// 2026.06.08

Grab, Teleport, Point — VR Interactions in Godot with XR Tools

10:00 JST

The Godot OpenXR starter gets a stereo view onto a Meta Quest 3 with a six-node rig — but at that point the scene is inert. There are no controllers you can grab with, no way to move, no UI you can point at. Godot XR Tools fills that gap. It’s a toolkit of prefab scenes — pickups, teleport, locomotion, a laser pointer, 2D-UI-in-3D — that you instance into your rig instead of writing interaction code by hand. This is the “now make it interactive” follow-up to the OpenXR article.

▸ github.com/GodotVR/godot-xr-tools · docs · MIT

What it is — and what it isn’t

Godot XR Tools is a community add-on maintained by the Godot XR team (Bastiaan Olij, Malcolm Nixon / the GodotVR org). It is not built into the engine — you install it through the Asset Library or a GitHub release. And it’s a scaffold, not a framework: a repository of ready-made scenes and classes that get you moving fast, not a finished interaction system. You will still write glue code.

One version note up front, because it bites teams: the latest tagged stable release is 4.5.1, whose stated minimum is Godot 4.4. There is no 4.6-specific tag yet — but the official godot-xr-template ships XR Tools 4.5.1 running on Godot 4.6 with Quest exports preconfigured. If you want the lowest-friction start, clone that template rather than wiring a project from scratch.

Install

In Godot 4.6, open the AssetLib tab, search “Godot XR Tools for Godot 4” (asset 1698), download, and import the addons/godot-xr-tools folder. Or grab the godot-xr-template, which already has the toolkit, the OpenXR vendor plugin, and Android/Quest export presets in place.

StartXR vs your manual init — pick one

The toolkit ships addons/godot-xr-tools/xr/start_xr.tscn, which brings up OpenXR (or WebXR) automatically — the same job the OpenXR article did by hand in a five-line _ready(). Don’t run both, or you double-initialize the runtime. If you’re continuing from that article, the lowest-friction move is to keep your manual init and just add the interaction scenes below. If you’re starting fresh, adopt start_xr.tscn and the toolkit’s staging system instead.

Locomotion: the player body + a movement provider

Add a movement provider to your XROrigin3D and the toolkit auto-adds an XRToolsPlayerBody that handles physics and ground collision. The minimum viable setup is Direct Movement (thumbstick glide) plus Turn (smooth or snap). The toolkit also ships glide, jump, climb, flight, grapple, crouch, and wind providers — layer them on the same player body as your design needs.

Grab: pickups, grab points, snap zones

  • Add an XRToolsFunctionPickup as a child of each XRController3D.
  • Make an object grabbable by inheriting a scene from objects/pickable.tscn, or attach the XRToolsPickable script to an existing RigidBody3D.
  • Optionally add grab points (with custom hand poses) so the object snaps to a natural grip, and an XRToolsSnapZone that holds a pickable in place — the basis for sockets, holsters, and “put the key in the lock” puzzles.

Teleport and pointer-driven UI

  • Instance the function_teleport scene under a hand controller and bind it to an action (trigger or grip) for arc-teleport locomotion.
  • For UI, add a Viewport2Din3D node and assign it a stock Godot 2D scene — buttons, sliders, a normal control layout. Add an XRToolsFunctionPointer to a controller and its laser drives that 2D viewport like a mouse. Note: out of the box the pointer is mainly for Viewport2Din3D panels; pointing at arbitrary 3D objects needs a StaticBody3D + collision shape and a little code.

A solid hackathon target: player rig with Direct Movement + Turn, one pickable cube, a teleport area, and a floating Viewport2Din3D menu you point at to start the demo. That’s a complete, native-feeling VR loop in an afternoon.

Caveats to plan around

  • Pin your versions. Every minor XR Tools bump has historically raised the minimum Godot version and shipped breaking changes (4.5.0 raised the floor to Godot 4.4). Pin a specific toolkit tag against a specific Godot patch — the template’s Godot 4.6 + XR Tools 4.5.1 combo is the known-good pairing — and don’t upgrade mid-event.
  • No 4.6-specific tag yet. 4.5.1 stable predates Godot 4.6 and its README still says minimum 4.4. It runs on 4.6 (the official template proves it), but treat that as “template-verified,” not “officially tagged.” Re-check the releases page at event time.
  • It’s GDScript. All interaction logic is GDScript, which matters on the standalone Quest’s mobile chip. The toolkit pre-caches shaders to avoid hitches, but heavy interaction scenes can still cost frames — profile on-device.
  • Hand tracking is the weak leg. XR Tools’ functions mostly assume controllers. Bridging OpenXR hand tracking into these interactions needs a separate add-on, GodotXRHandPoseDetector, which converts hand-tracker data into a virtual controller. Default to controllers unless hand tracking is the whole point of your build.
  • Scaffold, not framework. Expect to write glue — the pointer needs colliders and code to touch 3D objects, teleport needs its activation wired, pickables often need tuning. The toolkit removes the boilerplate, not the design work.

Questions? Reach the team via the Contact page.

// BACK TO NEWS