If you want to keep players from getting lost, you definitely need a solid roblox custom objective marker script to point them in the right direction. There is nothing more frustrating than jumping into a huge open-world game and having absolutely no idea where the next quest starts. We've all been there, running in circles until we just quit the game. Adding a marker is one of those small "quality of life" features that makes your project feel way more professional and polished.
The cool thing about making your own is that you aren't stuck with those generic, boring arrows. You can make it pulse, change color based on distance, or even show a little icon of the item the player is supposed to find. In this post, I'm going to walk you through how to set one up without pulling your hair out.
Why you shouldn't just use a basic part
Sure, you could just put a big neon green glowing part at the objective and call it a day. But what happens if there's a wall in the way? Or what if the player is five miles away and the part is too small to see? That's where a proper roblox custom objective marker script comes in.
By using a BillboardGui, you can ensure the marker stays visible regardless of the distance or obstacles. It "floats" on the screen relative to the 3D position in the world. It's essentially the industry standard for waypoints, and it's surprisingly easy to customize once you get the hang of the coordinate systems in Roblox.
Setting up the visual assets
Before we even touch a script, we need something for the player to actually look at. Head over to the Explorer and find your StarterGui.
- Create a
BillboardGui. Let's name it "ObjectiveMarker". - Inside that, add an
ImageLabelor aTextLabel. This will be your icon. - Set the
AlwaysOnTopproperty of theBillboardGuito true. This is the "secret sauce" that makes sure the marker doesn't get hidden behind walls. - Set the
ExtentsOffsetif you want it to hover a bit above the objective rather than being right inside it.
Once you've styled it—maybe given it a nice circular frame or a bright color—drag the whole ObjectiveMarker into ReplicatedStorage. We'll have our script clone it and place it whenever we need it.
Writing the logic
Now for the fun part. We need a way to tell the game, "Hey, put this marker on that treasure chest over there." We'll use a LocalScript for this because UI stuff should almost always be handled on the client side to keep things smooth.
You'll want to use RunService.RenderStepped if you plan on doing anything fancy like rotating the marker or updating distance text in real-time. For a basic version, though, you can just parent the BillboardGui to the target part.
Here's the basic gist of how the roblox custom objective marker script logic works: - Find the target part in the workspace. - Clone the marker from ReplicatedStorage. - Set the Adornee property of the marker to the target part. - Parent the marker to the player's PlayerGui.
```lua local player = game.Players.LocalPlayer local markerTemplate = game.ReplicatedStorage:WaitForChild("ObjectiveMarker")
local function createMarker(targetPart) local newMarker = markerTemplate:Clone() newMarker.Adornee = targetPart newMarker.Parent = player:WaitForChild("PlayerGui") return newMarker end ```
It's pretty straightforward, right? But we can do better.
Adding distance tracking
A marker is much more helpful if it tells you how far away you are. Players love seeing that number tick down as they get closer—it gives a sense of progress. To do this, you'll need to add a TextLabel to your marker and update it constantly.
Inside your loop (using RenderStepped), you'll calculate the magnitude between the player's HumanoidRootPart and the objective's position. It looks something like this: (partA.Position - partB.Position).Magnitude.
You can then round that number and stick it into your TextLabel. Just a heads up: Roblox uses studs as a unit of measurement. If your game is meant to feel "real-world," you might want to divide that number by a factor to represent meters or feet, but usually, just saying "150 Studs" works perfectly fine for most players.
Making the marker "Sticky" (Off-screen indicators)
This is where things get a little more advanced, but it's what separates the okay games from the great ones. Have you ever noticed in games like Skyrim or Call of Duty that if the objective is behind you, the icon stays at the edge of your screen? That's called an off-screen indicator.
Without this, if a player turns away from the objective, the marker just disappears from their view. To fix this, your roblox custom objective marker script needs to use Camera:WorldToViewportPoint().
This function takes a 3D position and tells you where it would be on the 2D screen. It also returns a boolean (true or false) telling you if that point is actually on the screen. If it's false, you can write some math to "clamp" the icon to the edge of the screen so the player knows exactly which way to turn. It involves some trigonometry, but don't let that scare you—there are plenty of open-source snippets for "clamping UI to screen radius" that you can drop right in.
Handling multiple objectives
In a real game, you probably won't just have one single objective forever. You might have three different things for the player to collect. You don't want to manually create three scripts for this. Instead, try using Tags.
The CollectionService is your best friend here. You can tag every objective part with something like "ActiveObjective". Your script can then watch for any part with that tag and automatically slap a marker on it. When the player picks up the item or finishes the task, you just remove the tag, and the script (if you wrote it well) will clean up the marker. This keeps your workspace clean and your code efficient.
Polishing the experience
Let's talk about the "feel" of the marker. A static image is fine, but a little bit of movement goes a long way. You could use TweenService to make the marker gently bob up and down, or make it grow slightly larger when the player is looking directly at it.
Another thing to consider is transparency. If the player is standing literally on top of the objective, the marker can sometimes get in the way of their view. You can script the marker's transparency to increase as the player gets closer, making it "fade out" so they can actually see what they're interacting with.
Common pitfalls to avoid
I've seen a lot of people struggle with their roblox custom objective marker script because they try to run too much logic on the server. If the server is trying to calculate distances for 50 players and updating their UIs, you're going to see some major lag. Keep the heavy lifting on the client. The server should only be responsible for telling the client what the current objective is; the client's computer should handle the showing of it.
Also, watch out for "streaming enabled." If your objective is very far away and you have streaming turned on, the part might not even exist on the client's side yet! You'll need to handle those cases by either placing the marker on a "proxy" position or waiting for the part to load in before trying to attach the UI.
Final thoughts
Building a roblox custom objective marker script is one of those projects that starts simple but can get as complex as you want it to be. Start with a basic BillboardGui, get the distance showing, and then worry about the fancy off-screen clamping later.
The most important thing is that it helps the player. As long as they know where to go next, you've done your job. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of polish that keeps people playing your game instead of hopping over to the next one in the "Recommended" tab. Happy scripting!