If you've ever spent time playing a popular simulator, you know that a roblox pet following system script is essentially the backbone of the entire player experience. There's just something incredibly satisfying about hatching a shiny dragon or a blocky dog and having it float or waddle faithfully behind you as you explore a map. But if you've ever tried to build one yourself, you've probably realized it's not as simple as just telling a part to "stay near the player." If you do it wrong, the pet stutters, clips through the floor, or—even worse—flings the player into the stratosphere due to physics glitches.
Why Pet Systems Matter So Much
Let's be real: pets are a massive monetization and engagement tool. Players love collecting things. But from a developer's perspective, the "following" part is a technical challenge that requires a bit of finesse. You want the movement to feel fluid. It shouldn't feel like the pet is glued to your back, but it also shouldn't feel like it's on a five-second delay.
When people look for a roblox pet following system script, they're usually looking for a balance between performance and aesthetics. You want something that looks great on the client side but doesn't melt the server when fifty players each have three pets following them at once.
Choosing Your Method: Physics vs. CFraming
Before you start typing away in Studio, you have to decide how the pet is actually going to move. There are two main schools of thought here: Physics-based movement and CFrame-based movement.
The Physics Route (AlignPosition and AlignOrientation)
Modern Roblox development has moved away from the old BodyPosition and BodyGyro (which are now deprecated) toward Mover Constraints. Using AlignPosition and AlignOrientation is probably the "cleanest" way to handle a roblox pet following system script if you want the pet to interact naturally with the world.
The benefit here is that the pet will bump into walls or slide over terrain realistically. The downside? Physics can be wonky. If your pet's hitbox is too big, it might push the player around. You'll need to mess with CollisionGroups to make sure the pet doesn't collide with the player character, otherwise, you're going to have a bad time.
The CFrame/Lerping Route
Then there's the CFrame method. This is where you manually calculate where the pet should be every single frame using RunService.Heartbeat or RenderStepped. It's much more predictable. You can use Lerp (Linear Interpolation) to smoothly transition the pet from point A to point B. This is often the preferred method for "floating" pets because it's incredibly optimized and avoids the unpredictability of the physics engine.
Setting Up the Basic Logic
When you're writing your roblox pet following system script, the logic usually follows a simple loop. First, you need to find the player's position. Specifically, you're looking for the HumanoidRootPart.
You don't want the pet to occupy the exact same space as the player—that would look terrible. Instead, you calculate an offset. Maybe you want the pet two studs to the left and three studs behind. Once you have that target position, you tell the script to move the pet toward it.
A common mistake is updating the position too slowly. If you only update it every 0.1 seconds, the pet will look jittery. By using RunService, you're syncing the movement with the game's frame rate, which makes everything look buttery smooth.
Handling Multiple Pets
It's one thing to have a single dog following you, but what if a player equips five? You can't have them all trying to stand in the same spot behind the player's left shoulder. They'll just overlap into a weird, multi-headed monster.
To fix this in your roblox pet following system script, you need to implement a bit of math to space them out. Think of it like a circle or a formation. You can use sine and cosine functions to arrange the pets in a semi-circle behind the player. It sounds fancy, but it's basically just telling each pet: "Hey, find the player, then move back a bit, then shift left or right based on your index in the equipped list."
Optimization and Network Ownership
This is the part that trips up a lot of beginner devs. If the server is handling the movement of every single pet for every single player, the game is going to lag. Period.
The "pro" way to handle a roblox pet following system script is to give the player Network Ownership of their pets. This tells the server, "Hey, let the player's computer handle the physics for these specific objects."
Alternatively, you can handle the movement entirely on the client side. The server just tells everyone, "Player X has a Cat pet," and then every player's local script handles the actual movement of that cat. This keeps the server's workload light and ensures the player sees their own pet moving with zero latency.
Adding That Extra Polish
A pet that just slides along the floor is boring. To make your roblox pet following system script really stand out, you need to add some "juice."
- Bobbing Motion: If it's a floating pet, add a small sine wave to its Y-axis so it gently bobs up and down. It makes it feel much more alive.
- Tilting: When the player turns left, make the pet lean into the turn slightly.
- Animations: If the pet has legs, you'll need to trigger a walking animation when the player's velocity is above zero. You can check the
Humanoid.MoveDirectionor just the magnitude of theHumanoidRootPart.Velocityto decide when to play the walk cycle. - Raycasting: If you want your pet to stay on the ground, use a Raycast to find the floor's position directly beneath the pet. This prevents the pet from hovering awkwardly when the player walks up a ramp or a flight of stairs.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
I've seen a lot of scripts where the pet starts "shaking" when the player stands still. This usually happens because the pet is trying to reach a target position, overshoots it by a tiny fraction, and then tries to move back, creating a vibration effect. You can fix this by adding a "stop distance." Tell the script: "If the pet is within 0.5 studs of the target, just stop moving."
Another thing to watch out for is the pet getting stuck behind walls. If you're using a simple CFrame script, the pet will literally phase through a brick wall to get to you. While this is sometimes fine in simulators, it can look a bit cheap. Using a bit of pathfinding or raycasting to check for obstructions can elevate your game to a much higher quality level.
Wrapping Up
At the end of the day, a roblox pet following system script is about creating a companion that feels responsive and charming. Whether you go with a physics-based approach for realism or a CFrame-based approach for performance, the goal is the same: the player should forget they're looking at a scripted Part and feel like they actually have a little buddy tagging along.
It takes a bit of trial and error to get the damping and the offsets just right, but once you see your pets smoothly following a player across a vibrant map, it's all worth it. Just remember to keep your code organized, watch your server lag, and don't be afraid to experiment with different movement styles until you find the one that fits your game's vibe!