Enhanced Water Physics, Vehicle Seats Support Rear Propellers

By Kevin He - September 25, 2012

We’ve talked previously about our ongoing effort to build robust joints and motors, and even touched on implementing seats for boats that support rear propellers. We’re still ironing out bugs with our soon-to-be released robust joints and motors, but we decided to release our new boat seat and water propeller support first. These features function independently, letting you experiment with propellers and watercraft today. Though this blog post features some pretty complex ideas in terms of building, we are hard at work on streamlining these building methods in the future so they’re intuitive for all uses. For now, check out what we’ve got so far.

Robust Joints and Motors: Keys to Better Vehicles in ROBLOX

By Kevin He - July 27, 2012

At ROBLOX Game Conference 2012, Kevin He dissected the steps he’s taken to refine ROBLOX’s water physics, hinges and motors so that vehicles – especially boats – perform more realistically. In this blog post, we’re recapping the key parts of the development process. You might be surprised at how much work goes into physically simulating real-world machines in a life-like fashion.

ROBLOX’s water, released in June, gives you the ability to create a boat that floats based on actual physical properties, rather than lines of Lua code. While the release of water marked a big step forward for ROBLOX, it has its limits; for example, if you want to create a propeller-powered boat, the propellers have to be on the side of the boat, as though they’re mimicking wheels on a car.

We’re working toward releasing a vehicle seat that gives players greater boat control, namely over rear-facing propellers that function based on real physical forces. It sounds simple, but it’s actually the culmination of two complex physics engine developments.

The Water Is Running in ROBLOX

By Andrew Haak - June 5, 2012

Water has arrived in ROBLOX. What many see as an essential, but essentially mundane part of life, we see as a game-changer.

That’s because it’s more than just a texture. ROBLOX’s water comes with comprehensive physics simulation, meaning your ROBLOX character and the physical objects in your ROBLOX world behave as realistically in water as they do on land. You can wade on the surface and dive to the depths, create boats and motorized propellers, design rivers and falls with flowing rapids, and more. We’ve opened the floodgates to new genres of games and given game designers a new dynamic that begs experimentation.

A Deep Look at ROBLOX’s Buoyancy and Water Physics

By Kevin He - April 24, 2012

Boats. Waterfalls and geysers. Swimming and diving. Flowing rivers and deep pools. With version 1.0 of ROBLOX’s buoyancy and water physics, carefully crafted and researched by our Physics Team, these things are not only possible, but also realistic. We’re featuring ROBLOX Physics Engineers Kevin He and Tyler Mullen today, as they explain the latest iteration of buoyancy (see the original here) and its implementation in ROBLOX.

Tech Demo: Water, Buoyancy and Ropes

By David Baszucki - January 18, 2012

Hack Week coverage continues with a unified tech demo by Dan Ignatoff, Erik Cassel and Tim Loduha showing water, buoyancy and ropes working together.