Input

Back to Lua 5.4.

What works in the editor's Play viewport

The editor forwards held keys to scripts while its Play viewport is hovered or focused. Click the game view once if another panel has focus. The forwarded names are KeyW, KeyA, KeyS, KeyD, ArrowUp, ArrowDown, ArrowLeft, ArrowRight, ShiftLeft, and ShiftRight. Either physical Shift key sets both Shift names because the editor currently receives a combined Shift modifier. For these names, rustic.key(name).held is true while the key is held and false after release or when the Play viewport loses keyboard focus. axis is 1 when held and 0 otherwise.

The rustic.key(name) result also has pressed and released fields, but the current Play bridge does not forward press/release edges. Those fields remain false. rustic.key_events() returns an empty list, and rustic.any_key_pressed() remains false. Named rustic.input("action") actions remain inactive. Other names, including Space, Escape, Digit1, and function keys, are not forwarded yet. Keyboard forwarding currently applies to the editor's embedded Play viewport; a separate New Window or Standalone runtime window does not send its keyboard events to scripts. Use .held with the names listed above for gameplay movement in this build.

Copyable top-down controller

1. In the editor, create a Lua 5.4 .lua Object Component Script. .luau uses a different adapter. If the file already exists, select the player object and attach it with + Add Component in the Inspector.
2. Replace the script contents with the example below. Keep return { ... } and use Start, not OnStart.
3. Start Play, hover or click the game viewport, then hold WASD or an arrow key. Hold Shift to sprint. The Console should show both startup messages.

local WALK_SPEED = 4.0
local SPRINT_SPEED = 7.0
local PLAYER_HEIGHT = 1.0

local function held(primary, alternate)
  return rustic.key(primary).held or rustic.key(alternate).held
end

return {
  Start = function()
    print("Character ready - use WASD or arrow keys to move")
    warn("Movement controller is running")
  end,

  FixedUpdate = function(dt)
    local horizontal = 0
    local vertical = 0
    if held("KeyA", "ArrowLeft") then horizontal = horizontal - 1 end
    if held("KeyD", "ArrowRight") then horizontal = horizontal + 1 end
    if held("KeyW", "ArrowUp") then vertical = vertical - 1 end
    if held("KeyS", "ArrowDown") then vertical = vertical + 1 end

    if horizontal == 0 and vertical == 0 then return end

    local length = math.sqrt(horizontal * horizontal + vertical * vertical)
    local speed = WALK_SPEED
    if held("ShiftLeft", "ShiftRight") then speed = SPRINT_SPEED end
    local x, _, z = rustic.get_translation()
    rustic.set_translation(
      x + horizontal / length * speed * dt,
      PLAYER_HEIGHT,
      z + vertical / length * speed * dt
    )
  end,
}

This moves the object carrying the component, not a player object found by name. Diagonal motion is normalized so it has the same speed as straight motion. PLAYER_HEIGHT is applied when movement starts; change it to match your scene. Make sure the active game camera can see the object and has enough room to show the translation.

If the startup messages are missing, check that the file is .lua, the script is attached and enabled, the callback is named Start, and Play actually started. If messages appear but movement does not, use the editor's embedded Play viewport, hover or click it, and try KeyW first. Check the Console for a script error: a failing callback is disabled until the script is fixed and reloaded or Play restarts.