Finding your way around Studio

Open your Baseplate project again. Before we write a single line of code, you need to be able to find things on this screen — otherwise the rest of the course is you hunting around.

Studio has dozens of panels, but for this course you only need three. Once you know what each one does, everything else is decoration.

#The Explorer — what exists

Usually on the right side of the screen, the Explorer is a tree: a list of everything in your place, nested inside each other.

Workspace
  Baseplate
Camera
Lighting
ReplicatedStorage
ServerScriptService
StarterGui
StarterPlayer

When we say "a part is in the Workspace", the Explorer is where you'll see that relationship. This parent/child idea — one thing living inside another — is the single most important concept in Roblox scripting, so get used to reading this tree.

#Properties — the details of what's selected

Usually below the Explorer, the Properties panel shows the settings of whatever object is selected: name, color, size, position, and hundreds of others.

Select the Baseplate in the Explorer, look at Properties, and change the color to something obnoxious — bright pink, say — and watch the 3D view update. You just edited a game property without writing code.

#The Output window — what the code said

Usually at the bottom of the screen, the Output window is where scripts print messages and where error messages appear. Right now it's empty, which is correct — nothing is running yet. In two lessons we'll make it say something.

#Which panel has the answer?

When something goes wrong in a Roblox game, the answer is almost always in one of these three places:

• Explorer — what exists, and what's inside what
• Properties — the details of whatever is selected
• Output — what the code printed, and where it broke