Actions are Nodes, that execute a function, when they are called. Actions can be normal members of Nodes, which can be assigned in the editor or via code.

Typically, a Node would call an Action when an event happened. For instance a Node could process input and when a special input occurs, it calls the Action. Imagine a sword attack on button press:


OnSensor sensor: CombineSensor = CombineSensor "Sword Button" * onStart: Action = ActionList "On Sword Attack" * onActive: Action * onEnd: Action * onDouble: Action Inspector of the OnSensor Node. The highlighted members are Actions.

On Sword Attack is a special Action called ActionList. When this Action is triggered, it triggers all other direct child Actions in it's hierarchy.

So when the sword button pressed, the ActionList On Sword Attack executes Play Particles, Play Sound and the Collision Shape Sequence

OnSensor: Sword Button Interaction (OnSensor) ActionList: On Sword Attack PlayParticles: Play Particles PlaySound: Play Sound ActionSequence: Collision Shape Sequence Action: Activate Sword Collision Shape Delay: Keep Shape Active for 0.5 sec Action: Deactivate Sword Collision Shape Example scene hierarchy of nested actions. On Sword Attack does not need be a child of Sword Button Interaction, but it is easier to understand.

Actions are useful to separate logic from state changes/effects. Every time a game object does something purely as side effect, for instance as feedback, Actions are a good fit. This includes visual fx and audio fx, but also tweens and async sequences to animate things.

Another use case can be simple state changes, like opening a door or loading the next level, marking something as complete. A key rule is that the purpose should become clear by just looking on the scene hierarchy and good labels for the actions. In the example below, almost every body should be able to understand what will happen, without knowing the implementation details.

Do not implement logic with Actions. Although they can manage states, logic should be done in code or other tools. However, you should use Actions to provide blocks that change the state for the logic.

Some other pit fal when using Actions is the possibility to make too many indirections for the targets of the performant action. Sometimes you have to use abstract/run-time references, but ideally it would be resolved early, so that is clear, what an Action does.

GOOD EXAMPLE CharacterBody3D: Enemy ActionList: On Hit Actions Flash: White Blinking PlaySound: Play Death Sound PlayParticles: Animate Death Cloud ActionSequence: Removal Hook SetPhysicsState: Disable Physics Delay: Wait a bit for the fx RemoveNode: Remove Enemy Root Node from Scene

BAD, DON'T DO THIS! Action: Complex State Change ActionList: Unnamed action list Action: Set Manager Variable Action: Increment Variable ActionReference: * On Increment Action: On Increment ConditionalAction: If Recursive ActionReference: * Unnamed action list

Actions are created in the scene hierarchy and than assigned by dragging an Action to a Node.

Adding actions to a node is straight forward by adding an Action member and calling the Trigger method of the Action.

C#: using Godot; using Rokojori; [Tool, GlobalClass] public partial class MyLogic:Node { [Export] public Action onSomethingHappened; public override void _Process( double delta ) { if ( SomethingHappend() ) { onSomethingHappened.Trigger(); } } }

GDScript: @tool class_name MyLogic extends Node @export var onSomethingHappened: Action; func _process( delta: float ) -> void: if something_happened(): onSomethingHappened.Trigger(); ## ---

Actions can be found in the Scene Hierarchy with Add Child Node... and then searching for Actions. They usually have a yellow icon, often a star. Here some examples:

ActionList ActionSequence Parallel Repeat PlayParticles PlaySound PlayMusic RemoveNode

The Rokojori documentation has filters to check for various types, there's also one for all Actions and for special ones. Here are some examples of the Animation filter:

Highlight PlayCameraEffect Flash TweenAudio TweenLight TweenMaterial TweenParticles TweenPosition

You can write custom Actions by extending the Action class and implementing the function _OnTrigger, which is called when the action is triggered.

There's also a dedicated page with code examples: How to Write Custom Actions