Online gaming platform Roblox has unveiled a new conversational AI assistant designed to assist creators in crafting experiences for the widely used platform. Revealed as part of the 2023 Roblox Developers Conference (RDC), the company announced various features including, “New mesh and texture APIs will give creators control over changing items inside an experience, a new avatar creation tool [that] supports importing standard gLTF, OBJ and FBX files.”
Amongst the many reveals was Roblox Connect, a new way for creators to communicate on the platform using their avatars in a shared experience. The new feature is set to launch later this year and according to Roblox, “Connect will enable people to call a friend from their Roblox friends list using their real name and facial expressions.
“A father and his grown son, who’s moved across the country, could be together on a dock by a lake and reminisce about their last fishing trip,” Roblox explained in a blog post. “The son could see the expression on his dad’s avatar and hear his real laugh as they joke with each other.”
Roblox expansion to more platforms
After granting developers access to create experiences for Roblox on Meta Quest and garnering more than a million downloads of the open beta, the company is now bringing its gaming platform to Meta Quest later this month.
Apart from upgrading the Roblox Xbox app with new features, the company has also announced that Playstation console owners will be able to access the full catalogue of Roblox experiences from October 2023, a significant step to bringing the platform to the most popular devices.
One of the company’s highlights during RDC was its novel Roblox Assistant which expands upon previous features that allowed creators to build virtual assets and write code using generative AI, making the process more user-friendly.
Roblox Assistant AI feature
This new assistant feature will let creators use text prompts to generate virtual environments. For example, a creator could type, ‘I want to make a game set in ancient ruins’ and Roblox would add stones, moss-covered columns, and broken architecture. Similarly, typing ‘Make the player spawn by a campfire in the ruins’ would add a campfire and a stool. And if a user types, ‘Add some trees for the player to chop down’, it would add trees nearby.
According to Roblox spokesperson Roman Skuratovskiy via The Verge, the platform will use assets from either its marketplace or the creator’s own library. As the company gradually integrates generative AI into its gaming platform, the Roblox Assistant can also help users with coding requests and answer questions on developing on the Roblox platform.
Roblox said, “Assistant will be available in Roblox Studio and Creator Hub later this year, and within experiences sometime next year to help creators learn, code and build more effectively.”
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
