A roblox studio humanoid climbing script is the secret sauce to making your exploration game feel way more professional than just using basic ladders. Let's be honest, the default Roblox climbing system is a bit dated. It's clunky, it only works on specific parts like Trusses, and it doesn't give you that fluid, "Assassin's Creed" style movement that players crave these days. If you want your character to scale any wall, shimmy across ledges, or pull themselves up over a cliff side, you're going to need to move beyond the built-in settings and dive into some custom Lua.
In this guide, we're going to break down how to build a system that feels smooth. We aren't just going to dump a wall of code and walk away; we're going to talk about the logic behind it so you can actually tweak it for your own game's specific needs.
Why Bother With a Custom System?
You might be wondering why you shouldn't just stick with the default Humanoid behavior. Well, the standard system is extremely binary—you're either on a ladder or you aren't. There's no easy way to add stamina, no way to control the speed based on the surface type, and it looks pretty stiff.
When you write your own roblox studio humanoid climbing script, you gain total control. You can decide exactly how close the player needs to be to a wall to grab it, how fast they move, and what happens when they reach the top. Plus, it just makes your game stand out. Players notice when movement feels "custom" and polished.
The Core Logic: Raycasting is Your Best Friend
The heart of any climbing system is Raycasting. If you've never used it, think of a Raycast as an invisible laser beam that shoots out from a point in a specific direction. For climbing, we're going to shoot a laser from the player's torso straight forward.
If that laser hits a part, we know there's a wall there. If it doesn't hit anything, the player is just walking in open air. It sounds simple, but the trick is in the details. You don't just want to know if a wall is there; you want to know the "Normal" of that wall. The Normal is basically a vector that tells you which way the wall is facing. This is crucial because it allows you to rotate the player so they are always facing the surface they are climbing.
Setting Up Your Script
To get started, you'll want to put a LocalScript inside StarterCharacterScripts. This ensures the script runs specifically for the player's character every time they respawn.
You'll need to reference the RunService, because we're going to be checking for walls every single frame. You'll also need the UserInputService to detect when the player is pressing the 'W' or 'S' keys to move up and down the wall.
Detecting the Wall
First, we define our Raycast parameters. You'll want to exclude the player's own character from the Raycast; otherwise, the "laser" will just hit the player's own chest and think it found a wall!
lua local raycastParams = RaycastParams.new() raycastParams.FilterDescendantsInstances = {character} raycastParams.FilterType = Enum.RaycastFilterType.Exclude
Inside a RenderStepped loop, you'll constantly fire a ray from the RootPart. If it hits a part tagged as "Climbable" (or just any part, depending on your preference), you can trigger the climbing state.
Handling the Physics
This is where things can get a bit messy. When a player starts climbing, you have a few options for how to keep them on the wall.
- BodyVelocity / LinearVelocity: This is the most popular method. You essentially "turn off" gravity for a moment and use a force to move the player up, down, left, or right relative to the wall's surface.
- Anchoring: You could anchor the character and manually update their CFrame, but this usually looks very jittery and breaks things like collisions.
- AlignPosition / AlignOrientation: These are modern constraints that are very stable but can be a bit more complex to set up.
For a standard roblox studio humanoid climbing script, I usually recommend using a LinearVelocity object. It's smooth, it respects the physics engine, and it's easy to toggle on and off. When the player "grabs" the wall, you set the HumanoidState to PlatformStand so they don't try to walk or fall, and then you let your velocity object handle the movement.
Making it Feel Natural: The Animation
A climbing script is only as good as its animations. If the player is just sliding up a wall in a T-pose, it's going to look terrible. You need at least three basic animations: * Idle: The pose they hold when they are hanging onto the wall but not moving. * Moving Up/Down: A loop of them reaching for handholds. * Ledge Pull-up: A one-time animation for when they reach the top.
You'll want to load these into the Humanoid.Animator and play them based on the player's input. If the player is pressing 'W', play the climbing animation. If they stop, pause the animation on a specific frame so it looks like they're gripping the wall.
Dealing with Ledges and Mantling
The hardest part of a roblox studio humanoid climbing script isn't actually the climbing; it's the finish. Nothing is more frustrating for a player than climbing to the very top of a wall and getting stuck on the lip of the ledge because their character's feet are still trying to climb.
To fix this, you need a "Mantle" check. This usually involves firing a second raycast slightly higher than the first one. If the bottom ray hits a wall but the top ray hits nothing (empty air), you know the player has reached the ledge. At this point, you can trigger a "pull up" sequence where you tween the character's CFrame up and forward onto the flat surface.
Optimization and Cleanliness
Since we're running checks every frame, you have to be careful about performance. Don't do heavy calculations if the player isn't even near a wall. You can do a simple distance check or a "magnitude" check against nearby parts before firing your Raycasts.
Also, make sure you clean up your objects. If the player jumps off the wall or falls, destroy the LinearVelocity or VectorForce objects you created. Leaving these behind is a one-way ticket to a laggy game and weird physics bugs.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
If you find your character is "jittering" while on the wall, it's usually because the Humanoid is fighting your script. The Humanoid object is constantly trying to apply its own forces to stay upright or walk. Setting the state to Physics or PlatformStand usually fixes this, but you have to remember to set it back to GettingUp or Running once they leave the wall.
Another common headache is the player "sliding" down the wall slowly. This happens if your velocity isn't high enough to counter the workspace gravity. You can either set the Gravity of the workspace to 0 temporarily (not recommended) or just ensure your LinearVelocity has a high enough MaxForce.
Wrapping It All Up
Creating a custom roblox studio humanoid climbing script is a bit of a rite of passage for Roblox devs. It moves you away from just placing blocks and into the realm of actual gameplay engineering. Once you get the hang of Raycasting and manipulating velocity, you'll realize you can use these same skills for wall running, sliding, or even grappling hooks.
Don't be afraid to experiment with the numbers. Change the climbing speed, add a stamina bar that makes the player's screen shake when they're tired, or add sound effects for every hand-plant. It's those small details that turn a basic script into a polished mechanic. Happy scripting!