Cookbook

Author

The entire cookbook was written by Camoy.

Preface

The RBX framework for Lua provides an API for creating 3D games for the ROBLOX game. The API has a vast variety of functionality such as functions for moving in game players to properties controlling custom in game GUIs. The API is easy to use and is quite powerful. This book will cover the basics of the framework and what you will need in order to start programming your own ROBLOX games.

Getting started is easy, just head on over to the download page in order to download the ROBLOX IDE (called Roblox Studio), and the browsing client.

This book assumes a prerequisite knowledge of Lua, however if you do not know Lua at all, don’t turn this book away yet. There are many good resources in learning Lua (one especially helpful resource is here). Even if you have no prior knowledge to Lua, in the early chapters, simple Lua syntax will be explained.

The documentation for the ROBLOX framework can be found at here, at the wiki. Under the “Building and Scripting” category, you will find a link to the “Scripting Reference” and the “Class Reference”. The “Scripting Reference” page is an index of the many scripting articles already written on the wiki site. You may find it useful to check out some of these articles as well. Under the “Class Reference” section, you will find all the ROBLOX objects and will be able to interactively explore their properties, methods, events, and general information. The ROBLOX IDE also has an “Object Browser” (found under Help --> Object Browser), however this is not as comprehensive as the wiki documentation.

In general, this book will provide solutions and examples of many types of problems you may need to solve when building a ROBLOX game. The difficulty level progresses as the book progresses. It is suggested that you read the book cover to back, however if there a certain solution that you need, feel free to jump to it.

Table of Contents

1. Basics
   1. Part Instantiation
   2. Color and Transparency
   3. Applying the Touched Event
   4. Killing Players
   5. Removing Limbs
   6. Handling Non-Existent Objects
   7. Creating a Kill Brick
   8. Removing Multiple Limbs
   9. Removing All Character Parts
   10. Killing All Players
   11. Killing Random Players on Interval
   12. Using an Exception Table
   13. Killing Spawning Characters
   14. Creating a Message
   15. Debounce
   16. Creating a Clickable Part
   17. Touch Activated Explosion
   18. Dance Floor
   19. Creating a Healing Part
   20. Creating a Restricted Access Door
   21. Creating an Invisibility Part
2. Positioning
   1. Positioning Types
   2. Simple Part Positioning
   3. Overlapping Positioning
   4. Simple CFrame Positioning
   5. Rotating Toward Another Position
   6. Rotating in Radians
   7. Rotating in Degrees
   8. Relative Positioning
   9. Getting Relative Position
   10. Using the Rotational Matrix
   11. Using Lerp
   12. Simple GUI Positioning
   13. Centering GUI
3. GUI
   1. Introduction
   2. Text Label Instantiation
   3. Text Style
   4. Frame Styling
   5. Image Instantiation
   6. Creating a Button
   7. Creating a Fading GUI
   8. Text Box Input
   9. Using Adornment GUI
   10. Creating a Resize GUI
   11. Creating Custom 3D GUI
4. Beyond the Basics
   1. Using BrickColor
   2. Using Color3
   3. Using Base Classes
   4. Using Enumerations
   5. Event Members
   6. Disconnecting a Connection
   7. Using LocalScripts
   8. Creating a Regeneration Button
   9. Creating a Template
   10. Creating a Leaderboard
   11. Creating a Point Earning Button
   12. Applying the Chatted Event
   13. Applying the Changed Event
   14. Applying the ChildAdded/Removing Event
   15. Descendants
   16. Creating a Marquee
   17. Using a SpecialMesh
   18. Using a VehicleSeat
   19. Using Fire
5. Tools and HopperBins
   1. Introduction
   2. Creating a Reset
   3. Kill Tool
   4. Key Controls
   5. Creating a Sword
   6. Creating a Kick Tool
   7. StarterGear
6. Service Level
   1. Introduction
   2. Using GetService
   3. Getting Server Time
   4. Using Lighting
   5. Awarding Badges
   6. Creator Badge
   7. Inserting Assets
   8. Retrieving IPs
   9. Setting Maximum Players
   10. Using Debris
7. Moving
   1. Introduction
   2. Moving to a Position
   3. Moving in a Direction
   4. Rotating in a Direction
   5. Using BodyGyro
   6. Using Dampening
   7. Using Power
   8. Using BodyForce
   9. Using BodyThrust
   10. Simple Welding
   11. Weld Offset
   12. Simple Motors
   13. Motor Speed
   14. Joints
8. Miscellaneous
   1. Local Parts
   2. Using CameraSubject
   3. Reflection Metadata
   4. Testing Chatted Event

Let's get started!