Roblox Visual Test

I'm working on my first educational YouTube video.

Strong visual elements explain new topics like nothing else. Thankfully, we are in the booming age of visual quality, surrounded by the likes of Grant Sanderson's introduction to the Fourier Transform and Freya Holmér's breakdown of Bezier curves and beyond. Open source libraries, like the community edition of Manim and Blender, are making it easier than ever for anyone to explain anything.

For my first video I started learning Blender. I realized a good chunk of my time is spent fiddling with the scene and re-rendering after changes. What if I could cut out those less-than-enjoyable parts?

Enter Roblox, the funky, sometimes-blocky, 3D platform. In 2008 the platform dangled the idea of free game creation to 10-year-old me, and I was hooked. I had no idea it would push me later to work in software. While I have looked back at Roblox in the years since, I did not realize how far its graphic quality has come. There are HD textures, particle effects, water simulations. I wondered if I could use Roblox to create visual explanations.

Roblox has a robust marketplace of free objects, scripts, and plugins. One plugin is Moon Animator 2, and after watching a tutorial video on the basics, I set out today to do a quick screen test. I recorded the game with OBS by following this tutorial.

Here it is:

I especially like the last part of the test. A dark screen makes easy transitions between explanations with chroma keying.

To expand on this idea: Roblox uses Lua for scripting. Objects can be spawned, resized, rotated, and more, while other parts can be animated and moved with Moon Animator. We can trade the time it takes for depth and quality in Blender for making flexible, interesting scenes in Roblox.