This section of the Unity User Manual provides information about all of the Unity-supported input devices for virtual reality, augmented reality, and Windows Mixed Reality applications. This page covers the following topics:
XR platforms have a rich variety of input features that you can take advantage of when you design user interactions. Your application can use specific data that references positions, rotations, touch, buttons, joysticks, and finger sensors. However, access to these input features can vary a lot between platforms. For instance, there are small differences between the Vive and the Oculus Rift, but a VR-enabled desktop platform and a mobile platform like Daydream differ a lot more.
Unity provides a C# struct called InputFeatureUsage, which defines a standard set of physical device controls (such as buttons and triggers) to access user input on any platform. These help you identify input types by name. See XR.Input.CommonUsages for a definition of each InputFeatureUsage
.
Each InputFeatureUsage
corresponds to a common input action or type. For example, Unity defines the InputFeatureUsage
called trigger
as a single-axis input that the index finger controls, regardless of which XR platform you use. You can use InputFeatureUsage
to get the trigger
state using its name, so you don’t need to set up an axis (or a button on some XR platforms) for the conventional Unity Input system.
The following table lists the standard controller InputFeatureUsage
names and how they map to the controllers of popular XR systems:
InputFeatureUsage | Feature type | Legacy input index (left controller/right controller) | WMR | Oculus | GearVR | Daydream | OpenVR (Full) | Vive | Oculus via OpenVR | WMR via OpenVR | Magic Leap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
primary2DAxis | 2D axis | [(1,2)/(4,5)] | Touchpad | Joystick | Touchpad | Touchpad | Trackpad/Joystick | Trackpad | Joystick | Joystick | Touchpad |
trigger | Axis | [9/10] | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger | Trigger |
grip | Axis | [11/12] | Grip | Grip | Bumper | Grip | Grip | Grip | Grip | Bumper | |
secondary2DAxis | 2D axis | [(17,18)/(19,20)] | Joystick | Touchpad | |||||||
secondary2DAxisClick | Button | [18/19] | Joystick - Click | ||||||||
primaryButton | Button | [2/0] | [X/A] - Press | App | Primary | Primary (sandwich button)(1) | Primary (Y/B) | Menu | Menu | ||
primaryTouch | Button | [12/10] | [X/A] - Touch | ||||||||
secondaryButton | Button | [3/1] | [Y/B] - Press | Alternate | Alternate (X/A) | ||||||
secondaryTouch | Button | [13/11] | [Y/B] - Touch | ||||||||
gripButton | Button | [4/5] | Grip - Press | Grip - Press | Grip - Press | Grip - Press | Grip - Press | Grip - Press | Bumper - Press | ||
triggerButton | Button | [14/15] | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Touch | Trigger - Press | Trigger - Press |
menuButton | Button | [6/7] | Menu | Start (left controller only) | |||||||
primary2DAxisClick | Button | [8/9] | Touchpad - Click | Thumbstick - Press | Touchpad - Press | Touchpad - Press | Trackpad/Joystick - Press | Trackpad - Press | Joystick - Press | Touchpad - Press | |
primary2DAxisTouch | Button | [16/17] | Touchpad - Touch | Thumbstick - Touch | Touchpad - Touch | Touchpad - Touch | Trackpad/Joystick - Touch | Trackpad - Touch | Joystick - Touch | Touchpad - Touch | Touchpad - Touch |
batteryLevel | Axis | Battery level | |||||||||
userPresence | Button | User presence | User presence |
(1) Sandwich button refers to the Vive menu button. This button is mapped to primaryButton, rather than menuButton, in order to better handle cross-platform applications.
See XR.Input.CommonUsages for a definition of each InputFeatureUsage
.
An InputDevice represents any physical device, such as a controller, mobile phone, or headset. It can contain information about device tracking, buttons, joysticks, and other input controls. For more information on the InputDevice
API, see documentation on InputDevice.
Use the XR.InputDevices class to access input devices that are currently connected to the XR system. To get a list of all connected devices, use InputDevices.GetDevices:
var inputDevices = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice>();
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevices.GetDevices(inputDevices);
foreach (var device in inputDevices)
{
Debug.Log(string.Format("Device found with name '{0}' and role '{1}'", device.name, device.role.ToString()));
}
An input device remains valid across frames until the XR system disconnects it. Use the InputDevice.IsValid property to determine whether an InputDevice
still represents an active controller.
You can access input devices by:
Device characteristics describe what a device is capable of, or what it’s used for (for example, whether it is head-mounted). The InputDeviceCharacteristics is a series of flags you can add to your code to search for devices that fit a certain specification. You can filter devices by the following characteristics:
Device | Characteristic |
---|---|
HeadMounted | The device is attached to the user’s head. It has device tracking and center eye tracking. This flag is most commonly used to identify head-mounted displays (HMDs). |
CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info See in Glossary |
The device has camera tracking. |
HeldInHand | The user holds the device in their hand. |
HandTracking | The device represents a physically-tracked hand. It has device tracking, and might contain hand and bone data. |
EyeTracking | The device can perform eye tracking and has an EyesData feature. |
TrackedDevice | The device can be tracked in 3D space. It has device tracking. |
Controller | The device has input data for buttons and axes, and can be used as a controller. |
TrackingReference | The device represents a static tracking reference object. It has device tracking, but that tracking data shouldn’t change. |
Left | Use this characteristic in combination with the HeldInHand or HandTracking characteristics to identify the device as associated with the left hand. |
Right | Use this characteristic in combination with the HeldInHand or HandTracking characteristics to identify the device as associated with the right hand. |
Simulated6DOF | The device reports 6DOF data, but only has 3DOF sensors. Unity simulates the positional data. |
The underlying XR SDK reports these characteristics. You can look them up with InputDevice.Characteristics. A device can, and often should, have multiple characteristics that you can filter and access with bit flags.
InputDevices.GetDevicesWithCharacteristics provides a way to search for all devices with a given set of characteristics. For example, you can search for Left, HeldInHand, Controller InputDevices available in the system with the following code:
var leftHandedControllers = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice>();
var desiredCharacteristics = UnityEngine.XR.InputDeviceCharacteristics.HeldInHand | UnityEngine.XR.InputDeviceCharacteristics.Left | UnityEngine.XR.InputDeviceCharacteristics.Controller;
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevices.GetDevicesWithCharacteristics(desiredCharacteristics, leftHandedControllers);
foreach (var device in leftHandedControllers)
{
Debug.Log(string.Format("Device name '{0}' has characteristics '{1}'", device.name, device.characteristics.ToString()));
}
Devices this function finds contain at least the characteristics specified, but might contain additional characteristics. For example, to find a left handed controller you can look for InputDeviceCharacteristic.Left only, and not InputDeviceCharacteristic.Controller.
A device role describes the general function of an input device. Use the InputDeviceRole enumeration to specify a device role. The defined roles are:
Role | Description |
---|---|
GameController | A console-style game controllerA device to control objects and characters in a game. See in Glossary. |
Generic | A device that represents the core XR device, such as a head-mounted display or mobile device. |
HardwareTracker | A tracking device. |
LeftHanded | A device associated with the user’s left hand. |
RightHanded | A device associated with the user’s right hand. |
TrackingReference | A device that tracks other devices, such as an Oculus tracking camera. |
The underlying XR SDK reports these roles, but different providers might organize their device roles differently. Additionally, a user can switch hands, so the role assignment might not match the hand in which the user holds the input device. For example, a user must set up the Daydream controller as right or left-handed, but can choose to hold the controller in their opposite hand.
GetDevicesWithRole provides a list of any devices with a specific InputDeviceRole
. For example, you can use InputDeviceRole.GameController
to get any connected GameController
devices:
var gameControllers = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice>();
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevices.GetDevicesWithRole(UnityEngine.XR.InputDeviceRole.GameController, gameControllers);
foreach (var device in gameControllers)
{
Debug.Log(string.Format("Device name '{0}' has role '{1}'", device.name, device.role.ToString()));
}
XR nodes represent the physical points of reference in the XR system (for example, the user’s head position, their right and left hands, or a tracking reference such as an Oculus camera).
The XRNode enumeration defines the following nodes:
XR node | Description |
---|---|
CenterEye | A point midway between the pupils of the user’s eyes. |
GameController | A console-style game controller. Your app can have multiple game controller devices. |
HardwareTracker | A hardware tracking device, typically attached to the user or a physical item. Multiple hardware tracker nodes can exist. |
Head | The center point of the user’s head, as calculated by the XR system. |
LeftEye | The user’s left eye. |
LeftHand | The user’s left hand. |
RightEye | The user’s right eye. |
RightHand | The user’s right hand. |
TrackingReference | A tracking reference point, such as the Oculus camera. Multiple tracking reference nodes can exist. |
Use InputDevices.GetDevicesAtXRNode to get a list of devices associated with a specific XRNode
. The following example demonstrates how to get a left-handed controller:
var leftHandDevices = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice>();
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevices.GetDevicesAtXRNode(UnityEngine.XR.XRNode.LeftHand, leftHandDevices);
if(leftHandDevices.Count == 1)
{
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice device = leftHandDevices[0];
Debug.Log(string.Format("Device name '{0}' with role '{1}'", device.name, device.role.ToString()));
}
else if(leftHandDevices.Count > 1)
{
Debug.Log("Found more than one left hand!");
}
Input devices are consistent from frame to frame, but can connect or disconnect at any time. To avoid repeatedly checking if a device is connected to the platform, use InputDevices.deviceConnected and InputDevices.deviceDisconnected to notify your application when a device connects or disconnects. These also provide you with a reference to the newly connected input device.
Since you can retain these references over multiple frames, a device might disconnect, or is otherwise no longer available. To check if a device’s inputs are still available, use InputDevice.isValid. ScriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info
See in Glossary that access input devices should check this at the start of each frame before they attempt to use that device.
You can read an input feature, such as the state of a trigger button, from a specific InputDevice. For example, to read the state of the right trigger, follow these steps:
TryGetFeatureValue()
attempts to access the current value of a feature, and returns:
To get a particular button, touch input, or joystick axis value, use the CommonUsages class. CommonUsages
includes each InputFeatureUsage
in the XR input mapping table, as well as tracking features like position and rotation. The following code example uses CommonUsages.triggerButton to detect whether the user is currently pressing the trigger button on a particular InputDevice
instance:
bool triggerValue;
if (device.TryGetFeatureValue(UnityEngine.XR.CommonUsages.triggerButton, out triggerValue) && triggerValue)
{
Debug.Log("Trigger button is pressed.");
}
You can also use the InputDevice.TryGetFeatureUsages method to get a list of every InputFeatureUsage
that a device provides. This function returns a list of InputFeatureUsage items, which have a type and a name property that describes the feature. The following example enumerates all of the Boolean features that a given input device provides:
var inputFeatures = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputFeatureUsage>();
if (device.TryGetFeatureUsages(inputFeatures))
{
foreach (var feature in inputFeatures)
{
if (feature.type == typeof(bool))
{
bool featureValue;
if (device.TryGetFeatureValue(feature.As<bool>(), out featureValue))
{
Debug.Log(string.Format("Bool feature {0}'s value is {1}", feature.name, featureValue.ToString()));
}
}
}
}
Different controller configurations provide access to different features. For example, you might have multiple controllers on one system, different controllers on different systems, or different buttons on the same controllers with different SDKs. This diversity makes it more complicated to support input from a range of XR systems. The Unity InputFeatureUsage
API helps you get input that isn’t platform-dependent.
The following example accesses the InputFeatureUsage
called primaryButton
, no matter which controller or input device provides it. The example includes a class that scans the available devices for the primaryButton
as they connect. The class monitors the value of the feature on any connected device and, if the value changes, the class dispatches a UnityEvent.
To use this class, add it as a component to any GameObjectThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary in the SceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary. For example:
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.Events;
using UnityEngine.XR;
[System.Serializable]
public class PrimaryButtonEvent : UnityEvent<bool> { }
public class PrimaryButtonWatcher : MonoBehaviour
{
public PrimaryButtonEvent primaryButtonPress;
private bool lastButtonState = false;
private List<InputDevice> devicesWithPrimaryButton;
private void Awake()
{
if (primaryButtonPress == null)
{
primaryButtonPress = new PrimaryButtonEvent();
}
devicesWithPrimaryButton = new List<InputDevice>();
}
void OnEnable()
{
List<InputDevice> allDevices = new List<InputDevice>();
InputDevices.GetDevices(allDevices);
foreach(InputDevice device in allDevices)
InputDevices_deviceConnected(device);
InputDevices.deviceConnected += InputDevices_deviceConnected;
InputDevices.deviceDisconnected += InputDevices_deviceDisconnected;
}
private void OnDisable()
{
InputDevices.deviceConnected -= InputDevices_deviceConnected;
InputDevices.deviceDisconnected -= InputDevices_deviceDisconnected;
devicesWithPrimaryButton.Clear();
}
private void InputDevices_deviceConnected(InputDevice device)
{
bool discardedValue;
if (device.TryGetFeatureValue(CommonUsages.primaryButton, out discardedValue))
{
devicesWithPrimaryButton.Add(device); // Add any devices that have a primary button.
}
}
private void InputDevices_deviceDisconnected(InputDevice device)
{
if (devicesWithPrimaryButton.Contains(device))
devicesWithPrimaryButton.Remove(device);
}
void Update()
{
bool tempState = false;
foreach (var device in devicesWithPrimaryButton)
{
bool primaryButtonState = false;
tempState = device.TryGetFeatureValue(CommonUsages.primaryButton, out primaryButtonState) // did get a value
&& primaryButtonState // the value we got
|| tempState; // cumulative result from other controllers
}
if (tempState != lastButtonState) // Button state changed since last frame
{
primaryButtonPress.Invoke(tempState);
lastButtonState = tempState;
}
}
}
The following PrimaryReactor
class uses the PrimaryButtonWatcher
to detect when you press a primary button and, in response to a press, rotates its parent GameObject. To use this class, add it to a visible GameObject, such as a Cube, and drag the PrimaryButtonWatcher
reference to the Watcher property.
using System.Collections;
using UnityEngine;
public class PrimaryReactor : MonoBehaviour
{
public PrimaryButtonWatcher watcher;
public bool IsPressed = false; // used to display button state in the Unity Inspector window
public Vector3 rotationAngle = new Vector3(45, 45, 45);
public float rotationDuration = 0.25f; // seconds
private Quaternion offRotation;
private Quaternion onRotation;
private Coroutine rotator;
void Start()
{
watcher.primaryButtonPress.AddListener(onPrimaryButtonEvent);
offRotation = this.transform.rotation;
onRotation = Quaternion.Euler(rotationAngle) * offRotation;
}
public void onPrimaryButtonEvent(bool pressed)
{
IsPressed = pressed;
if (rotator != null)
StopCoroutine(rotator);
if (pressed)
rotator = StartCoroutine(AnimateRotation(this.transform.rotation, onRotation));
else
rotator = StartCoroutine(AnimateRotation(this.transform.rotation, offRotation));
}
private IEnumerator AnimateRotation(Quaternion fromRotation, Quaternion toRotation)
{
float t = 0;
while (t < rotationDuration)
{
transform.rotation = Quaternion.Lerp(fromRotation, toRotation, t / rotationDuration);
t += Time.deltaTime;
yield return null;
}
}
}
InputDevices support hand-tracking devices. A hand-tracking device always:
Hand-tracking data consists of a Hand object and a series of up to 21 Bone input features. Each Bone has a position and orientation, as well as references to both its parent and any child bones in the hierarchy. The Hand object can get either the root bone, or a list of bones for each individual finger.
When Hand.TryGetRootBone gets the root bone, it retrieves an object that represents a bone located just above the wrist. You can also get a list of bones that represents each individual finger. Calling Hand.TryGetFingerBones returns a list, from knuckle to tip, of the bones that represents that finger.
Input devices support eye-tracking devices, as well as hand-tracking devices. Eye-tracking consists of the left and right eye positions, the location in 3D space where the user is looking, and the amount that each individual eye is blinking. Its data type is Eyes. To retrieve it from a device, use CommonUsages.eyesData.
Unity provides two input systems: the legacy input system, and the XR plugin architecture introduced in 2019.2. In the new setup, each InputDevice is associated with an XRInputSubsystem. These subsystem objects control global input behavior that isn’t associated with any specific input device (for example, managing the tracking origin, or recentering tracked devices).
Each InputDevice contains a reference to its associated subsystem. This reference is null if the device comes from an integrated platform. You can also get all active XRInputSubsystem objects with SubsystemManager.GetInstances<XRInputSubsystem>, and each XRInputSubsystem can get its devices with XRInputSubsystem.TryGetInputDevices.
You can use the Input Subsystem to recenter devices with UnityEngine.XR.XRInputSubsystem. Recenter sets the current position of the HMD as the new origin for all devices. It returns false for devices that can’t be recentered, or if the platform doesn’t support recentering.
To retrieve the tracking boundary, use TryGetBoundaryPoints. This consists of a series of clockwise-ordered 3D points, where the y-value is at floor level, and they mark out the user-specified ‘safe zone’ to place content and interactions. You can listen for changes to this boundary with XRInputSubsystem.boundaryChanged.
The XRInputSubsystem is also responsible for the tracking origin mode, which provides context for where the origin of the tracking world is. Unity supports the following tracking origin modes:
There are three APIs you can use to manage the tracking origin mode:
You can still use the legacy input system, consisting of Input and XR.InputTracking, to retrieve XR input features. To do this, use the appropriate legacy input indices from the XR input mappings table on this page. In the Input section of the Player SettingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info
See in Glossary (menu: Edit > Project SettingsA broad collection of settings which allow you to configure how Physics, Audio, Networking, Graphics, Input and many other areas of your project behave. More info
See in Glossary > Input), create an axis mapping to add the appropriate mapping from input name to axis index for the platform device’s feature. To retrieve the button or axis value, use Input.GetAxis or Input.GetButton and pass in the now-mapped axis or button name.
For more information about how to use the button and joystick axes, see documentation on the InputManager.
You can send haptic events to an InputDevice. Haptics take on the form of an impulse, with an amplitude and duration.
Not all platforms support all types of haptics, but you can query a device for haptic capabilities. The following example gets an input device for the right hand, checks to see if the device is capable of haptics, and then plays back an impulse if it’s capable:
List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice> devices = new List<UnityEngine.XR.InputDevice>();
UnityEngine.XR.InputDevices.GetDevicesWithRole(UnityEngine.XR.InputDeviceRole.RightHanded, devices);
foreach (var device in devices)
{
UnityEngine.XR.HapticCapabilities capabilities;
if (device.TryGetHapticCapabilities(out capabilities))
{
if (capabilities.supportsImpulse)
{
uint channel = 0;
float amplitude = 0.5f;
float duration = 1.0f;
device.SendHapticImpulse(channel, amplitude, duration);
}
}
}