Workspace

The ground level (Y of 0) air density in RMU/stud³ units (see Roblox Units), used to calculate the aerodynamic force if Workspace.FluidForces is Experimental. The default corresponds to realistic sea level air density at standard temperature and pressure. Air density decays as the Y altitude increases, reaching 5% of of its ground level value at 100,000 studs. Below Y of 0, the air density is fixed at the input value.

This Workspace property determines whether assets created by other uses can be sold in the game.

What are third party sales?

When this value is false, as it is by default, only assets created by the place creator (be it a player or a group) and Roblox can be sold using MarketplaceService.

In most cases, games do not need to sell third party assets. However, some games such as trade hangouts require this feature and therefore it exists as an opt-in option.

What third party products can I sell?

Note, developer products can only be sold in the game they are associated with, regardless of what AllowThirdPartySales is set to. This property affects Game Passes and clothing.

Specifies the ClientAnimatorThrottlingMode to use for the local client.

When enabled, animations on remotely-simulated Model instances will begin to throttle. The throttler calculates throttling intensity using:

• Visibility of a Model in relation to the Camera
• In-game FPS
• Number of active animations

The Camera object being used by the local player.

How to use CurrentCamera

This property can be set. When it is set, all other Camera objects in the Workspace are destroyed, including the previous CurrentCamera. If this property is set to nil, or the CurrentCamera is otherwise destroyed, a new Camera will be created and assigned. Developers should avoid setting this property to nil or destroying the CurrentCamera however as it can have unintended consequences.

When looking for a client's Camera object, developers should use this property rather than looking for a child of Workspace named 'Camera'.

What can be done with CurrentCamera

Accessing a client's current Camera object brings a range of uses.

• Manipulating the viewport using the Camera functions
• Objects parented to the Camera will not replicate to the server, regardless of what Workspace.FilteringEnabled is set to. Prior to Workspace.FilteringEnabled, this was the main way to render BaseParts on one client only.

Below is an example of how this property can be used to access the Camera object and increase its Camera.FieldOfView.

workspace.CurrentCamera.FieldOfView = 100

The amount of time, in seconds, that the game has been running.

Despite the title, this value is currently not 'Distributed' across the client and the server. Instead, on the server it represents how long the server has been running. On the client, it represents how long the client has been connected to the server.

Developers should not rely on the above behavior, and it is possible this property will be synchronized across clients and the server in the future.

Those looking for the time since the program started running should use the 'time' function instead. See below for a comparison between DistributedGameTime and its alternatives.

print(workspace.DistributedGameTime)  --> Time the game started running
print(os.time())  --> Time since epoch (1 January 1970, 00:00:00) UTC
print(tick())  --> Time since epoch (1 January 1970, 00:00:00) system time
print(time())  --> Time the game started running
print(elapsedTime())  --> Time since Roblox started running

This property determines the height at which the Roblox engine automatically removes falling BaseParts and their ancestor Models from Workspace by parenting them to nil. This is to prevent parts that have fallen off the map from continuing to fall forever.

If a part removed due to this behavior is the last part in a Model, that model will also be removed. This applies to all model ancestors of the part.

This property is clamped between -50,000 and 50,000 because BaseParts do not simulate or render properly at a great distance from the origin due to floating point inaccuracies.

This property can be read by scripts, but can only be set by plugins, the command bar, or the properties window in Studio.

With this property enabled, the physics engine computes aerodynamic forces on BaseParts whose EnableFluidForces property is true. The default, Default, disables aerodynamic forces. Note that this property cannot be set through scripting and instead must be toggled in Studio.

This property specifies the direction and strength that wind blows through the experience, affecting terrain grass, dynamic clouds, and particles. See the Global Wind article for details.

Determines the acceleration due to gravity applied to falling BaseParts. This value is measured in studs per second squared and by default is set to 196.2 studs/second². By changing this value, developers can simulate the effects of lower or higher gravity in game.

local MOON_GRAVITY_RATIO = 1.62 / 9.81
local DEFAULT_GRAVITY = 196.2
local MOON_GRAVITY = DEFAULT_GRAVITY * MOON_GRAVITY_RATIO

-- Create a touch pad
local pad = Instance.new("Part")
pad.Size = Vector3.new(5, 1, 5)
pad.Position = Vector3.new(0, 0.5, 0)
pad.Anchored = true
pad.BrickColor = BrickColor.new("Bright green")
pad.Parent = workspace

-- Listen for pad touch
local enabled = false
local debounce = false

local function onPadTouched(_hit)
	if not debounce then
		debounce = true

		enabled = not enabled
		workspace.Gravity = enabled and MOON_GRAVITY or DEFAULT_GRAVITY

		pad.BrickColor = enabled and BrickColor.new("Bright red") or BrickColor.new("Bright green")

		task.wait(1)
		debounce = false
	end
end

pad.Touched:Connect(onPadTouched)

Sets whether character Heads and Accessories should be downloaded as MeshParts. The "Default" value is the same as "Enabled". If this feature is enabled, built-in avatars will use MeshParts for the character's Head and Accessories.

Sets how the solver will advance the physics simulation forward in time. This option is not scriptable and must be set from the PhysicsSteppingMethod property of Workspace within Studio. See Adaptive Timestepping for details.

Note that when assemblies of different simulation rates become connected via Constraints or collisions, the combined mechanism will default to the highest simulation rate for stability.

The StreamOutBehavior controls where content will be unloaded from the ReplicationFocus based on device Memory Conditions, or based on Streaming Radius.

See also:

• Workspace.StreamingEnabled which controls whether content streaming is enabled
• Workspace.StreamingMinRadius
• Workspace.StreamingTargetRadius
• Workspace.StreamingIntegrityMode

The StreamingEnabled property determines whether game content streaming is enabled for the place. This property is not scriptable and therefore must be set on the Workspace object in Studio.

See also:

• Workspace.StreamingMinRadius
• Workspace.StreamingTargetRadius
• Workspace.StreamingIntegrityMode

If Workspace.StreamingEnabled is activated, an experience may behave in unintended ways if a player's character moves into a region of the world that has not been streamed to their client. The Streaming Integrity feature offers a way to avoid those potentially problematic situations. Please see the StreamingIntegrityMode documentation and the Content Streaming article for more details.

The StreamingMinRadius property indicates the radius around the player's character or the current ReplicationFocus in which content will be streamed in at the highest priority. Defaults to 64 studs.

Care should be taken when increasing the default minimum radius since doing so will require more memory and more server bandwidth at the expense of other components.

See also:

• Workspace.StreamingEnabled which controls whether content streaming is enabled
• Workspace.StreamingTargetRadius
• Workspace.StreamingIntegrityMode

The StreamingTargetRadius property controls the maximum distance away from the player's character or the current ReplicationFocus in which content will be streamed in. Defaults to 1024 studs.

Note that the engine is allowed to retain previously loaded content beyond the target radius, memory permitting.

See also:

• Workspace.StreamingEnabled which controls whether content streaming is enabled
• Workspace.StreamingMinRadius
• Workspace.StreamingIntegrityMode

This property is a reference to the Terrain object parented to the Workspace.

This property, like Workspace.CurrentCamera, ensures that developers to not inadvertently index a descendant of Workspace named 'Terrain' when looking for a game's Terrain object. Without this property, developers would need to use the Instance:FindFirstChildOfClass() function.

workspace.Terrain.WaterColor = Color3.new(0, 1, 0) -- make the water green

This property determines whether parts in different groups set to not collide will ignore collisions and touch events. By default, the value of this property is set to false.

When this property is enabled, parts in different groups set to not collide will also ignore the CanTouch property, similar to how BasePart.CanCollide is ignored. For more information on the behavior of CanTouch, please visit its property page.

Returns the number of BaseParts that are deemed physically active, due to being recently under the influence of physics.

This function provides a measure of how many BaseParts are being influenced by, or recently under the influence of, physical forces.

print(workspace:GetNumAwakeParts()) -- prints the number of 'awake' parts

Sleeping vs Awake Parts

In order to ensure good performance, Roblox sets BaseParts in which physics are not being applied to a 'sleeping' state. BaseParts with BasePart.Anchored set to true, for example, will always be sleeping as physics does not apply to them. When a force is applied to an non anchored BasePart, an 'awake' state will be applied. Whilst a BasePart is awake the Roblox physics engine will perform continuous calculations to ensure physical forces interact correctly with the part. Once the BasePart is no longer subject to physical forces, it will revert to a 'sleeping' state.

Returns

Returns an integer, between 0 and 100, representing the percentage of real-time that physics simulation is currently being throttled to.

This function can be used to determine whether, and to what degree, physics throttling is occurring.

What is physics throttling?

Physics throttling occurs when the physics engine detects it cannot keep up with the game in realtime. When physics is being throttled, it will update less frequently causing BaseParts to appear to move slower.

Without throttling, the physics simulation would fall further behind out of sync with the game. This can lead to lower frame rates and other undesirable behavior.

Objects associated with Humanoids are exempt from physics throttling.

See also Workspace:SetPhysicsThrottleEnabled().

Demonstrating physics throttling

Developers should always avoid creating places that overload the physics engine, as it leads to sub-par experience for players. Those wishing to simulate physics throttling for research purposes however, need only create a lot of Parts very quickly.

local i = 0
while true do
	i = i + 1
	if i % 5 == 0 then
		wait()
	end
	local part = Instance.new("Part", workspace)
end

Returns

Returns the number of frames per second that physics is currently being simulated at.

Using GetRealPhysicsFPS to combat exploiters

A common use of this function is to detect if exploiters are increasing their local physics frame rate to move faster. This is generally done by comparing the result returned by a client's GetRealPhysicsFPS to a maximum that will not be breached in normal circumstances (usually 65 or 70). If this limit is breached, developers can use the Player:Kick() function to remove that Player from the game. It is important to remember that, although this practice may be effective sometimes, client-side anti-exploiter measures are never 100% reliable.

Returns

local Players = game:GetService("Players")

local player = Players.LocalPlayer

while task.wait(1) do
	if workspace:GetRealPhysicsFPS() > 65 then
		player:Kick()
	end
end

GetServerTimeNow returns the epoch time on the server with microsecond precision. The time is adjusted for drift and smoothed monotonically (it is guaranteed to be non-decreasing). The server clock progresses no faster than 1.006× speed and no slower than 0.994× speed.

This function is useful for creating synchronized experiences, as it has three properties necessary for doing so: it's a real-world time clock, it's monotonic, and it has decent precision.

This function relies on the server, so calling it from a client that isn't connected will throw an error.

See also:

• DistributedGameTime, a game-time clock
• os.time()
• DateTime

Returns

This function creates joints between the specified Parts and any touching parts depending on the parts' surfaces and the specified joint creation mode.

This function creates joints between the specified Parts and any planar touching surfaces, depending on the parts' surfaces and the specified joint creation mode.

• Glue, Studs, Inlets, Universal, Weld, and Smooth surfaces will all create Weld instances.
• Spheres will not surface-weld to anything. The rounded sides of cylinders will not surface-weld, but the flat end sides will.
• Hinge and Motor surfaces will still create Rotate and RotateP joint instances, regardless of part shape.

The first parameter is an array of BaseParts. Joints will only be created between the parts in the array and not in the array. Joints will not be created between the parts in the array.

The second parameter is a JointCreationMode that determines how joints will be created. Passing in either enum value, Enum.JointCreationMode.All or Enum.JointCreationMode.Surface, has the same behavior which equates to Join Always

This function is used by the Roblox Studio Move tool when the user finishes moving a selection. In conjunction with Plugin:GetJoinMode() and Workspace:UnjoinFromOutsiders() it can be used to retain join functionality when developing custom studio build tools. See the snippets below for an example.

-- finished moving a selection, make joints
local function finishedMovingParts(parts)
	local joinMode = Plugin:GetJoinMode()
	workspace:JoinToOutsiders(parts, joinMode)
end

-- started moving a selection, break joints
local function startMovingParts(parts)
	workspace:UnjoinFromOutsiders(parts)
end

Parameters

Returns

Returns true if the game has the PGS Physics solver enabled.

As Workspace.PGSPhysicsSolverEnabled cannot be accessed by scripts, the PGSIsEnabled function allows developers to tell which physics solver the game is using.

print(workspace:PGSIsEnabled()) -- true = PGS solver enabled
print(workspace:PGSIsEnabled()) -- false = Legacy solver enabled

Returns

Breaks all joints between the specified BaseParts and other BaseParts.

This function requires an array of BaseParts. Note, joints will not be broken between these BaseParts (each other), only between these BaseParts and other BaseParts not in the array.

This function is used by the Roblox Studio Move tool when the user starts moving a selection. In conjunction with Plugin:GetJoinMode() and Workspace:JoinToOutsiders() it can be used to retain join functionality when developing custom studio build tools. See the snippets below for an example.

-- finished moving a selection, make joints
local function finishedMovingParts(parts)
	local joinMode = Plugin:GetJoinMode()
	workspace:JoinToOutsiders(parts, joinMode)
end

-- started moving a selection, break joints
local function startMovingParts(parts)
	workspace:UnjoinFromOutsiders(parts)
end

Parameters

Returns

Positions and zooms the Workspace.CurrentCamera to show the extent of BaseParts currently in the Workspace.

This function was used in the, now removed, 'Zoom To Extents' button in Roblox Studio. It exhibits similar behavior to the 'Zoom To' (F shortcut) feature, however it shows the extents of the Workspace rather than the currently selected object.

This function cannot be used in scripts but will function in the command bar or plugins.

Returns

This event fires every time a player has been sent all current persistent models and part-less atomic models. The player parameter indicates which player has received all applicable instances.

Note that experience loading happens before persistent loading, and firing of the DataModel.Loaded event does not indicate that all persistent models are present.

Parameters