Roblox Classic and R15 Migrator: The past to the future
Allowing developers to step into the future of Roblox characters whilst also keeping elements of the past
To reduce avatar fragmentation of the platform and to ensure a common codebase for Roblox characters, two new Roblox Studio plugins are currently being developed to allow developers who still use R6, the original body type consisting of 6 parts to port their experiences over to the more modern R15, a much newer and much more capable body type and the base of most avatars on the Roblox platform today. These two new plugins are the R15 Migrator which serves to convert R6 avatars into R15 avatars and Roblox Classic, which emulates R6 avatars with R15 avatars.
R15 Migrator
The R15 Migrator is a plugin intended to be a one-stop-shop for developers to port character models, animations and scripts which currently use and reference the R6 character model system to R15. Screenshots of this plugin were first published on Twitter by LukePlayzzRBLX, highlighting the capabilities of the plugin.
When the R15 Migrator plugin is first loaded, the developer is prompted to start a scan of the place to detect R6 character models as well as animations and scripts which contain references to the R6 character model, which differs significantly both in naming and functionality to R15. This process may also involve attempts at automatic conversion of animations.
Once these processes are complete, the developer is presented with the character conversion menu, which will display a list of characters which have been converted, as well as characters which the converter was unable to find replacement R15 parts. In such cases the converter will replace the part with the equivalent R15 default.
The Animations pane will allow developers to preview animations before and after conversion. It will also point out animations which have not yet or cannot be converted. As it is currently unreleased, it is not yet fully functional.
The final tab is the Scripts tab, which acts as find and replace functionality for references in code to avatar parts used in R6 to be replaced by a reference to an R15 body part in all of the scripts in the place. Like the Animations pane, it is currently non-functional at this time.
Roblox Classic
Roblox Classic will allow experiences currently forcing R6 avatars on their players to embrace the forwards-compatibility of R15 by allowing features such as dynamic heads and layered clothing whilst still retaining the aesthetic of the R6 character model known and loved by many today by inserting a set of scripts into the experience.
Upon opening the Roblox Classic plugin, developers are greeted with a slider (obviously highlighting that this is still unreleased. Translation strings suggest that there will be more components added in the future). Upon clicking said slider, the aforementioned set of scripts is inserted into StarterCharacterScripts. This includes a variant of the R15 Animate script animating the character as if it were an R6 character, a script scaling all characters to a similar scale as R6 characters currently are today and a script setting up an invisible “R6 replica” of the player’s character preserving bugs and features with the physics behaviour of R6 which are used heavily in certain niche communities, such as the obby community.
Here is a demonstration of Roblox Classic:
As observed in the video, the set of scripts provided for Roblox Classic significantly modifies the default behaviour of the R15 character, to the point of changing the emotes that are controlled through the chat to be similar to that of R6, whilst also enabling the capabilities of R15 characters such as dynamic heads and emotes controlled through the emotes menu. Whilst the video suggests that there will also be script and animation compatibility with Roblox Classic, this is unlikely to be the case universally.
There’s Still More that We Don’t Know
All these features are currently unreleased and may be modified or removed without notice. Attempt to enable these features at your own risk. Explorers of the Metaverse is not liable for any damages or injuries which may result as of these features.
It is clear that Roblox still have some tricks up their sleeve. As to what these tricks are, it will take time for them to be revealed.
UPDATE 29th Aug 2023: Roblox Classic as discussed in this article is currently available as a Studio Beta Feature under the name R6 to R15 Adapter
Roblox in the past theorized about removing/sunsetting R6 entirely as per leaks of corporate documents/information. Was supposed to happen in 2022 if I remember correctly, so maybe it was delayed until now, and this is just the first step in doing so. Would be interesting if that is what happens in the coming weeks and months.