New Roblox Era: TTS, Makeup, and Server Authority

Beyond The Blox

15 October 2025

Adam Whitney

Adam and Anthony looking at examples of Roblox's new makeup with eye shadow, lipstick and 3D eyebrows.

This week on Beyond The Blox, Fedor, Anthony, and I explored a massive wave of updates that promise to change how we build immersive experiences on the platform. From giving a voice to your NPCs to fundamentally changing how physics and movement are handled on the server, there is a lot to cover.

We broke down the four biggest headlines: the full release of the Text-to-Speech API, the highly anticipated Server Authority Early Access, and two exciting new Studio Betas for Avatar Makeup and the Advanced Video API. Here is everything you need to know.

Text-to-Speech: A Voice for Every NPC

Roblox has officially moved the Text-to-Speech (TTS) API from beta to full release, unlocking a new level of storytelling potential for developers. This feature allows creators to generate dynamic audio from text strings in real-time, using one of Roblox's AI voice models.

During the episode, we discussed how this lowers the barrier to entry for adding voice lines to your games. Traditionally, if you wanted an announcer for a round-based game or dialogue for an NPC, you had to hire voice actors, record the lines, and upload audio files. Now, you can simply feed text into the API. This is incredible for rapid iteration—you can test dialogue lines instantly and tweak them without needing a re-recording session.

The full release brings significantly improved rate limits, now calculated based on concurrent users (1 + 6 * CCU per minute), and new observability dashboards. While the current selection of voices is limited to about ten variations of English (male, female, robotic), the potential for dynamic storytelling is huge.

We also touched on the combination of TTS with the Text Generation API. Imagine NPCs that not only generate their own dialogue responses but speak them aloud in real-time. It moves us one step closer to truly living, breathing worlds. While we are still waiting for more diverse international voices and custom voice creation, the ability to pitch-shift and add effects to these voices using the Audio API gives developers some room to get creative with the current roster.

Server Authority: The End of Exploiters?

Perhaps the most technical but impactful announcement is the arrival of Server Authority in Early Access. For years, Roblox has relied on a distributed physics model where the client (the player's device) handles its own movement and physics simulation. While this makes movement feel responsive, it also opens the door for exploits—like fly hacking or teleporting—because the server essentially "trusts" the client.

Server Authority flips this model. It gives the server final control over game logic and physics interactions. As Fedor explained on the show, this is a "resounding yes" for competitive integrity. In a shooter or a racing game, you need to know that what you see is what is actually happening for everyone.

However, this isn't magic. It requires developers to design their games with this architecture in mind. The challenge has always been latency—waiting for the server to confirm you moved forward would feel sluggish. Roblox is solving this with client-side prediction, where your local game predicts the movement instantly while the server validates it in the background. If there is a mismatch, the server corrects it (snaps you back), but ideally, the prediction is good enough that you never notice.

This is a massive step forward for competitive gaming and eSports on Roblox. It also paves the way for higher fidelity simulations, potentially offloading complex physics calculations from low-end mobile devices to Roblox's powerful servers.

Avatar Makeup: More Than Just Lipstick

Another surprise addition is the Avatar Makeup Beta. At first glance, this might seem like a niche feature for fashion games, but the underlying tech is fascinating. This system allows for the layering of textures (like lipstick, eyeshadow, and blush) and 3D meshes (like eyelashes and eyebrows) onto any avatar head that supports the new cage mesh standards.

The WrapTextureTransfer instance is the star here. It allows textures to "wrap" around 3D geometry seamlessly. While the demo focuses on makeup, we speculated about other uses—scars, freckles, face paint, or even "acne" as Fedor jokingly requested for realism.

Crucially, this system supports Physically Based Rendering (PBR). This means your makeup or face details can have roughness and normal maps, reacting to light realistically. You could have shiny lip gloss or matte face paint. The API also uses ComposeDecalAsync to flatten multiple layers of makeup into a single texture at runtime, ensuring it is highly performant even with complex looks.

This is not just for players who want to look glamorous; it is a powerful tool for character customization that allows for diverse, high-quality visuals without the performance cost of separate accessories for every detail.

Advanced Video API: Cinematic Control

Finally, we looked at the Advanced Video API Beta. Video on Roblox has existed for a while with VideoFrame, but this new API introduces VideoPlayer and VideoDisplay instances, designed to work hand-in-hand with the new Audio API and wiring system.

The headline feature here is synchronization. You can now play a video across multiple screens in your game, and they will stay perfectly in sync. Even better, the audio can be routed through AudioEmitter instances, allowing for true 3D spatial audio that comes from specific locations in the world, rather than just playing "flat" 2D sound.

Anthony and I discussed some great use cases for this, from synchronized bowling alley animations to fully functional in-game cinemas. You can also control playback speed, apply audio effects (like reverb or distortion) to the video's sound track, and manage memory by loading and unloading videos dynamically.

It is exciting to see video become a first-class citizen in the engine, giving creators the same level of control over visual media as they have over 3D objects and lighting.

Looking Ahead

These updates represent a significant maturation of the Roblox engine. We are moving away from simple, client-trusted scripts and basic assets toward robust, server-authoritative systems and high-fidelity, layered customization. Whether you are building the next big competitive shooter or a social hangout with immersive NPCs, these tools are opening up new possibilities.

Be sure to listen to the full episode of Beyond The Blox for our deep dive discussion on these topics, and let us know what you are most excited to build with these new features!

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