Classic clothing

Classic clothing (also known as 2D clothing, and formerly known as simply "clothing") is a subgroup of clothing, a form of avatar customization on Roblox and primarily a type of user-generated content. It includes classic shirts, classic pants, and classic T-shirts (formerly "shirts", "pants", and "T-shirts" respectively). Classic clothing covers the torso and limb body parts of a player in certain areas. Players on Roblox can sell classic clothing in the marketplace to make Robux. Classic clothing was formerly known as simply "clothing" prior to the addition of layered clothing (3D clothing).

Classic clothing is always rendered below layered clothing. Classic shirts and classic pants map around the torso and limbs; classic shirts on the torso and arms, and classic pants on the torso and legs. Classic T-shirts render on the front of the torso in front of any classic shirts or classic pants. Classic pants are rendered last and under all other classic clothing types.

Currently, all players can upload and sell all types of classic clothing. However, it costs 10 Robux to upload a classic shirt or classic pants, and 10 Robux to place a classic T-shirt on-sale.^[1] The minimum selling price is 2 Robux for a classic T-shirt, and 5 Robux for classic shirts and pants.

Developers on Roblox that focus on creating, providing, and selling classic clothing are known as classic clothing designers or 2D clothing designers. Creating classic clothing is sometimes also referred to as "designing", with particularly originally-drawn classic clothing being called "designs". The creation of classic clothing is viewed as an art-related development form for Roblox, or a graphic design medium, depending on the style of classic clothing design. A "Clothing Designer" title and flair exists on the Developer Forum.

History[]

T-shirts (now "classic T-shirts") were originally available for most of Roblox's history, though only opened to player uploading in March 2007. They were originally referred to as "shirts" until shirts and pants (now "classic shirts" and "classic pants") were announced, in which they were renamed T-shirts. On April 23, 2008, Shedletsky uploaded the official announcement for shirts and pants to his YouTube channel, titled: Shirts... And Pants. Pants Pants Pants Pants, with its music composed by Stealth Pilot.^[2] Uploading shirts and pants at this time, along with keeping them on-sale, required Builders Club (now Roblox Premium). The new shirts and pants feature was further detailed in Shedletsky's "Roblox Brings You..." blog post. This blog post mentions that T-shirts rendering on top of shirts didn't "make sense" and "will probably change in a future release," however, this functionality has never been changed.^[3]

Originally, the minimum price for types of classic clothing were 1 Robux or 1 Ticket. On September 24, 2013, Roblox introduced the price floor update, which changed the minimum prices to 10 Robux or 120 Tickets for T-shirts, and 25 Robux or 300 Tickets for shirts and pants.^[4] While the change met some of Roblox's intended goals, the community brought up multiple concerns, which were addressed two days later.^[5] Nine days later from the original change, this was lowered to 2 Robux or 20 Tickets for T-shirts, and 10 Robux or 100 Tickets for shirts and pants.^[6] After Tickets were removed, the price minimums were lowered to 5 Robux for classic shirts and pants on March 15, 2016, with the minimums for classic T-shirts remaining at 2 Robux, where the minimum remains currently.^[7]

When T-shirts could be priced at 10 tickets, users would sometimes exploit that new accounts on Roblox would start with 10 tickets, and repeatedly create new accounts and buy the T-shirt to earn money. This no longer worked after Tickets were removed.

For an unknown amount of time, users could sell classic clothing for free, but this was changed on an unknown date. Some items set to free remained free, even after the update, for unknown reasons. However, classic shirts and pants that were set to free were updated presumably by Roblox staff at an unknown time to no longer be free. Classic T-shirts affected by this are still available for free.

On December 9, 2020, Roblox announced that uploading requirements for [classic] shirts & pants were changing. Uploading and selling would no longer require Roblox Premium, but uploading would cost a fee (and for T-shirts, a fee when first placing the T-shirt onsale). The purpose of this change was to discourage "item upload abuse", presumably relating to Avatar Shop and Library spamming or lesser forms of classic clothing theft.^[8] The change was partially rolled out starting January 20, 2021 and completely rolled out by March 25, 2021. This fee was originally 50 Robux, but later lowered to 10 Robux, where it currently remains.

Around March 2022, this subgroup of 2D clothing was officially renamed to "classic clothing"; the term "clothing" on its own as used by Roblox now refers to both classic clothing and layered clothing.

Creating classic clothing[]

Classic clothing is created with varying programs and in many forms and styles. Roblox has highlighted paint.NET and GIMP as two free programs for creating classic clothing, but any graphic design or art software or application (including on phones and tablets) that supports saving .png files with transparency (alpha) is adequate.

Classic shirts and pants are sometimes created in the intent to be used together as a cohesive outfit. Pants cover the torso and legs, and are sometimes used to create outfits that do not apply to the arms of the avatar. However, some outfits provide optional sleeves or add-ons to wear with these "pants-only outfits". Classic T-shirts have been used to provide add-ons on top of classic shirts & pants such as necklaces, bows, and hair extensions.

After the addition of classic shirts and pants in April 2008, classic T-shirts fell out of popularity of usage, and began to see alternative uses. Prior to February 2011, T-shirts would commonly be advertised to link to groups since groups could not be advertised directly at the time. Before the passes and developer products features, developers would use T-shirts as an alternative to selling in-game benefits. They are still sometimes used for donations, and occasionally as payment for development or commissions (though Roblox discourages this, and instead encourages the use of the group payouts feature).

Tutorials[]

Roblox's official tutorial and help page for creating all types of classic clothing may be found at https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/articles/How-to-Make-Shirts-and-Pants-for-Roblox-Characters.

Templates[]

On official tutorial pages and the upload pages for classic shirts and pants, Roblox provides the compatible UV template, marked with sections for locations on the player model and markings for R15 limb merge and cutoff. The layout must be used along with the original resolution of 585x559 in .png format when uploading to properly support shirts and pants. There are separate provided templates for classic shirts and pants, but they are not different other than the application area examples.

Due to how the template is UV mapped, a small amount of the area outside the specified regions bleeds into the edges of the limbs in certain locations on some body types; designers can minimize this by having a "buffer zone" of around 2 pixels optimally around the whole design, or optimally extend some edges of the design into the 2px range to nullify the issue.

The area outside of the UV regions can be edited to any extent (as long as the content does not violate Roblox rules) without affecting the shirt or pants; some designers choose to use this as a personal watermark for their shirts and pants, or an area to list usage rules for those looking at the asset's texture.

Legacy templates

Testing[]

Classic clothing can be tested without paying an upload fee by uploading the template as a Decal and viewing it on an avatar in Roblox Studio. An official tutorial on testing classic clothing before uploading is detailed on the classic shirts and pants tutorial page on the Roblox Developer Hub.

Community[]

A sub-community of Roblox exists for classic clothing designers and fans of certain classic clothing designers. Many partnerships exist between designers and groups to support other classic clothing designers with the limited featuring Roblox gives to classic clothing designers themselves.

While many classic clothing designers still upload under their own profile, it is also popular to create a solo group to upload items under as to present as a brand of clothing and gather a community around a certain user's creations.

Clothing companies[]

Certain groups operate as a "clothing company" that employs and pays designers to create classic clothing for the group. The manner as to how the classic clothing is managed within the group varies per clothing company.

Some clothing companies "hire" designers by the means of simply highlighting their work and not uploading under the group (and therefore not paying them), though this is less common.

Commissions and asset selling[]

Many classic clothing designers offer art commissions, allowing users to commission the artist to create custom assets for their use. These can vary in purpose, from assets for use in development of experiences to creating virtual merchandise.

Between classic clothing designers, some users create and sell assets (or rights to use certain assets) to use within their own designs, such as shoes or hair extensions templates.

Clothing stores[]

Some classic clothing designers create clothing stores, a type of experience presented as an interactive catalog for players to browse their clothing around a virtual store environment. Sometimes this covers a designer's overall catalog, a certain collection or theme of clothing, or is a grouped place to feature multiple other clothing designers, possibly also to a theme.

Subsequently, a common market for building and programming commissions fall to commissioning clothing stores for a designer to feature their items in.

Some larger places work to feature individual clothing store places to support designers, the most notable experience doing so currently being Royale High.

Featuring by Roblox[]

There have been multiple instances of individual classic clothing designers being featured by Roblox.

2016 catalog feature[]

In April 2016, users GPR3, missmudmaam, and TheBestKing were contracted by Roblox to create classic clothing for Roblox to distribute for free as to highlight their items. They later released these items;

• Blue Plaid Shirt and Ripped Skater Pants, "created" by GPR3
• Pastel Starburst Top with Gray Jacket and Beautiful You Jeans, created by missmudmaam
• Denim Jacket with White Hoodie and Black Jeans with White Shoes, created by TheBestKing

GPR3 was later found to have stolen their submitted items, though the descriptions were never updated.

For unknown reasons, despite that Roblox seemed to have wanted to continue this program, a featuring program never continued after this first wave of releases.

Articles and real-life awards[]

Adweek's article, "Digital Designers Can Unlock Your Brand's Potential in the Virtual World", featured interviews with classic clothing designers cSapphire and missmudmaam about their classic clothing designing and clothing stores on Roblox.^[9]

Refinery29's article, "Inside The World Of Metaverse Fashion: How Gamers Are Earning $$$ Selling Virtual Clothing", featured interviews with designers cSapphire and DopeSir about their history and self-branding as creators of classic clothing on Roblox.^[10]

In 2021, the British Fashion Council announced a new category in The Fashion Awards, "Fashion Award for Metaverse Design". Five Roblox UGC creators were nominated, some of which were classic clothing designers including cSapphire and Sparklings. The winner of the Fashion Award for Metaverse Design category in 2021 was cSapphire, and granted her the exclusive The Fashion Awards 2021 Trophy item. The Fashion Awards coincided with an event on Roblox, The Fashion Awards 2021, an interactive experience for the award show including avatar shop items and a partnership with Gucci.^[11]

Event partnerships and commissions[]

Roblox or the development teams behind events for Roblox have commissioned certain classic clothing designers to make official items for the events.

• The classic shirts and pants from the Ready Player Two, 8th Annual Bloxy Awards, and Metaverse Champions events were created by rastamypasta.
• The classic shirts and pants uploaded by the official Gucci Roblox account were commissioned from cSapphire.
• Sleepy Pajama Top - Zara Larsson and Sleepy Pajama Pants - Zara Larsson for the Zara Larsson Dance Party event were created by MOUVENCHY.
• The classic shirts and pants in the Lil Nas X Industry Baby collaboration, Twenty One Pilots Concert Experience, and the Flux Listening Party were created by EvilArtist.

Discover page featuring[]

For a short time during March 2019, a "Clothing Store" sort category was shown on the Discover page to logged-out users. This was later removed and never observed to be reused since.

Multiple classic clothing stores were in the "Free Private Servers" sort for a time after its release; however, they appear to have been removed.

A classic clothing store, Antilique's Vet Clinic, was on the Featured sort of the Discover page during the week of April 22, 2019 to April 29, 2019.^[12]

Featuring by user-created experiences[]

Due to the large issue with classic clothing theft and avatar shop flooding, some developers of experiences have taken to offering opportunities to feature classic clothing designers and have their assets sold in their place. Some notable games working with classic clothing designers are Royale High, Welcome to Bloxburg, and Roblox High School 2.

Award shows[]

Bloxy Awards[]

The Bloxy Awards in previous years had some nomination categories relating to classic clothing designing:

• The 2015 BLOXY Awards, 4th Annual Bloxy Awards had a "Favorite Clothing Company" category.
• The 5th Annual Bloxy Awards had a "Best Clothing Company" category.

A category specifically relating to classic clothing designing has not been in a Bloxy Awards event since. This is possibly due to that some of the groups nominated were actually not original creators, or that the category completely excluded solo designers that did not work for or own a group that clothing was uploaded in.

User-ran awards events[]

Some classic clothing designers or clothing groups managed user-ran events giving "awards" (in the form of titles and promotion) to certain designers or clothing groups, often separated by category. These events would also sometimes be held in an award ceremony place, and occasionally streamed. They were often intended to highlight the community within the community, particularly with the focus on highlighting unknown or "underrated" designers. These were most popular around 2014 to 2016, and have dropped out of popularity in recent years.

Incidents and issues[]

Clothing theft and avatar shop spamming[]

Clothing theft (often misnomered as "clothing copying") is a common problem with the marketplace and classic clothing uploading on Roblox. Viewing the classic clothing sections of the avatar shop results in finding numerous stolen items uploaded by various accounts and groups, along with massive amounts of spammed assets. Many users find it impossible to use the avatar shop to find classic clothing relevant to what they are looking for. These are usually botted onto the catalog, though some users directly steal and re-upload classic clothing manually, including editing it.

Spammed asset names often include one or two keywords, e.g. "BLUE JACKET BLUE JACKET BLUE JACKET," or are a flood of keywords, such as "y2k cute kawaii gyaru preppy vamp aesthetic". These are predominantly used by those using bots to mass upload stolen classic clothing, which contain these keyword spam options, and are typically a sign of the item being stolen.

The act of editing classic clothing to then reupload it is rather common, often for personal changes or modifications. There are some varieties of unlawfully modifying classic clothing; simple recoloring is common. Another previously popular variant was "re-designing," also known as "mashup designing" where multiple parts of different designs made by classic clothing designers are edited together and presented as a new design. Editing designs made by others is overall frowned upon by classic clothing designers, and against Roblox's rules by default due to still falling under copyright infringement.

Despite that clothing theft often falls under the infringement of copyrighted property (of the original designer) and therefore against Roblox's rules, Roblox has not taken any major actions against it. A major factor to the lack of action is the lack of ability to make action, as Roblox's asset system in its current form prohibits any way to directly prevent users from simply not downloading assets to reupload.^[13] Any actions have to include moderation to combat the issue, along with the fact that a large part of the avatar shop already has stolen classic clothing uploaded.

Roblox has occasionally mentioned working on clothing theft and avatar shop spamming at multiple Roblox Developer Conferences.

The addition of the classic clothing fees in January to March 2021 were intended to discourage "item upload abuse", though in practice this only limits newer classic clothing bots and discourages single users from stealing and reuploading classic clothing for their own use.

Incidents of Roblox featuring clothing theft[]

There have been some incidents of Roblox presumably unintentionally featuring or highlighting classic clothing thieves or clothing theft.

In Roblox's clothing designer featuring offer in April 2016, they contracted GPR3, who did not create original classic clothing. For instance, the Blue Plaid Shirt was originally created by Tophthetomboy, but then taken by GPR3, who then gave it to Roblox to upload as a free item.

Multiple of the Bloxy Awards events that included a category relating to clothing nominated groups with stolen classic clothing. In some cases, these groups were removed from the nomination form and not considered in final results, but others stayed on the form and remained as a possible contender.

Incidents of brand collaborations featuring clothing theft[]

There have additionally been some incidents with Roblox brand collaborations (which may or may not have been overseen by Roblox) featuring or highlighting clothing thieves, or partaking in clothing theft.

The clothing items as part of clothing brand Gucci's first release on Roblox, "Gucci Gift", used stolen shading templates from designers at the clothing group Kestrel. After classic clothing designers on Twitter brought this to Roblox's attention, the items were no longer sold, and cSapphire was instead hired to create the classic clothing for the collaboration.^[14]

The clothing items created by Wonder Works Studio as part of clothing brand Forever 21's first release on Roblox as part of their collaborative "Shop City" experience also used stolen shading templates from Kestrel designers. After designers on Twitter shared this claim, most notably cSapphire,^[15] Wonder Works Studio replied to cSapphire's tweet on the matter [response tweet deleted], falsely claiming the shading was not stolen but that they would take the items offsale. Wonder Works Studio later deleted their response. Afterwards, Wonder Works Studio hired cSapphire and other clothing creators to create original clothing for their first collaboration, and have continued to hire original creators to make the content for their future original Forever 21 releases.

Moderation disputes and content rules[]

Roblox's moderation of classic clothing has been subject to community criticism. Roblox appears to take a harsh stance on certain types or usages of classic clothing to prevent avatars from appearing nude or presenting with mature or adult topics. Roblox has a short list on its community guidelines including certain aspects that may not be present on clothing.

Clothing that simulates or is similar to underwear or undergarments are strictly prohibited in the Roblox Community Rules, which in recent times have appeared to include minimal-covering feminine-styled swimwear. Some classic clothing creators have attempted to sidestep these policies by including them under other styles of clothing; "whale tails," the visibility of certain types of minimal-covering feminine underwear under low-rising pants, are rising in amount due to moderators not taking action against them. Additionally, ways to "bypass" the moderation by misleading the upload system have appeared to be shared around, resulting in lingerie and thongs being directly created for and uploaded on Roblox. Due to these bypass methods, there exists an active community regularly designing and providing these assets, often using alternate accounts and holder accounts under groups to get around moderation as Roblox typically only takes action against the account that uploaded the clothing.

Clothing assets that are "associated with discriminatory groups" or resemble such are also prohibited in the Roblox Community Rules. One of the named examples are Swastika arm bands, though this rule has notoriously applied to any red armband on any shirt, therefore prohibiting them from being used in any context likely to prevent bypassing and discriminative roleplay.

One of the longest standing disputes is over "chest shading" or "breast shading". These can either refer to classic T-shirts with plain shadows meant to mimic depth of a player having accentuated chest muscles or breasts, or classic shirts/pants that have this added into the design. Roblox moderation appears to be against the former and any major examples of the latter, though even minor inclusion of body shading into outfits is sometimes disliked by consumers as well due to that it adds a "gendered implication" to the item, preventing it from being used by others that do not want to have that feature (e.g. an item that has been shaded to particularly imply breasts may feel out of place for a player to use if they do not want to present with having breasts).

In 2021 and 2022, a new version of the "chest shading" disputes is common in the form of "belly shading" and "skinny ribs shading" classic t-shirts, which gives the appearance of a realistic torso and belly area of a thinner build person, intended to be worn with clothing that shows the midriff. These have similar criticisms from the community as chest shading does, but "skinny ribs shading" also draws an additional criticism of the trend being derived from the fetishization of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa.

Classic clothing designers have had a conflicting response from moderation concerning the use of "sleeves," separate classic shirts with minimal or no parts on the torso made to match with an outfit primarily displayed using pants (via the torso and legs), likely due to the torso parts of the shirt being mostly empty allowing for an unclothed torso if not used with pants that includes covering of the top of the torso. Whether individual sleeves are accepted or denied seems to be very random and dependent on the moderator reviewing. There have been some instances of Roblox taking action against "sleeves" shirts towards classic clothing designers. On March 26, 2020, numerous classic clothing designers noted their sleeves were being deleted by Roblox and even receiving warnings or bans for "simulating nudity".^[16] However, after e-mailing appeals, many of these removals were reversed and the warnings or bans were voided. Due to these incidents, many classic clothing designers have opted to no longer provide standalone sleeves and to combine outfits on the shirt to not require them, therefore avoiding possible moderation.

In relation to clothing theft, when a classic clothing designer has their items deleted for whichever reason, there is a common inconsistency that reuploads and stolen versions of their item that was moderated are not additionally moderated, allowing thieves to continue profiting or utilizing the asset even though the original has been removed.

Copyright infringement and IP usage[]

Some classic clothing designers create items that reference or use intellectual property that does not permit its reuse. Roblox does not actively take action on assets that violates another's IP unless a DMCA takedown request is submitted.

Texture ripping[]

There have been some instances of clothing creators using textures ripped from real-life photos that are not free use, along with other applications and platforms such as games in The Sims or Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series, or items made by creators for other community platforms such as IMVU and Second Life. These textures are then re-mapped to the Roblox classic shirt or pants templates and uploaded. Some of the original creators of the source images have disputed with classic clothing designers participating in this practice and submitted takedown requests due to copyright infringement.

March 2019 copyright update[]

Due to heightened rules on IP usage around March 2019, Roblox provided an e-mail address for creators of user-generated content, including classic clothing, to send in links of uploaded content that includes copyrighted properties, imagery, or assets, as to have them removed without inciting the DMCA policy.^[17] Around the same time, many items including imagery of brands and their logos were removed from Roblox. Despite these heightened policies, it is still common for some designers to directly use copyrighted IP, such as the current popularity of unlicensed classic clothing items featuring Sanrio characters or Rilakkuma.

With the March 2019 change, some classic clothing designers that created "cosplay" (also known as "character outfits"), or outfits referencing other characters but not directly using the assets, either took down their designs or made the decision to no longer create or sell the designs, despite the asset being originally drawn. While the creation of assets in this manner is questionably viewed as fan content, there are some instances of classic clothing cosplay outfits being removed for copyright by request of the source character's copyight holder. In August 2022, classic clothing designer Euyph shared that their outfit of Jinx from the League of Legends franchise was removed for copyright by the copyright holder, Riot Games, even with that the asset itself had been created completely originally.^[18] Roblox has never clarified if cosplay outfits are strictly allowed or disallowed.

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