Studio Interface

Toolbar

The toolbar resides at the top of Studio. The buttons and tools visible in the bar change when you click on the Home, Model, Avatar, Test, View, and Plugins tabs.

Studio's toolbar with the Home, Model, Avatar, Test, View, and Plugins tabs highlighted.

The Home tab contains basic tools for manipulating 3D objects and testing your experience.

The Model tab contains tools for manipulating 3D objects in the workspace, creating detailed models, working with physical constraints, and adding advanced objects.

The Avatar tab contains specialized tools for creating and fitting accessories, importing custom meshes, building default rigs, and creating animations.

The Test tab contains tools for testing an experience, simulating multiple clients, and emulating different devices.

The View tab lets you toggle the various windows of Studio, as well as several display features.

The Plugins tab contains tools for managing plugins, configuring localization, and creating animations. Any plugins you install can also add buttons to this tab.

3D Viewport

The 3D viewport represents the Workspace of a place. From here, you can move the camera around the virtual world, manipulate objects with the mouse, and playtest an experience without leaving Studio.

An example viewport display of a desert environment with multiple stone pillars. One of the pillars displays movement visual aids from the Move tool.
3D viewport in Roblox Studio

Camera Controls

Inside the viewport, you can move the camera with the following controls. See also Studio Shortcuts for additional key shortcuts.

Keys/ShortcutsAction
W A S DMoves the camera forward/left/back/right.
Q EMoves the camera down/up.
ShiftIn combination with any movement key, changes the camera speed. If desired, you can customize the camera speed within Studio's settings.
FFocuses the camera on a selected part.
Right Mouse ButtonWhen pressed, dragging the mouse moves the camera view around.
Mouse Scroll WheelZooms the camera in or out.
Middle Mouse ButtonWhen pressed, dragging the mouse pans the camera.
Right Mouse Button & Mouse Scroll WheelPressing the right mouse button and scrolling the mouse wheel up increases the camera scroll speed. Conversely, pressing the right mouse button and scrolling the mouse wheel down reduces the camera scroll speed.

Selecting Objects

As you hover over parts and models in the viewport, they are outlined to indicate their potential selection. You can select an outlined object by clicking it, or you can select multiple objects by holding Shift, Ctrl, or as you hover over and click them.

A warehouse environment with the stairs and multiple pallet box objects with a blue highlight to signify that they are selected in the 3D viewport.

Selection Cycling

In more complex environments or when zoomed in, objects will commonly be hidden from your view by other objects in front. To select hidden objects without moving the camera around, hold Alt or and click to perform selection cycling to the next further object behind the currently selected object.

Selection cycling

Children or Parents

When one or more objects or models are selected in the Explorer window, you can select all of their children by right-clicking and choosing Select Children from the context menu. Similarly, right-clicking and choosing Select Parent(s) selects the direct parents of those objects.

Selection Style

To display outlines and/or bounding boxes around selected objects, choose an option from the Selection Style menu in the View tab.

Studio's View tab with the Selection Style tool highlighted. A warehouse environment with rope object's selection outline and bounding box highlighted.

Commonly Used Windows

You can toggle on commonly used windows through the View tab, including the Explorer window, Properties window, Asset Manager, Toolbox, and many others.

Studio's toolbar and View tab with the tab highlighted.

Explorer

The Explorer window, visible by default, shows a hierarchical list of every object and service inside the place, collectively referred to as its data model. Frequently used services in the hierarchy include Workspace which mirrors the 3D viewport, as well as ReplicatedStorage and ServerStorage.

Studio's View tab with the Explorer button highlighted. A close up view of the Explorer window next to a portion of the 3D viewport.

Properties

The Properties window lets you adjust properties of a selected object to change how it looks and behaves. Object properties are divided into sections; for example, a MeshPart includes sections like Appearance which allows you to change its color, material, transparency, and more.

Studio's View tab with the Properties button highlighted. A close up view of the Properties window next to a portion of the 3D viewport.

At the bottom of the window, you can define custom attributes for an object, similar to its default properties. Attributes and their values are saved with your place/assets and they're an ideal way for team members to experiment with different values during runtime, even if they don't understand the underlying code.

A close up view of the Attributes section of the Properties window.

Asset Manager

The Asset Manager lets you manage places, images, meshes, packages, audio, and models in your experience. It also provides a mechanism to bulk import large groups of assets.

Studio's View tab with the Asset Manager button highlighted. The Asset Manager window.

Toolbox

The Toolbox contains a selection of models, images, meshes, audio, plugins, videos, and fonts made by Roblox or Roblox community members. It also includes all of the creations that you've personally distributed on the Creator Store or those which were distributed by groups you belong to.

Studio's View tab with the Toolbox button highlighted. The Toolbox window.

Output Window

The Output window, accessible from the View tab, displays errors captured from running scripts, messages from Roblox engine, messages from calls to print(), and errors from calls to warn(). See Output Window for further details.

Studio's View tab with the Output button highlighted.

Command Bar

The Command Bar, accessible from the View tab, lets you execute Luau code outside of scripts. Similar to a terminal, pressing or while using the command bar navigates up and down among previously-executed commands. Clicking the small arrow on the right side similarly reveals a list of previously-executed commands.

Studio's View tab with the Command Bar button highlighted.

Customizing the Layout

Studio's drag-and-drop interface lets you easily customize window layout to best suit your workflows.

Repositioning Windows

You can reposition any window by click-dragging its header bar. As you begin dragging the window, the interface reveals empty docking area regions. If you drag the mouse pointer into any empty region, a floating position selector appears in that region. Dragging the pointer over the "center" of the floating selector targets the empty region as the dragged window's destination, indicated by the region darkening and becoming outlined.

Mouse pointer hovering over the 'center' icon of the position selector in an empty docking area, showing that region as the dragged window's destination.
Mouse pointer hovering over the "center" icon of the position selector in an empty docking area

If you drag the mouse pointer into a populated region such as the 3D viewport, a floating position selector appears with multiple options for the window's destination. For example, dragging the pointer over the "left" icon will position the window on the region's left side.

Mouse pointer hovering over the 'left half' icon of the position selector in a populated region, showing the left side of the region as the dragged window's destination.

Grouping Windows

If you drag a window into a populated region and choose the "center" icon of the position selector, the dragged window will group into that region as a tab. This allows you to set up tab groups of commonly used windows.

An example of an Explorer window if you choose the center icon of the position selection. It includes three tabs at the bottom of the window: the Explorer window, the Properties window, and the Terrain Editor window.
Three windows grouped together as tabs

Pinning Windows

To maximize screen space for the 3D viewport, you can pin windows (or an entire group of windows) to the edges of the overall Studio window. Once pinned, you can temporarily open any window by clicking its tab — this does not disturb other windows, and the expanded window will automatically collapse when you click in another window or click its tab again.

An example 3D viewport where the Explorer, Properties, and Terrain Editor windows are pinned to the right of the Studio window.
Three windows pinned to the right side of the Studio window

To pin a window or an entire group of windows, click the "collapse" button. Alternatively, to un‑pin a pinned window/group, open it by clicking its tab, then click the "expand" button.

A close up view of the Explorer window with the Collapse button highlighted.

Floating Windows

To float a window freely of other windows, simply drag‑and‑drop it without selecting any icon from the floating position selector.

Saving & Publishing

Options to save and publish can be found in the File menu in the top left of Studio.

OptionAction
Save to FileSave the experience locally to your computer in .rbxl format.
Save to RobloxSave the experience to Roblox's cloud storage. Unlike Publish to Roblox, this does not update the current live version of the experience.
Publish to RobloxSave and publish the experience to Roblox so other users can play. For more information, see Publishing Experiences and Places.

In-Studio Testing

Studio offers a suite of options for testing an experience before releasing it to the public. All of the testing options are accessible from the Test tab.

  • Rapid playtesting that provides a close simulation of the experience running on the Roblox application.

    Studio's Test tab with the Playtest button and it Mode Picker button highlighted.
  • Multi-client simulation for comparing how each client "sees" other clients within the experience.

  • Device emulation that provides insight on how controls operate on a mobile device or how on-screen UI displays on different screens and aspect ratios.

  • Collaborative playtesting with members of your team group.

See Studio Testing Modes for more information on each testing option.