If you're working on a fighting game or an RPG, getting a functional roblox health bar script billboard gui up and running is probably high on your priority list. It's one of those small details that makes a huge difference in how professional a game feels. Instead of players having to guess how much damage they've dealt, they can see that little green bar drain in real-time right above their opponent's head.
Setting this up isn't actually as intimidating as it might look at first. It's basically just a combination of a UI object and a little bit of Luau scripting to bridge the gap between the player's stats and what's showing up on the screen. Let's break down how to put one together without pulling your hair out.
Why use a Billboard GUI?
You might wonder why we don't just put the health bar on the main screen (the HUD). While having a personal health bar on the screen is standard, having a roblox health bar script billboard gui allows for much better spatial awareness. When you're in a chaotic battle, you need to know exactly which enemy is low on health.
The beauty of the BillboardGui is that it's a 2D interface element that exists in a 3D space. It "faces" the camera no matter where you move, which is perfect for labels, names, and health bars. If you used a SurfaceGui, the bar would be stuck to a specific side of a part, and players wouldn't be able to see it from the back.
Setting up the UI structure
Before we even touch a script, we need the actual visuals. You'll want to start by creating a BillboardGui. Usually, for testing, you can just throw this into StarterGui, but eventually, you'll probably want to clone it into the player's head or the NPC's primary part.
Inside that BillboardGui, you need two frames. I like to call the first one "Background" and the second one "HealthFill."
- The Background: Make this a dark color, like black or a very dark grey, with some transparency (maybe 0.5). This stays at a fixed size and acts as the "container."
- The HealthFill: This is the part that actually moves. You'll want to make this a bright green. The key here is to set its size using Scale rather than Offset.
If you use Offset (pixels), the bar won't resize properly when the player moves away or gets closer. If you use Scale, you can set the width to 1 (which means 100% of the parent frame) and then use the script to change that value to 0.5 (50%) or whatever the health percentage happens to be.
Writing the basic script logic
Now for the fun part: the roblox health bar script billboard gui logic. You don't need a massive, complex system for this. You just need to listen for when the humanoid's health changes.
Inside your BillboardGui, you can add a LocalScript. The first thing the script needs to do is find the Humanoid. If the GUI is inside a player's character, you can just look at the parent of the GUI.
The most efficient way to handle health updates is the HealthChanged event. A lot of beginners make the mistake of using a while true do loop that checks the health every 0.1 seconds. Please don't do that! It's a waste of resources. HealthChanged only fires when the value actually shifts, which is much cleaner for performance.
Inside that event, you'll do a simple bit of math: currentHealth / maxHealth. This gives you a decimal between 0 and 1. You then take that decimal and plug it into the X-scale of your HealthFill frame. It's a direct 1:1 relationship that works perfectly.
Making the bar look smooth
If you just set the size directly, the bar will "snap" to the new health value. It works, but it looks a bit janky. To make it look like a modern game, you'll want to use TweenService.
Instead of jumping from 100% to 70%, you can tell Roblox to animate that transition over half a second. It gives the player a much more satisfying visual cue that they've landed a hit. You can use an "EaseOut" style so the bar starts moving fast and then slows down as it reaches the new value. It's a tiny polish detail, but players definitely notice it.
Handling colors and health states
Another cool thing you can do with your roblox health bar script billboard gui is change the color based on how much health is left. It's a classic trope: green for full, yellow for half, and red for "oh no, I'm about to die."
You can do this using Color3.fromHSV or just by having a few if statements in your script. For example, if the health percentage is below 0.3, you set the BackgroundColor3 of your HealthFill to a bright red. It adds a layer of urgency to the gameplay that a static green bar just can't provide.
Positioning the GUI correctly
One issue people often run into is the health bar appearing inside the player's head or being blocked by their hair. This is where the ExtentsOffset or StudsOffset properties of the BillboardGui come in.
You don't want the GUI's "Adornee" to be the head and just leave it there. You should set an offset—usually about 2 or 3 studs on the Y-axis—so the bar floats comfortably above the player. Also, make sure to check the AlwaysOnTop property. If you leave it off, the health bar will disappear behind walls or even the player's own body parts. Turning it on ensures it's always visible to the attacker.
Performance considerations for big games
If you're planning on having 50 players or 100 NPCs on a map at once, having 100 different roblox health bar script billboard gui instances all running individual scripts can start to add up.
In that case, you might want to look into a "centralized" system. Instead of every bar having its own script, you could have one single LocalScript that manages all the health bars in the game. It can use a loop or a collection service tag to find all humanoids and update their bars. For a smaller game, though, individual scripts are perfectly fine and much easier to manage.
Dealing with the "Distance" problem
Have you ever played a game where the UI becomes a cluttered mess because you can see 50 health bars from across the map? You can fix that easily. The BillboardGui has a property called MaxDistance.
I usually set this to something like 100 or 150 studs. This way, the health bar only pops up when you're actually close enough to care about that player's health. It keeps the screen clean and helps the player focus on what's right in front of them. You can even use the DistanceLowerLimit to fade the UI out gradually, though that requires a bit more scripting.
Final thoughts on the setup
Creating a roblox health bar script billboard gui is really a rite of passage for Roblox developers. It teaches you about the relationship between the 3D world and the 2D UI, how to handle events, and how to use basic math to drive visual elements.
Don't be afraid to experiment with the design. Maybe instead of a flat bar, you want a circular one? Or maybe you want the player's name displayed right above the bar? Once you have the basic script logic down—connecting the Humanoid health to a UI element—the possibilities for customization are pretty much endless. Just keep it clean, make sure it's readable, and your players will thank you for the clarity.