Beyond the Dark

Note

The following project notes were written and published at the release of the Beyond The Dark showcase. Processes and features may have changed since the time this was written. Refer to the appropriate feature documentation for up-to-date information on any features and workflows.

Beyond the Dark is an official Roblox game used to showcase Studio's various features and tools to create a high-fidelity environment. Explore the Kerr-Newman DSR-14 space station in this official demo, non-copylocked and editable in Studio.

This document goes over how we put the most important parts of the Kerr-Newman DSR-14 space station together, providing best practices along the way as well as describing the systems used to create the sights and sounds of the station.

You can follow the articles sequentially or jump between the following sections:

Building architecture explains how to build content in a modular way. This allows you to go from early layouts to a polished game in the fastest way possible.
Custom characters explains how we built the creepy creatures in the station and best practices for building your skinned custom avatars to import into Studio. It also covers some tips for adding visual effects, sound effects, and lights to the character.
Layered clothing shows how we used this new system to leverage the new cage deformer feature to fit suits to these characters.
Sound design details how we set up Roblox's SoundService and place sounds for maximum immersion.
User interface describes how to add a literal layer to the game and digs into how we built the parallax effect on the map as well as the local holo-screens.