A roblox highlight script is one of those small touches that instantly makes your game feel way more polished. If you've ever played a game where an item glows when you look at it or an enemy gets a red outline through a wall, you've seen this tech in action. It's a simple visual cue, but it does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to player experience.
For a long time, developers had to rely on messy workarounds like duplicating meshes and scaling them up slightly to create an outline effect. It was a headache, it looked janky, and it was terrible for performance. Thankfully, Roblox introduced the Highlight instance a while back, making it incredibly easy to script these effects without tearing your hair out.
Why You Should Care About Highlights
Let's be honest, players can be a bit oblivious sometimes. If you want them to pick up a specific keycard or notice a hidden lever, you need to draw their eyes to it. A well-placed roblox highlight script acts like a giant "look here" sign without being too intrusive.
It's not just about pointing things out, though. Highlights add a layer of "game feel." Think about the satisfying glow when you hover over a menu button or the way a teammate's silhouette appears through a building. These things make the world feel reactive. If the world doesn't react to the player, it feels static and boring.
Setting Up the Basics
Before we get into the actual code, it's worth knowing that the Highlight object is a literal thing you can insert into your workspace. But doing it manually for every single item is a waste of time. That's where the script comes in.
You can create a new Highlight instance via code and parent it to whatever model or part you want to emphasize. Here is the cool part: the highlight automatically applies to the entire model. If you have a complex character model with thirty different parts, you don't need thirty highlights. You just put one highlight inside the main model, and it wraps around the whole thing perfectly.
A Simple Hover Script
If you want an object to glow when a player hovers their mouse over it, you'll want to use a LocalScript. This ensures the effect only happens for that specific player, which is usually what you want for UI or interaction cues.
```lua local player = game.Players.LocalPlayer local mouse = player:GetMouse() local currentHighlight = Instance.new("Highlight") currentHighlight.FillColor = Color3.fromRGB(255, 255, 255) currentHighlight.OutlineColor = Color3.fromRGB(0, 255, 0) currentHighlight.Enabled = false
mouse.Move:Connect(function() local target = mouse.Target if target and target.Parent:IsA("Model") then currentHighlight.Adornee = target.Parent currentHighlight.Enabled = true else currentHighlight.Enabled = false end end) ```
In this little snippet, we're basically telling the game to keep an eye on where the mouse is pointing. If it hits a model, we "parent" the highlight to it (using the Adornee property) and turn it on. It's quick, efficient, and looks great.
Tweaking the Look
You've got a lot of control over how the highlight actually looks. It isn't just a "glow or no glow" situation. You have a few main properties to play with:
FillColor and FillTransparency: This controls the inner part of the highlight. If you want the object to look like it's filled with solid energy, keep the transparency low. If you just want a subtle tint, crank that transparency up to 0.7 or 0.8.
OutlineColor and OutlineTransparency: This is the border. This is usually what people are looking for when they talk about a roblox highlight script. A thin, bright outline can make an object stand out even in a busy environment.
DepthMode: This is the big one. You have two options: AlwaysOnTop and Occluded. - Occluded means the highlight will hide behind walls. This is great for items that are currently in the player's line of sight. - AlwaysOnTop means the player can see the highlight through every single object in the game. This is what you use for "ESP" style effects or to show where teammates are located.
Practical Use Cases
Let's look at a few ways you can actually use this in a real project.
Item Selection
In an RPG or a simulator, you might want to show which item the player is currently selecting. Instead of a clunky UI arrow, use a white or gold highlight. It feels much more integrated into the 3D space.
Health Indicators
You can change the color of a highlight dynamically. Imagine a boss fight where the boss starts with a green outline. As their health drops, you script the FillColor to shift from green to yellow, and finally to a pulsing red when they're about to go down. It gives the player immediate visual feedback without them having to stare at a health bar at the top of the screen.
Stealth Mechanics
If you're making a horror or stealth game, you can use highlights to show "sound" or "visibility." If a player makes too much noise, maybe the source of the noise gets a brief pinging highlight that enemies can "see."
The "31" Limit (Watch Out for This!)
Here is a bit of a "gotcha" that catches a lot of people off guard. Roblox currently has a limit of 31 active Highlights visible at once on the screen.
If you try to highlight 50 different items at the same time, the engine is going to start ignoring some of them. It won't crash your game, but it'll look broken. This is a technical limitation to keep the rendering speed high.
To get around this, you have to be smart with your roblox highlight script. Don't just leave highlights turned on for every item in the map. Only enable them when the player is close to an object or when the object is actually relevant to the gameplay. By toggling the Enabled property or moving the Adornee, you can make 31 highlights feel like a thousand.
Performance Considerations
While the modern highlight system is way better than the old methods, it's still a post-processing effect. If you have 31 highlights all set to AlwaysOnTop and they are covering half the screen, some lower-end mobile devices might feel a slight dip in frames.
Generally, you don't need to worry too much, but it's good practice to clean up after yourself. If an object is destroyed or the player moves far away, make sure your script destroys the Highlight instance or at least disables it. Leaving hundreds of disabled highlight objects sitting in the folder isn't great for memory management.
Making it Dynamic
If you really want to spice things up, don't just set a static color. Use a TweenService to make the highlight pulse. A pulsing glow feels much more "alive" than a flat color. You can easily script the OutlineTransparency to go from 0 to 1 and back again over a couple of seconds.
It's these little details that separate a "beginner" game from something that looks professional. When a player walks up to a door and it gently pulses blue, they know exactly what to do. No instructions needed.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, a roblox highlight script is a tool for communication. You're communicating with the player through visuals. Whether you're using it for a tactical shooter to show enemy locations or just to make a "Pick Up" prompt look a bit fancier, it's a versatile tool that every scripter should have in their back pocket.
The best way to learn is to just drop a Highlight object into a part in Studio, mess with the properties in the Properties window to see what they do, and then try to replicate those changes using code. Once you get the hang of the Adornee property and the AlwaysOnTop toggle, you'll find yourself using highlights in almost every project you work on. Happy scripting!