Roblox health bar script billboard gui setups are one of those small but massive details that can totally change how your game feels to a player. If you're building an RPG, a fighting game, or even a simple hangout spot, you probably want people to see how much health everyone else has. It adds a layer of strategy and, honestly, it just looks way more professional than having to guess if that boss or opponent is about to go down.
The cool thing about using a BillboardGui is that it exists in the 3D world but always faces the camera. No matter how much a player jumps around or spins, that health bar stays visible, floating right over their head. Today, I'm going to walk you through how to set this up from scratch, covering the UI design, the actual scripting, and some neat tricks to make it look smooth.
Setting Up the Visuals in the Explorer
Before we touch a single line of code, we need something for the script to actually control. You can't have a health bar without a bar, right?
Head over to your StarterGui or just create a part in the Workspace to act as a dummy. Right-click and insert a BillboardGui. This is the container that makes our UI float in 3D space. Inside that BillboardGui, you'll want to add a few things:
- A Background Frame: This is usually a dark gray or black rectangle that represents "empty" health. Name it "Background."
- A Health Bar Frame: This goes inside the Background frame. Make it a bright color, like green or red. Name it "HealthDisplay."
A quick tip on the BillboardGui properties: make sure you set the Size using Scale rather than Offset if you want it to look consistent on different screen sizes. Also, set the StudsOffset to something like 0, 3, 0. This ensures the bar floats a few studs above the player's head instead of being stuck inside their nose.
The Basic Roblox Health Bar Script
Now for the part that intimidates most people: the coding. Honestly, it's not as scary as it looks. We want the script to look at the player's Humanoid, check their health, and then adjust the width of our "HealthDisplay" frame accordingly.
The most efficient way to do this is by listening for the HealthChanged event. A lot of beginners make the mistake of using a while true do loop that runs every single millisecond. Don't do that! It's a waste of processing power. By using an event, the script only wakes up and does work when the health actually changes.
Here is a simple breakdown of what that logic looks like in a script:
```lua local billboard = script.Parent local background = billboard:WaitForChild("Background") local bar = background:WaitForChild("HealthDisplay") local character = billboard.Adornee or billboard.Parent.Parent -- Depends on where you put it local humanoid = character:WaitForChild("Humanoid")
local function updateHealth() -- We calculate the percentage of health left local healthPercent = humanoid.Health / humanoid.MaxHealth -- We apply that percentage to the X Scale of our bar bar.Size = UDim2.new(healthPercent, 0, 1, 0) end
-- Connect the function so it runs whenever health moves humanoid.HealthChanged:Connect(updateHealth) -- Run it once at the start so it's accurate right away updateHealth() ```
If you put this script inside your BillboardGui and put that GUI inside a player's head, it'll work. But it might look a bit "snappy." When a player takes damage, the bar will instantly jump to the new size. It works, but we can do better.
Making it Look Smooth with TweenService
If you want your game to feel high-quality, you need Tweening. This is just a fancy word for "animating a transition." Instead of the bar snapping from 100% to 50%, it should slide smoothly.
To do this, we use the TweenService. It's built into Roblox and is super powerful. You tell it which object you want to move, how long the transition should take, and what the final goal is. The service handles all the math in between.
In your roblox health bar script billboard gui, you'd replace the line that sets the bar size with a tween call. Something like TweenService:Create(bar, TweenInfo.new(0.3), {Size = UDim2.new(healthPercent, 0, 1, 0)}):Play(). Suddenly, your health bar feels fluid and responsive. It's a tiny change that makes a massive difference in the "game feel."
Customizing the Bar Based on Health Percentage
Why stop at just moving the bar? A really common feature in games is having the bar change color as it gets lower. Green for healthy, yellow for "uh oh," and red for "danger."
You can handle this inside the same updateHealth function. By using an if-elseif statement or some clever math with Color3.fromHSV, you can make the bar shift colors dynamically. For example, if healthPercent is less than 0.3, set the color to bright red. It's a great visual cue that tells the player they need to back off or find a health pack immediately.
Where Should the Script Live?
This is a big question for many devs. Should the roblox health bar script billboard gui be a server script or a local script?
If you want the health bar to show up for everyone (like in a multiplayer arena), you usually have the GUI cloned into the player's character on the server. However, some developers prefer to handle the visual side of things on the client using a LocalScript. Why? Because it's smoother. If the server is lagging, a server-side health bar might stutter. If it's handled locally, it'll always look crisp for the player watching it.
The best practice for a "name tag" style health bar is often to have a server script that clones the UI into the player's head when they spawn, and then a LocalScript inside that UI to handle the bar's movement.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I've seen a lot of people struggle with their roblox health bar script billboard gui not appearing at all. Usually, it's one of three things:
- The Adornee Property: If your BillboardGui is sitting in a folder somewhere, it doesn't know who it belongs to. You have to set the
Adorneeproperty to the player's Head or HumanoidRootPart. - ZIndex Issues: If you have multiple images or frames in your UI, sometimes the background frame draws over the health bar. Make sure your "HealthDisplay" has a higher
ZIndexthan the background. - AlwaysOnTop: If you want players to be able to see the health bar through walls (like a teammate highlight), you can toggle the
AlwaysOnTopproperty. If it's off, the bar will be hidden when the player walks behind a building.
Final Touches and Polish
Once you've got the basic bar working, you can start adding the "extra" bits. Maybe you want the player's name above the bar? Just add a TextLabel to the BillboardGui. Maybe you want to show the exact numbers, like "75/100"? Add another label on top of the bar and update its text in the same function that handles the bar's size.
You could even get fancy and add a "damage shake" effect where the whole GUI wobbles slightly when the player takes a big hit. The possibilities are pretty much endless once you have that core roblox health bar script billboard gui foundation solid.
Getting UI right takes a bit of trial and error. You might find that your bar is too big on mobile screens or too small from a distance. Don't be afraid to jump into a playtest, move your camera around, and tweak those Size and DistanceLowerLimit properties until it feels just right. Good luck with your project—nothing beats the feeling of seeing those health bars tick down as your game finally comes to life!