Setting up a roblox studio camera script third person is one of those things that looks pretty intimidating at first glance, but it's actually quite chill once you break it down into smaller parts. Whether you're trying to build a tactical shooter, a platformer, or just a social hangout game, the camera is basically the player's eyes. If the eyes feel "off," the whole game feels janky. We've all played those games where the camera clips through every wall or jitters like it's had too much caffeine—we definitely want to avoid that.
Most people starting out think they have to rewrite the entire Roblox engine just to get a decent third-person view. Luckily, that's not the case. You can go from a basic follow-cam to a professional-feeling over-the-shoulder perspective with just a few dozen lines of code and some common sense settings.
Getting Started with the Basics
Before we even touch a script, it's worth checking if you actually need a custom roblox studio camera script third person for your specific project. Roblox has some built-in settings that do a decent job if you're just looking for a simple perspective shift.
If you go into the StarterPlayer properties in the Explorer, you'll see options like CameraMaxZoomDistance and CameraMinZoomDistance. If you set both of these to the same number—say, 10 or 12—you've effectively locked the player into a third-person view. It's the "quick and dirty" way to do it. But since you're here looking for a script, you probably want more control than that. You likely want that smooth, offset look where the character isn't perfectly centered, or maybe you want the camera to behave differently when the player is aiming.
Writing the LocalScript
To get a custom roblox studio camera script third person running, you'll need to place a LocalScript inside StarterPlayerScripts. We use a LocalScript because the camera is something that only happens on the player's screen. If you tried to do this in a regular Server Script, it wouldn't work, and even if it did, the lag would be nightmare fuel.
The first thing the script needs to do is talk to the RunService. We use something called RenderStepped. Think of this as a loop that runs every single time the game draws a frame on the screen. Because we want the camera to move perfectly with the player, we need to update its position sixty times a second (or more, depending on the player's monitor).
Inside that loop, we're going to set the CameraType to Scriptable. This tells Roblox, "Hey, stop trying to control the camera; I've got this." From there, it's all about math—but don't worry, it's not the scary high-school kind. It's mostly just adding and subtracting coordinates.
Defining the Offset and Rotation
The "secret sauce" of a good roblox studio camera script third person is the offset. If you just lock the camera to the player's head, it feels a bit stiff. Usually, you want the camera to be slightly above and to the right of the character.
You can define a Vector3 variable for this. For an over-the-shoulder look, something like Vector3.new(3, 2, 10) works well. This moves the camera 3 studs to the right, 2 studs up, and 10 studs back.
The trick is making sure the camera rotates when the player moves their mouse. We use UserInputService to track mouse movement and then turn those movements into "Euler angles." Basically, as the player moves the mouse left or right, we update a variable called yaw. Up and down movements update pitch. We then apply these rotations to the camera's CFrame so the player can actually look around.
Making It Feel Smooth with Lerping
If you just teleport the camera to its new position every frame, it can look a bit "staccato," especially if the player's frame rate dips. This is where Lerping (Linear Interpolation) comes in. It sounds fancy, but it just means "moving from point A to point B smoothly over time."
Instead of saying "Camera.CFrame = NewCFrame," you say something like "Camera.CFrame = Camera.CFrame:Lerp(NewCFrame, 0.2)." That 0.2 is the alpha value. It means every frame, the camera moves 20% of the way toward its target. This creates a subtle "weight" to the camera that makes the game feel much more polished. It's a small detail, but it's the difference between a hobbyist project and something that feels like a real game.
Handling Walls and Obstructions
One of the biggest headaches with a custom roblox studio camera script third person is what happens when a player walks into a corner. Without extra code, your camera will just clip right through the wall, showing the "void" or the back of some textures. It looks terrible and breaks the immersion immediately.
To fix this, you have to use Raycasting. Every frame, the script should fire an invisible "laser" from the player's head toward the intended camera position. If that laser hits a wall, you tell the script, "Whoa, stop there!" and move the camera closer to the player so it stays inside the room. Roblox's WorldRoot:Raycast() function is perfect for this. It returns the exact point where the hit happened, so you can just pop the camera right there (maybe with a tiny bit of padding so it doesn't look weird).
Over-the-Shoulder vs. Centered View
There's a bit of a debate on which style is better. A centered third-person camera is great for platformers (think Mario or Sonic) because the player needs to see exactly where they are landing. However, for anything involving shooting or interacting with objects, an over-the-shoulder roblox studio camera script third person is usually the way to go.
The over-the-shoulder view gives the player a better line of sight for what's in front of them without their own character model blocking the view. If you go this route, you'll probably want to lock the player's mouse to the center of the screen using UserInputService.MouseBehavior = Enum.MouseBehavior.LockCenter. This makes the character turn whenever the camera turns, which is the standard for most modern third-person games.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I've seen a lot of people struggle when their roblox studio camera script third person starts fighting with the default Roblox character movement. If you're locking the mouse to the center, you might notice the character starts spinning wildly or tilting in weird directions.
Usually, this happens because the AutoRotate property on the character's Humanoid is still turned on. If you're manually controlling the character's facing direction via the camera script, you should probably toggle Humanoid.AutoRotate to false. This gives you full control and prevents that weird "tug-of-war" between your script and the built-in physics.
Another thing: don't forget about mobile players! A script that relies entirely on mouse movement will leave mobile users staring at a static screen. You'll need to check for Touch inputs or use the Delta from ContextActionService to make sure your roblox studio camera script third person is playable for everyone.
Wrapping Things Up
At the end of the day, creating a roblox studio camera script third person is about finding the right balance between control and "feel." You can start with a basic script that just offsets the CFrame, and then slowly add features like Raycasting for wall collisions, Lerping for smoothness, and custom FOV changes for when the player is sprinting.
Don't be afraid to experiment with the numbers. Maybe your game feels better with a really wide FOV and a far-back camera, or maybe it needs a tight, claustrophobic view to build tension. The beauty of scripting it yourself is that you aren't stuck with whatever the default settings give you. Just keep testing, keep tweaking those offsets, and eventually, you'll hit that "sweet spot" where the camera feels like a natural extension of the player's movement. Happy coding!