Roblox expands UIShadow capabilities in Studio beta
Roblox’s UIShadow Studio beta adds text, inset, knockout and gradient shadows. Test interface components locally; these capabilities cannot yet be published to live experiences.
Roblox announced expanded UIShadow capabilities for interface developers in its October 14, 2026 announcement. The Studio beta adds text, inset, knockout and gradient shadows. Roblox says these capabilities cannot be published to live experiences during the beta; in-game use must wait for their release to the client.
What changes for interface work
According to Roblox, setting Mode to Text makes shadows follow character outlines in TextLabel, TextButton and TextBox elements. Developers can combine text and shape shadows on a parent or stack text shadows. Inset draws shadows inside and over the parent. Setting ShowBehindParent to false masks the shadow beneath the parent’s shape, avoiding that overlap on transparent elements. A child UIGradient applies a gradient over the shadow’s base Color.
These controls have important limits. Spread, Inset and ShowBehindParent do nothing in text mode. ShowBehindParent also has no effect with Inset enabled. Roblox reports that rich-text shadows currently ignore UIShadow.Color and UIShadow.Transparency, with a fix being worked on. Its performance recommendation is to keep the number of visible UIShadows at 100 or fewer, not a stated hard limit.
Test a component before committing
To enable the beta, open File, choose Beta Features, select Upgraded UIShadows and restart Studio when prompted. Roblox says the additions then work through Explorer and Properties, styling, and scripts.
Our recommendation is to duplicate an existing interface component this week and compare its current workaround with the relevant shadow mode. We'd start by checking a transparent panel, a pressed button state and rich text against their intended appearance. Count visible shadows in a crowded screen before expanding the experiment. Keep production UI unchanged while the new capabilities remain Studio-only.