TouchScript
A complete multi-touch gesture library for Unity that handles complex gesture interactions across iOS, Android, Windows, and TUIO platforms.
What is TouchScript?
TouchScript is a multi-touch library for Unity that provides a complete solution for handling complex gesture interactions across multiple platforms. It solves the problem of making gestures work together in complex scenarios, such as having interactive elements on zoomable surfaces, by abstracting touch logic from input methods and managing gesture hierarchies.
Unity developers creating applications for mobile devices, PCs with touch input, or interactive installations requiring robust multi-touch gesture handling.
Developers choose TouchScript because it provides a unified, platform-agnostic approach to multi-touch gestures with built-in common gestures, excellent gesture conflict resolution, and extensive testing tools—all available as free, open-source software under the MIT license.
Overview
Complete multi-touch solution for Unity: iOS, Android, Windows, TUIO.
Use Cases
Best For
- Building Unity applications with complex multi-touch gesture interactions
- Developing cross-platform touch applications for iOS, Android, and Windows
- Creating interactive installations with TUIO protocol support
- Implementing gesture-based interfaces without worrying about platform-specific touch APIs
- Testing multi-touch gestures on single-touch devices during development
- Adding professional-grade gesture recognition to Unity projects without reinventing the wheel
Not Ideal For
- Projects only needing basic mouse or single-touch input without complex gesture hierarchies
- Teams already deeply integrated with Unity's newer Input System or other touch frameworks
- Applications targeting non-touch platforms like VR or consoles
- Projects with extreme performance sensitivity where abstraction layers could impact frame rates
Pros & Cons
Pros
Abstracts input from mouse, Windows touch, iOS, Android, and TUIO, allowing developers to write consistent code across all devices, as highlighted in the README's platform abstraction feature.
Intelligently routes touch input in the transform hierarchy to the most relevant gesture, solving complex scenarios like buttons on zoomable windows, a core strength mentioned in the philosophy.
Includes common gestures like tap, pinch, and rotate, and supports writing custom gestures, providing flexibility for diverse touch interactions as detailed in the features.
Offers multi-touch simulation with Alt+click and mobile apps like TUIOPad, making it easy to test gestures without physical multi-touch devices, explicitly noted in the README's testing tools.
Cons
The gesture hierarchy and abstraction layers introduce a steeper learning curve and potential overhead compared to simpler, direct Unity input handling, which might slow down initial setup.
As a third-party library, it requires setting up prefabs like TouchManager and Cursors, and may not seamlessly integrate with Unity's latest input systems or updates, adding maintenance burden.
While documented, the library's community and maintenance might be smaller than official Unity assets, affecting long-term support, bug fixes, and compatibility with new Unity versions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
TouchKitGestures and input handling made sane for Unity
InControlAn input manager for Unity that tames the cross-platform controller beast.
InputBinderEasily bind input events to methods in Unity.
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