The roblox studio bloom effect is one of those tiny additions that makes a massive difference in how your project feels to a player. If you've ever hopped into a high-end showcase or a sleek cyberpunk city on the platform and wondered why the lights look so "creamy" or realistic, you're looking at bloom in action. It's essentially a post-processing trick that simulates how real-world cameras—and our own eyes—react to bright light by creating a soft glow around the edges of luminous objects.
Without it, neon parts just look like flat, bright blocks of color. With it, those same parts look like they're actually emitting light into the surrounding air. In this guide, we're going to break down how to use it, how to keep it from blinding your players, and a few tricks to make your game look like a triple-A title.
Getting Started: How to Actually Add Bloom
Adding the effect is actually a lot easier than most people think. You don't need to be a scripting wizard or have a degree in lighting design. Everything happens right inside your Explorer window.
To get started, just find the Lighting service in your Explorer tab. Once you've selected it, click the little plus (+) icon and search for "BloomEffect." As soon as you drop that into your Lighting folder, you might see a subtle shift in your scene, but it won't look like much yet because the default settings are pretty conservative.
The cool thing about putting it in the Lighting folder is that it applies to everything the player sees. It's a "global" post-processing effect. If you want to get really fancy, you can technically put it inside the Camera object via a script, which is handy if you want different bloom levels for different players or camera angles, but for 99% of games, putting it in Lighting is the way to go.
The Three Pillars of Bloom: Threshold, Intensity, and Size
Once you've got your BloomEffect object selected, look over at the Properties window. You'll see three main sliders that control everything. Mastering these is the secret sauce to making your game look professional rather than like a blurry mess.
Threshold
This is probably the most important setting, and honestly, the one most people get wrong. Threshold determines how bright an object has to be before it starts glowing. If you set it to 0, literally everything in your game will glow—the grass, the sky, your character's pants—everything. It makes the game look like a fever dream.
Ideally, you want to keep this high enough so that only the truly "bright" things (like Neon materials or the Sun) trigger the effect. If you're going for a realistic look, try keeping it between 2 and 4. This ensures that a white brick won't glow, but a Neon blue light bar definitely will.
Intensity
This is the "how much" factor. It controls the brightness of the glow itself. If you crank this up to 10, your neon parts will look like miniature suns, and the player won't be able to see any detail behind the light. A little goes a long way here. Most of the time, I find that staying around 1.0 or lower is the sweet spot for a clean, modern aesthetic.
Size
Size dictates how far the glow spreads out from the source. A small size makes lights look sharp and concentrated, while a large size creates a soft, foggy haze around them. If you're making a horror game with a flickering street lamp, a larger size can help create a sense of atmosphere and humidity in the air. For a clean sci-fi lab, you might want a smaller, tighter size.
Using Neon Materials to Your Advantage
The roblox studio bloom effect and Neon materials are basically best friends. In the old days of Roblox, Neon was just a bright color that didn't really do much. Nowadays, the interaction between a Neon part and a well-tuned BloomEffect is what creates that "glow" everyone wants.
If you want a specific part to really pop, don't just make it Neon—play with the Color property. A lighter color will trigger the bloom threshold more easily than a dark one. For example, a "Dark Blue" neon part might barely glow at all if your Threshold is set to 3, while an "Electric Blue" part will look like it's burning a hole through the screen.
Also, don't forget that you can layer parts. Putting a Neon part inside a semi-transparent Glass part is a classic builder trick. The bloom will still shine through the glass, but the glass adds a bit of physical depth that makes the light source look more like a real-world bulb or tube.
Setting the Vibe: Genre-Specific Bloom
Not every game should have the same lighting setup. You've got to match the bloom to the "vibe" of your experience.
If you're building a Cyberpunk or Sci-Fi city, you can afford to be a bit more aggressive with your bloom. You want those pink and teal signs to bleed into the dark rainy streets. In this case, I'd lower the Threshold slightly and bump the Intensity. It creates that "overwhelming" neon city feeling where the light is almost a character itself.
On the flip side, if you're working on a Naturalistic or Realistic simulator, you want the bloom to be nearly invisible. It should only show up when the player looks directly at the sun or at a very bright reflection on water. Here, keep the Threshold very high (maybe even 5 or higher) and the Size moderate. It should feel like a subtle "glare" rather than a "glow."
And for the Horror devs out there? Bloom is your best friend for creating tension. A flashlight beam with a bit of bloom feels much more claustrophobic and real than a flat light source. Just be careful not to overdo it, or you'll lose the "darkness" that makes horror work.
Avoiding the "Nuclear" Look
We've all seen those games. You spawn in, and your entire screen is just a blinding white flash because the dev turned the bloom up to 100. It's a common mistake when you're first playing with these settings.
The trick is to test your game in different environments. Your bloom might look amazing in a dark room, but as soon as your player walks outside into the sunlight, the whole world might turn into a white void. This happens because the sun itself is a light source that triggers bloom.
To fix this, always check your Atmosphere and Lighting.Brightness settings alongside your bloom. If the sun is making everything too glowy, don't just turn down the bloom—try adjusting the Lighting.ExposureCompensation or raising the bloom's Threshold. It's all about balance.
Performance Considerations
One of the best things about the roblox studio bloom effect is that it's incredibly lightweight. Unlike shadows or high-resolution textures, post-processing effects like bloom don't usually tank the frame rate, even on mobile devices.
However, that doesn't mean you should stack five different bloom effects (yes, you can technically add multiple). Stick to one well-configured bloom object. Roblox is pretty good at optimizing these things, but if you're targeting very low-end phones, keeping your "Size" parameter lower can sometimes help with rendering stability, as huge blurs require more GPU "smudging."
Wrapping Things Up
At the end of the day, the roblox studio bloom effect is a tool for storytelling. It tells the player that a magic sword is powerful, that a sun is hot, or that a futuristic city is buzzing with energy. It takes the "flatness" out of 3D models and gives them a sense of presence in the world.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Spend twenty minutes just sliding those bars back and forth while looking at a few Neon parts. You'll eventually hit that "Aha!" moment where the lighting just clicks and your game suddenly looks ten times better than it did when you started. Just remember: keep it subtle, keep it purposeful, and for the love of all things holy, don't blind your players!
Happy building, and I can't wait to see what kind of atmospheres you all create with these tools. It's honestly amazing how much a little bit of glow can do for the soul of a game.