anything quite like this before, Alan got in touch with the owners of KlamKnights City to discuss how they manage their land and what they strive to accomplish in their bustling, ever-changing place. To learn more about another example of how ROBLOX builders demonstrate entrepreneurship, read the complete blog article.

ROBLOX’s Maker Faire weekend extravaganza

We’ve been hyping up our “mini BLOXcon” at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 for the last couple weeks and, finally, this weekend, it happened. Alan and I were in the thick of the ROBLOX booth and exploring the Maker Faire grounds throughout Saturday, and we left the event with a nice gallery of photo evidence. If you couldn’t attend the event, live vicariously through us by browsing through it!

The booth.

Behind the scenes with the ROBLOX Client Team

By popular demand, we’ve been spending time with various teams over the past few weeks to convey to you, our valued readers, what the typical day is like at ROBLOX HQ. We’ve already covered both the Web Team and the Content Team; most recently, we went behind the scenes with the Client Team — the people who develop everything from our network code to rendering to physics. For the inside scoop, check out the article.

Tips for getting your Film Fest entry noticed

We’ve been accepting submissions to the ROBLOX Film Festival for the past couple weeks and have already accumulated more than 200 entries. We’re not even close to done, though; there are still two weeks left to perfect and submit an entry of your own. Since we’re at the mid-point, we decided to compile some tips for getting noticed and successfully navigating the rules and requirements of the contest. Good luck to everyone who enters! We can’t wait to see your films.

You should play this ROBLOX game

Zombie-survival games were one of the most ripe candidates for dynamic lighting — they’re almost always more fun to play when there’s an element of mystery and suspense provided by the night. Team Zombie Defence Tycoon is a game that got a breath of life with the introduction of dynamic lighting. As you and a crew of other ROBLOXians fend off waves of zombies, you have to use the power of light — in addition to teamwork and powerful weaponry — to survive, scavenge money and ultimately build out an impenetrable fortress. Maggymoo put an interesting twist on the tycoon genre by making it entirely collaborative and more action-packed than I’ve come to expect. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to sink significant time into this game.

Bits

This giraffe was straight out of steampunk lore.

This car featured several forms of sea-life that sang and moved their heads!

A wider view of the light forest Andrew shot earlier.

These robots were set in dueling positions. They were made largely from wooden joints and bottles.

This was one of many steam-powered vehicles that were carrying kids throughout the faire.

People exiting the grounds as the sun began to set.

This massive tree was built in the center of the faire. I don't know what it was made out of, but it was quite impressive.

I heard someone rummaging around in there. I think she heard me taking pictures, and poked her head up for a look.

And finally…a look at our spiffy uniforms, from a rather bizarre perspective!

This spinning mirror contraption was super neat.

We can’t wait to see what day two has in store for us! We’ve captured a ton of images and some awesome video, so keep your eyes peeled for more Maker Faire 2013 media in the near-future.

Original post, 4 p.m.: As I write this from the calm and quiet of a Saturday afternoon at ROBLOX HQ, the ROBLOX booth at Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 is abuzz with people — everyone from newcomers and longtime builders to inquisitive onlookers and fellow Makers. The constant influx of people has already made day one of our “mini-BLOXcon” at Maker Faire a joy, and the weekend event isn’t even half finished. I was in the ROBLOX booth for the first six hours of the Faire today and explored the grounds for a while thereafter. Here are some of the sights I saw.

One of the hottest sellers of the day? The real-world ROBLOX Fedora!

Builderman talks ROBLOX with fellow builders.

We're running dynamic lighting demos throughout the weekend. They're unbelievably cool.

Ben delivers an unbelievably awesome dynamic lighting demo.

A builder finds time for some ROBLOX action.

As does this Maker Faire attendee.

The ROBLOX Fedora looks marvelous with a 3D printer backpack!

Jodie offers a quick ROBLOX demo.

The booth.

The kind of forest you only see at Maker Faire.

One of many Maker Faire lighting displays.

Keep an eye on this post. We’ll be updating it in the near future with more photos from the Maker Faire. If all goes according to plan, you’ll get to see some of the nighttime entertainment. That, of course, means fire!

Those of you who didn’t swoop in and enter right away actually have an advantage: you can see what categories are stacked with competition and what categories remain thin. For instance, we’ve received a lot of ROBLOX machinima and commercials, but a relatively small number of city-specific films and physics/building showcases. If you want to improve your odds of getting noticed, produce a film that falls under a category with fewer entries. Create a city-specific film that shows the essence of Chicago, London or New York City within ROBLOX. Capture footage of yourself building something cool and intricate, then speed up the footage so we can see the whole process.

You can see all 200+ films that have been entered to date and survey the competition on the Film Festival contest. The submission deadline is June 2nd and, the next day, we’ll be opening the contest up for voting. If you’re planning on voting, it’s worth your while to start bookmarking your favorites today!

We’ve compiled some additional tips that should help ensure your video makes it through our approval process and becomes available for voting.

1. Make sure that you leave the video up on your YouTube channel. If you take it down, neither we nor your fellow ROBLOX builders can see it.
2. Beware of music libraries bundled in with video editing software. YouTube and Sony have great selections for you to use on their sites, but often restrict the viewing of such content externally. This will get your entry disqualified.
3. Timing is everything. Part of being a ROBLOX cinematographer is not only making a great video, but also keeping it in check with the requirements. We are seeing a lot of videos that are too long. While a few seconds is not an issue, leave footage on the cutting room floor to get near the time limit.
4. Remember that Film Festival content rules are the same as those of ROBLOX.com. Make sure you double check on-screen chat and music before sending it our way.

Keep those entries rolling in! And remember that if your video was disqualified, you can fix the little things and resubmit it.

For complete information about the categories we’re seeking, time limits, prizes and a FAQ, please visit the ROBLOX Internation Film Festival page on the BLOXcon site.

It’s Thursday morning, and a wide range of people are gathered in one of the many ROBLOX meeting rooms here at HQ. A projection of a list is beamed onto the board in the center of the room, and a fast-paced conversation is taking place between physicists, graphics specialists, and other generally smart individuals.They’re talking about changes that are happening to our platform, which makes sense. They’re the ones tasked with planning, implementing, and monitoring each change made to the ROBLOX client engine, after all. Big and small, they cover everything. Where are we with our new look? How far along is the prototype for streaming parts? What are the pros and cons of an overlay data model? The jargon, even for a seasoned tech journalist, can be difficult to follow. Everything is abbreviated, consolidated, and the topics of discussion change at the drop of a hat.

The Client Team consists of the most technically diverse members of ROBLOX–to understand how they work, it’s easiest to split the members of the team into three sub-teams: rendering, physics, and networking. At its core, the Client Team works to ensure that your gameplay experience is stable. This sounds like a simple notion. Spend five minutes in a meeting with these guys, and you realize, it’s not.

Rendering

The Rendering Team focuses on the look of ROBLOX, and they’re always busy tweaking and enhancing the appearance of our platform (these were the guys responsible for a small, minor change we recently made that you may have heard of called dynamic lighting). As we mentioned in the blog article, dynamic lighting marks the first of many steps we’ll be taking to overhaul ROBLOX’s look. From a visual perspective, ROBLOX is constantly evolving. The rendering sub-team is responsible for not only making sure that everyone is satisfied with major or minor evolutionary steps, but that the user experience remains stable after the changes take effect. They’re prototyping another major visual change that we’re not quite ready to mention here, and are currently working to ensure that these changes will work on any machine.

Technical Director Nachi Lau and Rendering Specialist Arseny Kapoulkine kick around some ideas on their whiteboard.

Physics

ROBLOX runs a realistic, distributed physics simulation, so it probably comes as no surprise that there is a dedicated sub-team that focuses on a course I struggled with in high school (I got a C-, it was an AP course, don’t judge me). The members of this team work tirelessly to ensure that our physics system is as accurate and efficient as possible. Currently, the Physics sub-team is working on improving physics performance on ROBLOX terrain, and ironing out bugs that have to do with object collisions. They’re also working on implementing a new addition to our physics engine that focuses on articulated bodies and realistic mechanical creations.

Networking

Every time you join a game, your client connects to a server, figures out the state of the virtual world you want to inhabit, loads all aspects of the level, then drops you in it. The Networking sub-team works to make sure this process is bug free, and just as important, fast. Currently, they’re experimenting with a “streaming” system, which means any level that you join will load as you play in it. Conceivably, this would make “join times” a thing of the past. Joining would be instant, and the level would load as you explored it, seamlessly and in real time. This has been an ongoing project the Networking sub-team has been working on, and they’re currently in the process of testing a nearly finished prototype. You’ll learn more about this soon.

Getting to it

Watching the Client Team work throughout the day is revealing–the majority of them are neck deep in code, or in ROBLOX testing environments (it seems like every time I walk by Kevin He’s desk, ROBLOX is open and something is exploding). This isn’t to say that it’s quiet; there is a high amount of in-person collaboration. Members meet individually to discuss solutions, and can often be found at grouped around single desks pointing at screens or jotting down thoughts on one of the many whiteboards found throughout the office. These are the people making big changes to a platform based on collaboration and teamwork, so it’s fitting that these qualities find their way into their work days.

The end of the day

It’s 5:49 PM, and Engineering Director Adam Miller adjusts his glasses and glances at his iPhone. Leading up the Client Team, Adam is very specific about the types of people who populate his growing division. He explains:

Every member of the Client Team can’t just have opinions, they have to be able to make those opinions into a reality. We have a healthy level of debates, but each idea is backed up with data and implementation. You can’t just say, “I think A is better than B,” because we’ll immediately ask you, “Can you prove that?” We don’t accept theories, ever. We demand data.

We recommend you read our introduction to dynamic lighting to learn how to manipulate basic dynamic lighting variables before going deeper into this article. Here, we’ll gradually move from beginner techniques to more advanced practices. Ravenshield, one of the winners of our dynamic lighting video contest, kicks things off with a foundational consideration: the overall level of brightness in your place.

Ravenshield: cross-check place brightness

During the creation of my dynamic lighting video trailer, I discovered that, when it comes to brightness, no two monitors are exactly alike. My primary monitor is an LED monitor, which is very bright. That was where I set up the atmosphere and recorded my dynamic lighting video contest entry. However, when I shared the video, viewers told me it was too dark — they “barely saw anything.” I saw the details very clearly on my screen but, when I watched the video on my other monitor, I noticed the visual problem for myself. My second screen was way darker. I should have cross-checked.

My tip for you is to get a friend to launch your place on their computer and see if there is a difference. If it’s dark on either machine, tweak your lighting settings. Make things a touch brighter in your place. Personally, I would rather make my things a bit too bright than so dark that other players can’t see anything!

Once you’ve established a level of brightness that fits your place and makes it playable across displays, it’s time to start considering the more dramatic effects of dynamic lighting, such as the color of lighting and vivid shadows that pop.

Ravenshield: give your lighting some color

I find realism to be a focal point of my creations. I want the light to feel real. To achieve that, I carefully consider the spaces I want to light. I spend a lot of time tweaking each light — moving it up and down, and changing the brightness and radius. But the most important variable, in my opinion, is the color of the light.

The color of the light is essential for making your creation either realistic or very cartoony, depending on your goals. If you were to draw lights on a piece of paper, you’d usually color them yellow. In ROBLOX, I have determined that a light tone of yellow – almost white – is a better option for realistic-looking places. This especially applies to candles and other flaming objects.

Try to observe your surroundings in the real world! Catch the color-tone of your lamp, or perhaps light a candle in a dark room to see the way it lights up the surrounding space and walls.

Spacek531: make your shadows pop

One of the neat things about dynamic lighting is the shadows. Shadows add a sense of realism to a place and, when coupled with fog, can truly make a place look like a clone of real life. When thinking about dynamic lighting, think about the shadows first and worry about the light that will shine down later.

Do you want the shadows to be dark? Usually, dark shadows give a better contrast between the light and dark areas, and make the lighting feel more realistic. In my place, Cold Fusion, I am using a very dark Ambient setting (31,45,47) and a high Brightness setting (1.5). In order to make your shadows really pop, you need to have low, low Ambient and high Brightness.

Another thing to keep in mind when designing your lighting is that you do not need to have a gray Ambient setting. For example, if your place is supposed to be warm and sunny, try making the lighting slightly yellow. If the place is supposed to be cold or rainy, adjust the lighting to be blue or indigo. Dynamic Lighting is more than flashlights and headlights and table lamps; you can set the mood of the place just by tweaking the Ambient lighting settings.

An example of how different Ambient settings affect the look of a place (click to enlarge).

TheAmazeman, best known for his long-popular ROBLOX Titanic and Survive the End of ROBLOX games, has been working with dynamic lighting since it was available for testing in April. He offers a couple tips, covering lighting inspiration and an efficient method for implementing lights in an existing place or model (for advanced builders).

TheAmazeman: find your lighting inspiration

I acquired experience with dynamic lighting when it was available on ROBLOX’s test environment. When it was released to the official site, I put on the second half of the Titanic movie by James Cameron and got to work — coding and testing while watching the movie. I did more with dynamic lighting than create a stationary lit level. I set the light shining from the windows of the ROBLOX Titanic to turn from yellow to blue-green upon going beneath the water surface. Shortly after, the lights completely dissipate. I took advantage of the voxel lighting to light multiple decks of Roblox Titanic with one brick; you can do the same with floors of an office building, for example. Increase and experiment with the range of lights.

TheAmazeman: light an existing model quickly

If you have a bunch of bricks within one model that have yet to receive the dynamic lighting treatment (PointLights), don’t waste time copying and pasting PointLights into every single part. Use this for loop:

The script finds all bricks within a model you specify (lines 1-2), and clones a PointLight into every brick that passes your if/then statement test (line 3). It doesn’t double-copy because it checks for a light (line 4) before cloning (lines 5-9).

Line 7 allows you to change the color of the lighting (all Color3 values are on a scale of 0 to 1). To change your game’s Ambient setting (e.g., 100,100,100) in a script, you ultimately have to determine your desired color’s Hex value (maximum of 255). You can have the script calculate the Hex value via division:

Color3.new(100/255,100/255,100/255)

Or manually calculate the Hex value and insert it in the script:

Color3.new(.392,.392,.392)

Finally, ninjabart122, the creator of the beautiful Unicode Dojo, offers his thoughts on the importance of making dynamic lighting life-like and interactive. These tips, too, are geared toward advanced builders.

ninjabart122: make dynamic lighting… dynamic!

There are many ways to incorporate dynamic lighting into your place or creation, but the best way, in my opinion, is by giving it a breath of life. Even an interactive light switch can make the feature much more immersive than simply installing it in a brick.

For example, I used the new dynamic lighting to create a more vivid experience in one of my places. In it, the lanterns are off during the day and on at night, lighting the entire place. I’ve published a model that turns a red light into a green light when the game time is within 6:00 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. as a demonstration of this technique.

You don’t have to stop there; for example, think about how flames work. Fire doesn’t have a consistent glow; it flickers and the light has varying depth. Another example is street lamps; they, of course, aren’t on during the day, so it’s worth the time to script them so they’re only on when necessary. Muzzle flares, fireflies, and many other small details, I believe, bring out the full potential of dynamic lighting.

The possibilities of dynamic lighting are endless, and we’d love to have you contribute your thoughts and techniques in the comments of this article. You can also discuss all aspects of dynamic lighting and other ROBLOX creations in the Game Creation and Development section of the ROBLOX Forum.

The time is nigh! This weekend – the 18th and 19th of May, to be exact – the entire ROBLOX team will be descending upon the San Mateo County Event Center for one of the Bay Area’s biggest events of the year: Maker Faire Bay Area. The Maker Faire figures to draw more than 100,000 attendees and hundreds of Makers — ROBLOX builders included. We will be showcasing the digital side of Maker culture right in the center of the Expo Hall and we’d love for you to join us at Booth 338.

With BLOXcon heading to Chicago, London and New York City this summer, we decided to overhaul our Maker Faire presence so we can still have an equally awesome time with our hometown crowd. We’re looking for as many of you California natives (and willing travelers) as possible to join us at the event. Think of it like a “mini-BLOXcon.”

There’s going to be a lot of awesome stuff to do.

• Be among the first to see pieces of our summer BLOXcon content
• Meet, build with and battle against ROBLOX admins (all of whom will be appearing in the booth at some point during the weekend, so keep an eye out) and fellow ROBLOXians
• Get up close and personal with dynamic lighting (and take away tips and tricks that give you a competitive edge)
• Play-test, experiment with and provide feedback on brand-new ROBLOX features and product development
• Participate in collaborative, in-person building and playing

While you’re there, get your hands on nifty new schwag!

• ROBLOX World Tour 2013 t-shirts
• Real (as in, non-virtual) black pinstripe fedoras with ROBLOX logo hat pins
• Discounted ROBLOX cards ($25 cards for $20)
• Exclusive, virtual Maker Faire Fedora (only available if you redeem a Maker Faire ROBLOX card by June 3rd, 2013)
• ROBLOX earbuds

Of course, your ticket also gets you access to hundreds of other exhibitors, many of which are doing exciting things – digital and physical – to promote the Maker movement. All-day advance tickets start at $15 (12 and under) and $20 (13-21). Click here to see all the available options. You may be able to purchase tickets at the gate on the day(s) of the event, but the prices rise and rumor has it the number of available tickets is dwindling.

Whether you’re in the neighborhood or thinking about making the trek from afar, we really hope to see you there. Again, look for Booth 338 in the center of the Expo Hall.

Important links

• Buy tickets / ticket information
• Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 website / Meet this year’s Makers
• San Mateo County Events Center (map)

This “land plot” system is what initially piqued my interest–but I grew more intrigued after I paid the place a visit and looked at all the marvelous and unique creations. I was equally startled by the sheer size of the place. I’d try to explain the scope of it all, but sometimes pictures speak more concisely than words.

Just for a frame of reference, see that tiny black spot in the middle-left of the image? Yeah, that's me. Place is huge.

“The whole point of building KlamKnights City was to allow people to express their creativity through building,” recalls aaronstone4real. “As the place began to grow, we noticed more lag, particularly on lower-end machines. We wanted everyone to be able to experience the level, so we came to the conclusion that terrain and voxels were the best way to go,” adds klamman.

The two enthusiastic users go on to tell me that KlamKnights City launched shortly after ROBLOX’s release of Personal Build Servers in 2011. After several iterations, the two had decided on a few overall rules of thumb for KlamKnight City: all terrain, all voxels, and only the biggest and most creative structures.

“We are constantly amazed at how builders are utilizing voxels,” says aaronstone4real. “They’re building things I could never even imagine.”

As with many large-scale and ambitious ideas in ROBLOX, KlamKnights City was a group effort. The KlamKnights are an emerging group dedicated to being a unique entity on ROBLOX–their focus is on innovation, according to Klamman and aaronstone4real, who are two of the founding members.  The KlamKnights Group page proudly declares, “We are like no other group before, built on innovation, kindness, and awesome members.”

Each unique "plot" of land is populated by custom made user creations

“The purpose of the group was to build a strong community,” says Klamman. “We didn’t want to create a group that just focused on one major thing. That’s boring.”

In order to own an exclusive virtual “plot” of land, you’ve got to join the KlamKnights, and rank your way up by being active in the community. This can be done in a number of ways, such as commenting on the groups’ wall, participating in training exercises, or leaving comments related to the groups’ activities. Each of these earn you points that can eventually get you to the “Normal Knight” tier, where you’re then eligible to purchase a plot of land in KlamKnights City.

Today, klamman and aaronstone4real have implemented dynamic lighting into their game, and it looks phenomenal. Roads are lit up, ponds and streams have a faint glow, and the insides of the some of the structures feature some stark and dramatic lighting. We’re beginning to notice subtle nuances with our dynamic lighting system as well, like the simplistic beauty of sunlight filtering through long and shadowed columns.

When asked about the future of this remarkable place, both users jokingly boasted that with the inclusion of dynamic lighting, the future is already here. Yet, there’s more to come.

The two builders want to utilize our recently released in-game purchasing API so group members can buy plots of land inside their server, in real time. They want to continue to explore the possibilities of dynamic lighting. They want their group to grow, and for other projects to take off (for example, members of the group recently released KlamBall, a sports game). “We want to do big things that most people probably wouldn’t expect,” they tell me.

“We’re planning new and even more innovative places, and a wider range of ways for KlamKnights to interact with one another,” says klamman. “We want to make our group bigger and even more innovative than ever before.”

Oh, and if aaronstone4real is reading this? I have to say, you’ve got impeccable style.

Yes, we were dressed nearly identically. No, it wasn't planned.

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