Input Manager

The Input Manager window allows you to define input axes and their associated actions for your
Project. To access it, from Unity’s main menu, go to Edit > Project Settings, then select Input
Manager from the navigation on the right.

The Input Manager uses the following types of controls:

 Key refers to any key on a physical keyboard, such as W, Shift, or the space bar.
 Button refers to any button on a physical controller (for example, gamepads), such as the X
button on a remote control.
 A virtual axis (plural: axes) is mapped to a control, such as a button or a key. When the user
activates the control, the axis receives a value in the range of [–1..1]. You can use this value in
your scripts
.
Physical keys
The Physical keys option allows you to map key codes to the physical keyboard layout, rather than to the
language-specific layout that may vary between users in different regions.

For example, on some keyboards the first row of letters reads “QWERTY”, and on others it reads
“AZERTY”. This means if you scripted specific controls to use the well known “WASD” keys for
movement, they would not be in the correct physical arrangement (like the arrow-key arrangement) on
an AZERTY-layout keyboard.

With Physical Keys enabled, Unity uses a generic ANSI/ISO “Qwerty” layout to represent the physical
location of the keys regardless of the user’s actual layout. This means if you specify the “Q” key, it will
always be the left-most letter on the first row of letter keys, even if the user’s keyboard has a different
letter in that position.

Note, you should not read key input for in-game text input, because this will not allow users to enter
non-Latin characters. Instead, use Input.compositionString.

Virtual axes
Every Project you create has a number of input axes created by default. These axes enable you to use
keyboard, mouse, and joystick input in your Project straight away.

To see more about these axes, open the Input Manager window, and click the arrow next to any axis
name to expand its properties.

Each input axis has the following properties:

Property Function

Name Axis name. You can use this to access the axis from scripts.

Descriptive Name, Descriptive Negative Name These values are deprecated and do not work. Previously, they display
 Property Function

Negative Button, Positive Button The controls to push the axis in the negative and positive direction res

Alt Negative Button, Alt Positive Button Alternative controls to push the axis in the negative and positive direc

Gravity Speed in units per second that the axis falls toward neutral when no in

Dead How far the user needs to move an analog stick before your applicatio

Sensitivity Speed in units per second that the axis will move toward the target val

Snap If enabled, the axis value will reset to zero when pressing a button tha

Type The type of input that controls the axis. Select from these values:

- Key or Mouse button

- Mouse Movement
- Joystick Axis

Axis The axis of a connected device that controls this axis.

JoyNum The connected Joystick that controls this axis. You can select a specifi

Axis values can be:

 Between –1 and 1 for joystick and keyboard input. The neutral position for these axes is 0.
Some types of controls, such as buttons on a keyboard, aren’t sensitive to input intensity, so
they can’t produce values other than –1, 0, or 1.
 Mouse delta (how much the mouse has moved during the last frame) for mouse input. The
values for mouse input axes can be larger than 1 or smaller than –1 when the user moves the
mouse quickly.
Adding, removing, and copying virtual axes
To add a virtual axis, increase the number in the Size field. This creates a new axis at the bottom of the
list. The new axis copies the properties of the previous axis in the list.

To remove a virtual axis, you can either:

 Decrease the number in the Size field. This removes the last axis in the list.
 Right-click any axis, and select Delete Array Element.
Note: You can’t undo this action.
To copy a virtual axis, right-click it and select Duplicate Array Element.
Mapping virtual axes to controls
To map a key or button to an axis, enter its name in the Positive Button or Negative Button property in
the Input Manager.

Key names follow these naming conventions:

Key family Naming convention

Letter keys a, b, c…

Number keys 1, 2, 3…

Arrow keys up, down, left, right

Numpad keys [1], [2], [3], [+], [equals]…

Modifier keys right shift, left shift, right ctrl, left ctrl, right alt, left alt, ri

Special keys backspace, tab, return, escape, space, delete, enter, insert, home, end, pa

Function keys f1, f2, f3…

Mouse buttons are named mouse 0, mouse 1, mouse 2, and so on.

Joystick buttons follow these naming conventions:

Button origin Naming convention

A specific button on any joystick joystick button 0, joystic

A specific button on a specific joystick joystick 1 button 0, joyst

You can also query input for a specific key or button with Input.GetKey and the naming conventions
specified above. For example:

Input.GetKey("a");

Another way to access keys is to use the KeyCode enumeration.

Using virtual axes in scripts

To access virtual axes from scripts, you can use the axis name.

For example, to query the current value of the Horizontal axis and store it in a variable, you can
use Input.GetAxis like this:

float horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal");

For axes that describe an event rather than a movement (for example, firing a weapon in a game),
use Input.GetButtonDown instead.

If two or more axes have the same name, the query returns the axis with the largest absolute value. This
makes it possible to assign more than one input device to an axis name.

For example, you can create two axes named Horizontal and assign one to keyboard input and the other
to joystick input. If the user is using the joystick, input comes from the joystick and keyboard input is
null. Otherwise, input comes from the keyboard and joystick input is null. This enables you to write a
single script that covers input from multiple controllers.

Example

You can use input from the Horizontal and Vertical axes and the transform.Translate method to
move a GameObject
in XZ space (forward, back, left, or right). Add the following code to the update() method on a script
attached to the GameObject you want to move:

float moveSpeed = 10;

//Define the speed at which the object moves.

float horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");

//Get the value of the Horizontal input axis.

float verticalInput = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");

//Get the value of the Vertical input axis.

transform.Translate(new Vector3(horizontalInput, verticalInput, 0) *

moveSpeed * Time.deltaTime);
//Move the object to XYZ coordinates defined as horizontalInput, 0, and
verticalInput respectively.