Explorer and asset management

Prerequisites: a writable project and an existing asset file. Stop Play before reorganising project files. Switch Project → Explorer to browse directories; Filter matches names and project-relative paths.

Import a model

1. Copy the model and its companion files into the project with your operating system's file manager. Keep glTF buffers/textures and OBJ dependencies in their required relative locations.
2. Find the model in Explorer. The viewport accepts .obj, .gltf, .glb and .fbx model drops.
3. Click the file once to highlight it, then press and hold on its highlighted name and drag it into the authoring viewport. The editor imports it, creates/reads its .rmeta sidecar and uses its Asset ID for scene instances.
4. Inspect the created object, save the scene and check Console for import errors.

Expected result: an imported model appears as a scene object. A recognised extension alone does not guarantee that every file variant is supported. Keep the original source and metadata together; regenerating metadata may change identity.

Files and scripts

The project separates assets, scenes, scripts, ui/ Web assets, and configuration. Programming → Object Component Script creates and registers a script for the selected object; global and scene startup scopes also exist. Existing registered scripts can be attached through Programming → Attach Existing Script or Inspector. Right-click a script and choose Open to launch the external editor. Right-click (or two-finger click on a trackpad) offers Set As → Global Startup Script, Scene Startup Script, or Object Component Script. Select the target scene object first to enable Object Component Script. See the scripting guides for each language's setup, including Luau registration and optional external runtimes.

Rename, move, copy, cut and delete

Click an Explorer file or folder name once to highlight it. Double-click the name to edit it inline. Press Enter or click elsewhere to save; Escape cancels. Use a single filename, including its extension. Empty names, path separators and existing names are rejected; Console explains the failure. Scene-tab selection and rename controls keep their existing behavior.

Shift-click adds files or folders to the selection. Holding Shift and the primary mouse button while moving over names also adds those items. Ctrl-click highlights the visible range between the last highlighted item and the new item, including both ends. The range follows the tree's displayed order and skips collapsed/filtered entries. Ctrl+Shift adds that range to the existing selection.

Hovering does not start a move. To drag, the item must already be highlighted before you press and hold on its name. Pressing and holding on an unhighlighted item highlights it; that press cannot start a drag. Release, then press and drag the highlighted name. Dragging a highlighted item moves the highlighted group to the destination folder or project root. Shift/Ctrl selection gestures do not start drags. A folder's arrow expands or collapses it. A selected folder and its selected descendants are moved/copied as one subtree.

Press Ctrl+C to copy highlighted items. Highlight a destination folder and press Ctrl+V to paste. If several folders are highlighted, each receives a copy of every copied item. This includes nested selected destinations. Without a selected folder, Paste uses the last selected file's containing folder, or the project root when the selection is empty. The editor also accepts Command+C/V on macOS. Shortcuts apply while Explorer has focus; a focused rename/filter text field uses normal text copy/paste. Copies remain in the clipboard for repeated Paste and get numbered names on collisions.

Right-click an item, or use a two-finger trackpad click, for Copy, Cut, Paste, Delete, and file Open. Copy/Cut/Delete uses the highlighted group when the clicked item is highlighted; otherwise the clicked item becomes the selection. Menu Paste on a folder uses that folder, and Paste on a file uses its containing folder. Right-click empty tree space for Paste at Project Root. Cut leaves sources in place until a successful Paste and accepts a single destination folder; use Copy for multiple destinations. A batch reports individual failures in Console and refreshes completed operations. Delete moves entries into .rustic/trash/<identifier>/; recover them with your operating system's file manager. The engine-owned .rustic directory is hidden from Explorer, including generated files and recovery trash. Scene Undo does not undo filesystem actions.

Select one model or script at a time for viewport drops; grouped drags organize files within Explorer.

These controls require a writable project and stopped Play. Moves and renames keep a file's .rmeta sidecar alongside it. Copies omit .rmeta so a new asset identity can be assigned on import or script registration. Manifest paths, scene references and companion-file links are not rewritten. Update affected references before Play; copied scripts must be registered using the script scope commands. A folder copy does not rewrite references within its files. Operations reject traversal, symbolic links, missing destinations, move collisions and moving/copying a folder into itself. A dangling destination symlink or an existing destination .rmeta also blocks a move or rename, even when the source has no metadata; inspect the destination with your file manager and resolve the conflict before retrying. Do not reuse orphaned metadata for an unrelated asset.

Successful Explorer file operations reload imported models and refresh the viewport. Moving or renaming a model to another supported model extension preserves its Asset ID through the sidecar. Deleting a model or changing its extension to an unsupported one removes its cached geometry from rendering and picking; the scene object remains with its unresolved asset reference. Restore the source and sidecar to a supported path, then restart the editor or perform another Explorer file operation to reload it.

World/Local space applies to scene transforms: switch to Project → Scene, right-click the object and choose Use World Space or Use Local Space. This changes the active transform gizmo axes without changing the object's transform.

Known limitations and diagnosis

• .rmeta entries and generated/build/cache directories are filtered from the tree; a hidden entry is not necessarily missing from disk.
• For missing files, check the project-relative path and filename case, then dependent buffers/textures.
• For importer failures, inspect Console and the asset pipeline limitations.
• For attachment failures, check config/scripts.ron, scope, language and toolchain; copying a script into a folder alone does not register it.

Related: Inspector, Playtesting.