If you're tired of the same old default screen every time you join a game, building a roblox custom loading bar script is one of the easiest ways to give your project a professional edge right from the start. Let's be real, the standard Roblox loading screen is fine for testing, but if you want players to actually stick around and feel like they're entering a polished experience, you need something that matches your game's vibe. It's that first handshake with your player, and you don't want it to be a boring one.
Why bother with a custom screen anyway?
Think about the last time you hopped into a top-tier game on the platform. Chances are, they didn't use the default setup. A custom screen does a few things. First, it hides the "messy" part of the game loading—you know, when parts are flickering in or the skybox hasn't quite decided what color it wants to be yet. Second, it gives you a chance to show off some art, drop some lore, or give players a quick tutorial while they wait.
The best part is that it isn't even that hard to set up. You don't need to be a scripting wizard to get a basic version running. Most of the heavy lifting is handled by a specific folder in your game explorer that most beginners tend to overlook.
The secret sauce: ReplicatedFirst
Before you even touch a line of code, you have to know where the roblox custom loading bar script lives. If you put your loading GUI in StarterGui, it won't show up until the game has already loaded most of its assets, which totally defeats the purpose.
You need to use ReplicatedFirst. This is a special folder designed to run code the very second a player starts joining. Anything you put in here—scripts or UI—gets priority seating. As soon as the player's client connects, ReplicatedFirst kicks in, allowing you to get rid of the default Roblox loading overlay and replace it with your own masterpiece.
Setting up the UI
You can't have a loading bar without, well, a bar. Here's a quick way to structure your UI in the Explorer:
- Inside
ReplicatedFirst, create aScreenGui. Let's call it "LoadingScreen". - Make sure you toggle
IgnoreGuiInsetto true so it covers the whole screen, including the top bar. - Add a
Framefor the background (make it whatever color or image you want). - Inside that background frame, add another
Framethat will act as the "container" for your bar. - Finally, add one more
Frameinside the container. This is the actual moving bar.
Pro tip: Set the moving bar's width (in Scale, not Offset!) to 0 to start with. We'll use the script to grow that width from 0 to 1 as things load.
Writing the roblox custom loading bar script
Now for the fun part. You'll need a LocalScript inside ReplicatedFirst. This script has two main jobs: tell Roblox to hide the default loading screen and then track how many assets are left to load.
You'll want to use game:GetService("ReplicatedFirst"):RemoveDefaultLoadingScreen(). That's the magic line that clears the way for your UI. After that, the most reliable way to track progress is using the ContentProvider service. Specifically, the PreloadAsync function.
Instead of just waiting for a random amount of time, PreloadAsync actually looks at a list of assets—like your big maps, complex meshes, or heavy sound files—and tells the script when they're ready. You can take the total number of assets, divide the current loaded number by that total, and boom, you have a percentage that you can use to scale your loading bar.
Making it look smooth with TweenService
One mistake I see all the time is a loading bar that "teleports." It stays at 10% for five seconds, then jumps to 80% instantly. It looks janky. To fix this, you should use TweenService.
When your script calculates that the progress is now at 50%, don't just set the bar's size. Instead, "tween" the size over a fraction of a second. It makes the bar slide gracefully across the screen. Even if the actual loading happens in chunks, the player sees a smooth, moving animation that feels much more professional.
Adding those extra details
Once you have the basic roblox custom loading bar script working, you can start adding the "fluff." Maybe a text label that says "Reticulating Splines" or "Loading Coffee" to keep people entertained.
You can also use this time to initialize other client-side things. If you have a complex camera system or a custom inventory UI that needs to be set up, you can do it behind the scenes while the bar is filling up. Just make sure you don't make the loading screen stay too long. There's a fine line between a cool intro and making someone alt-f4 because they think the game crashed.
Common pitfalls to avoid
I've broken my fair share of loading screens, so here's what usually goes wrong. First, don't try to load every single thing in the game. If you have 5,000 trees in your map, asking PreloadAsync to wait for every individual leaf will make your loading screen last forever. Only track the big, important assets.
Second, watch out for infinite loops. If your script is waiting for an asset that somehow got deleted or has a broken ID, it might hang indefinitely. It's always a good idea to put a "timeout" in your script or a "Skip" button if it's taking more than, say, 15 seconds. It's better to have a slightly glitchy texture than a player who can't even get into the game.
Testing it out
Testing a loading screen is actually a bit tricky in Roblox Studio because, usually, everything loads instantly on your local machine. To see if your roblox custom loading bar script actually works, you'll want to go to the "Test" tab and change the network simulation settings to "Incoming Replication Lag" or just test it in a live server.
Seeing it work for the first time in a real game is a great feeling. It's one of those small touches that tells players, "Hey, this dev actually put some effort into the details."
Wrapping it up
At the end of the day, a custom loading screen is just a bit of UI and some clever asset tracking. By using ReplicatedFirst and ContentProvider, you're taking control of the very first thing a player sees. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece of graphic design—even a simple, clean bar with a nice background makes a world of difference.
So, go ahead and ditch that default gray screen. Play around with some colors, maybe add a spinning logo, and get that script running. Your players will definitely notice the difference, even if they don't say it out loud. It's all about that polish!