s&box News

[p]A new update has been released, you can view the full changes on our blog post.[/p][p]https://sbox.game/news/update-26-03-25[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Here's some highlights from the blog.[/p][p][/p][h3]Public Roadmap[/h3][p][/p][p]We're getting closer to release, so we want to start being more open about what's coming next. We've put together a public roadmap - think of it less as a strict plan and more as a big wishlist of high-level features we're excited to work on.[/p][p]
It's not everything. It's not a promise. It's the stuff we're genuinely pumped about and want you to know is on our radar.[/p][p]
You can upvote items you care about and leave comments - so if something matters to you, let us know.[/p][p][/p][h3]Standalone[/h3][p]We signed the new license with Valve this week, allowing us to allow people to export games from s&box's editor and ship them as standalone games on Steam completely royalty free. This has been a bit of a complicated journey, but with a lot of reassurance and compromises, we've got there.[/p][p][/p][p]We still have work to do on our end. We need to create a license between Facepunch and the people shipping games, then double and triple check everything is legit, but I wanted to share this progress with the community so they know that Valve did the bizzo.[/p][p][/p][p]When it's ready we'll be piloting it with a few select people. The first out the door is likely to be My Summer Cottage.[/p][p][/p][h3]Faceposer[/h3][p][/p][p]We've added the first version of face posing to Sandbox Game this week, fully networked, and supports presets![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Summary[/h3][p]There aren't many weeks left until the doors open, so we're heads down making sure everything's ready.

There's always going to be things we could be doing better. At some point you just have to say "this is the release" and do it. So that's what we're doing.
[/p][p]Right now the focus is simple - rounding off as many sharp edges as possible from a player's perspective. How do we make that first experience as good as it can get? What games do we point new players to so they have a great time right away, and want to stick around and explore?[/p][p][/p][h3]Changelog[/h3][p]🎁 Added[/p]

• [p]Mounts can create prefabs with PrefabBuilder[/p]
• [p]Open the pause menu programmatically with `Game.Overlay.ShowPauseMenu()`[/p]
• [p]Cylinder hitbox support in ModelDoc[/p]
• [p]`Model.SaveToVmdl` and `Model.SaveToVmdlAsync` APIs for saving models to VMDL format[/p]
• [p]Select all support for vertex, edge, and face in the mesh editor[/p]
• [p]Lift vertex color under cursor in the vertex paint tool[/p]
• [p]Network diagnostic tools with `net_diag_record` and `net_diag_dump` console commands for detailed RPC and sync var stats[/p]
• [p]ConVars for maximum incoming and outgoing network messages per tick[/p]
• [p]Support for `font-variant-numeric` CSS style property with `tabular-nums`. Thank you @aidencurtis[/p]

[p]🧼 Improved[/p]

• [p]Smoothstep anti-aliasing for rounded border corners in the UI[/p]
• [p]Video player now uses a compute shader for YUV resolve instead of VS/PS[/p]
• [p]Updated zstd compression library from 1.4.6 to 1.5.7 for faster shader compilation[/p]
• [p]Morph crossfade control between animation-driven and override morphs[/p]
• [p]Mesh trace now supports RunAll for tracing all mesh components[/p]
• [p]Interop code generation optimizations[/p]
• [p]Reduced LINQ usage in hot paths to eliminate iterator allocations[/p]
• [p]`ClipScope` is now a ref struct to avoid megabytes of heap allocations per second[/p]
• [p]Eliminated array and list allocations in `TemporaryEffect.OnUpdate`[/p]
• [p]Asset Browser defaults to sorting by name and fixes context menu for mounted assets[/p]
• [p]Demo recording improvements: parent change recording, skeleton bone detection, ragdoll physics fix, and cloud asset references[/p]
• [p]Terrain tool UX: opacity slider is now disabled for base layers with an explanatory tooltip[/p]
• [p]Better menu avatar lighting with AGX tonemapper[/p]
• [p]ThumbLoader now waits for thumb render in the editor instead of returning a placeholder icon[/p]
• [p]Unix platform support: ARM64 interop fixes, DLL import resolver, Mac now uses KosmicKrisp instead of MoltenVK[/p]
• [p]`MODES` section in the compute shader template so new compute shaders work out of the box. Thank you @boxrocket6803[/p]
• [p]`STANDALONE` compile constant when exporting standalone games. Thank you @boxrocket6803[/p]

[p]🪛 Fixed[/p]

• [p]Envmap rendering everything in one frame, overwhelming descriptor pools and crashing[/p]
• [p]Multiple Vulkan validation errors on boot and game launch[/p]
• [p]`CommandList.DrawText` evicting textures in cached CommandLists[/p]
• [p]`Gizmo.Draw.Sprite` crash when used with a texture URL[/p]
• [p]Labels not redrawing when text is cleared[/p]
• [p]File path DragData URIs containing `#` being truncated[/p]
• [p]Networking: DeltaSnapshotCluster ID not being set from pool, incorrect KB/s in Network Graph, and sent cluster tracking[/p]
• [p]Duplicate/Group crash with prefab roots[/p]
• [p]System config enum deserialization[/p]
• [p]`FindDirectory` throwing exceptions for missing directories[/p]
• [p]Frame 0 bone-merged renderers stuck in bind pose for avatar hover icons[/p]
• [p]Multiple null reference exceptions in ThumbLoader, UI selector, and mount textures[/p]
• [p]Menu overlay being attempted in standalone mode[/p]
• [p]Network `CanRefreshObjects` validation for refresh messages[/p]
• [p]Addon libraries editor not being loaded. Thank you @PolEpie[/p]

[p]⚠️ Known Issues[/p]

• [p]Still seeing a small amount of crashes on latest Nvidia drivers[/p]

[p]There was a crash when using new NVIDIA GeForce 595.71+ drivers, we have released a hotfix for this.[/p]

[p]A new update has been released, you can view the full changes on our blog post.[/p][p]https://sbox.game/news/update-26-03-18[/p][p][/p][p]Here's some highlights from the blog.[/p][p][/p][h3]Movie Maker: Demo Recording[/h3][p]We've added a demo recording feature this week, fully integrated with Movie Maker. You can record objects and components in your scene to a MovieClip that can be played back in-game, or imported into Movie Maker for further editing. These movies could be edited into gameplay trailers or machinima, or used within games for killcams, leaderboard replays, or tutorial demonstrations.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Sausage Survivors 2[/h3][p]We released our first public version of Sausage Survivors 2 this week, give it a go! Community member Eridium did a great video covering it too below, including some developer interviews.[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]🎁 Added[/p]

• [p]In-game demo recording for Movie Maker — automatically record objects with renderer components in any game, play them back in-game or import into the Movie Maker editor[/p]
• [p]Mapping displacement tool for terrain sculpting, similar to Hammer[/p]
• [p]Paste and duplicate objects at cursor position in the editor, with an option to disable in editor preferences[/p]
• [p]Up/down arrow keys now nudge the value of float and integer controls when focused[/p]
• [p]Float control step buttons for fine-tuned value adjustment[/p]
• [p]Quad slice line preview when changing the number of cuts[/p]
• [p]Added `GameObject` reference to missing component log messages for easier debugging[/p]
• [p]Added `TypeHintAttribute` for Object/Value types with hinted types[/p]
• [p]Added `ControlWidget.OnLabelContextMenu` for extending right-click context menus on control widget labels[/p]

[p]🧼 Improved[/p]

• [p]Upgraded shader compiler (DXC) to HLSL 2021, enabling namespaces, improved syntax, and paving the way for Slang migration[/p]
• [p]Sprite batch bounds are now calculated in parallel for better performance[/p]
• [p]Fast Texturing Tool initializes the rectangle based on existing UVs instead of defaulting to full-size[/p]
• [p]Resize tool now works on all selection modes, not just the default[/p]
• [p]Clip tool improvements[/p]
• [p]Allocation overlay now shows additional stats and improvements[/p]
• [p]Undo dock UI improvements[/p]
• [p]Launcher UI tweaks — fixed text alignment, boosted button brightness, consistent window icons[/p]
• [p]Replaced VariantControlWidget switcher button with right-click label[/p]
• [p]Gibs now use BatchGroup when spawning for proper networking to non-local clients[/p]
• [p]`InterfaceConverterFactory` now respects `JsonConverterAttribute` on interface types[/p]
• [p]`GameTags.GetTokens` now returns all tags including ancestor tags[/p]
• [p]`GetTokens` now uses atomic pointer swap to avoid race conditions when iterating[/p]

[p]🪛 Fixed[/p]

• [p]Dresser component fully trusting user data, allowing players to equip cosmetics they didn't own[/p]
• [p]DDGI stale buffer crash caused by referencing deleted Vulkan buffers in render attributes[/p]
• [p]Bounds calculation for boneless meshes on `SkinnedModelRenderer`[/p]
• [p]Defensive checks for valid poses and bones to prevent animation system crashes[/p]
• [p]Cash on shutdown caused by `crashhandler64.dll` — now properly calls `SteamAPI_Shutdown()`[/p]
• [p]Race condition crash during Steam Audio HRTF initialization[/p]
• [p]Persistent data loading crash when files no longer exist on disk[/p]
• [p]ModelDoc close crash by removing all binding targets before shutdown[/p]
• [p]Terrain flickering caused by divergent GPU access on AMD GPUs[/p]
• [p]Vulkan validation error for `NonPixelShaderResource` pipeline stage flags in barriers[/p]
• [p]`SpriteRenderer` sorting improperly against other renderers like `TextRenderer`[/p]
• [p]Texture corruption caused by `CopyFrom` unregistering textures from the resource system[/p]
• [p]UI regressions — filter applying after transform causing cropped images, and rotation animation using distance-based lerp[/p]
• [p]Toolbar buttons in viewport sidebar disappearing after exiting Play Mode[/p]
• [p]`MemberCopyCache` hotload exception[/p]
• [p]Undo breaking when undo scopes made no changes — now properly cleans up with try/finally[/p]
• [p]Navmesh bounds not updating when loading scenes in succession[/p]
• [p]`OnDragStart` sometimes getting called twice, causing multiple drops[/p]
• [p]Incorrect offset when extracting faces from a scaled mesh[/p]
• [p]Bake scale recomputing UVs from coordinates instead of preserving existing UVs[/p]
• [p]Underwear appearing incorrectly when legs or chest are hidden by clothing, and removed underwear from clothing icon previews[/p]
• [p]Terrain texture memory leak on prefab save — terrain component now cleans up on destroy[/p]
• [p]Editor camera NRE when double-clicking a GameObject in the hierarchy during Play Mode[/p]
• [p]Protected command bypass in `ConsoleSystem.Run`[/p]
• [p]`CompilerService` attributes-based RCE exploit by blacklisting `UnsafeAccessorAttribute`, `SkipLocalsInit`, and `AsyncMethodBuilder`[/p]
• [p]Audio thread safety issues — audio resources are no longer destroyed by the main thread while in use by the mixing thread[/p]

[p]⚠️ Known Issues[/p]

• [p]Nvidia drivers 595.71 onwards crash, last knowing working version is 591.86[/p]

[p]A new update has been released, you can view the full changes on our blog post.[/p][p]https://sbox.game/news/update-26-03-11[/p][p][/p][p]Here's some highlights from the blog.[/p][p][/p][h3]Rendering Optimizations[/h3][p]We've made some rendering optimizations this week, Screen Space Reflections is using indirect dispatches now, the GPU is feeding it's own commands, if you have this component enabled in your scene and just have rough surfaces it should have functionally zero cost now.[/p][p][/p][p]In a fully reflected scene you can see good improvements as well, our benchmarks SSR is down about ~0.4ms on average, whereas depth of field is down about ~1ms.[/p][p][/p][h3]Ugc Improvements[/h3][p]As part of adding spawnlists to sandbox, we needed to add some more features to our Storage/Ugc system.[/p][p][/p][p]You can now query for authors, specific workshop packages, and reupload workshop items instead of only publishing new ones.[/p][p][/p][h3]Crashes[/h3][p]Last week we reported that our crash rates are down.[/p][p]That was fake news, we were tricked by our backend which wasn't recording the stats correctly. Turns out crashes are even slightly up, hovering around 4%, which is obviously too high.[/p][p][/p][p]We dropped a new batch of crash fixes this week that should bring that number down and will continue looking into it. Stability & Performance remain a primary focus while gearing up for the release. [/p][p][/p][p]You can hold us accountable and track our progress via [/p][p]https://sbox.game/metrics/stability[/p][p][/p][h3]Sandbox: Grid Snapping[/h3][p][/p][p]Read more on the blog![/p]

[p]Grab yourself these Community-made cosmetics! Aviator Helmet, Surgical Face Mask, Sports Bandage, Siren Hands, Cardboard King, Navy Raincoat with Cap, Gumball Machine, and The Loving Look.[/p][p][/p][p]Sale ends April 1st 2026, after which it'll only be available on the Community Marketplace. Sales proceeds go towards the cosmetic item's creators, the playfund and engine development.[/p][p][/p][p]Playfund data is public. Learn more about the playfund and track how much money we pay out to s&box cosmetics and game creators here: [/p][p]https://sbox.game/metrics/finance[/p][p][/p]