Skip to main content

UdonSharp

UdonSharp allows you to create Udon scripts in C#. UdonSharp is included in the VRChat worlds SDK and compiles your C# to Udon Assembly code.

  • Add helpful attributes to extend the functionality of your UdonSharp scripts.
  • Open the class exposure tree to see which C# classes and methods are available in UdonSharp.
  • Change your configuration to disable auto-compilation or change other settings.
  • Learn how to write custom editor scripts.
  • Learn how to migrate projects that use very old versions of UdonSharp.

How to create an UdonSharp script​

You can create an UdonSharp script the project window or the hierarchy window by following the steps below.

In the Project window​

  1. Right-click in your project's asset explorer.
  2. Navigate to "Create" > "U# script".
  3. Click "U# script". This will open a file creation dialog.
  4. Choose a name for your script and click "Save".
  5. This will create a .cs script file and an UdonSharp program asset that's set up for the script in the same directory.

In the Hierarchy window​

  1. Create a new game object in your scene.
  2. Add an Udon Behaviour component to the object.
  3. Below the "New Program" button click the dropdown and select "Udon C# Program Asset".
  4. Now click the "New Program" button. This will create a new UdonSharp program asset for you.
  5. Click the "Create Script" button and choose a save destination and name for the script.

When you create a new UdonSharp script, you end up with two files:

  • An "UdonSharp Program Asset" file. (You don't need to edit this file after creating it.)
  • A .cs file. It has the class UdonSharpBehaviour and looks like this:
using UdonSharp;
using UnityEngine;
using VRC.SDKBase;
using VRC.Udon;

public class YourScriptName : UdonSharpBehaviour
{
    void Start()
    {
        
    }
}

Edit the UdonSharpBehaviour in your editor of choice and start programming. You can add the UdonSharpBehaviour to any GameObject in your scene.

Supported C# Features​

UdonSharp support most of C#'s basic syntax:

  • Flow control: if, else, while, for, do, foreach, switch, return, break, continue, ternary operator (condition ? true : false), ??
  • Implicit and explicit type conversions
  • Arrays and array indexers
  • All built-in arithmetic operators
  • Conditional short circuiting (true || CheckIfTrue()) will not execute CheckIfTrue()
  • typeof()
  • Extern methods with out or ref parameters, such as many variants of Physics.Raycast()
  • User defined methods with parameters and return values, supports out/ref, extension methods, and params
  • User defined properties
  • Static user methods
  • UdonSharpBehaviour inheritence, virtual methods, etc
  • Unity/Udon event callbacks with arguments. For instance, registering an OnPlayerJoined event with a VRCPlayerApi argument is valid.
  • String interpolation
  • Field initializers
  • Jagged arrays
  • Referencing other custom UdonSharpBehaviour classes, accessing fields, and calling methods on them
  • Recursive method calls are supported via the [RecursiveMethod] attribute

Differences from Unity/C# Features​

UdonSharp is not conformant to any version of the C# language specification. Some C# features are not implemented or will not work.

  • For the best experience when creating UdonSharp scripts, make your scripts inherit from UdonSharpBehaviour instead of MonoBehaviour.
  • If you need to call GetComponent<UdonBehaviour>(), you will need to use (UdonBehaviour)GetComponent(typeof(UdonBehaviour)) since the generic get component is not exposed for UdonBehaviours yet. GetComponent<T>() works for other Unity component types though.
  • Udon currently only supports array [] collections. By extension, UdonSharp only supports arrays at the moment. List<T> is not supported yet.
  • Field initializers are evaluated at compile time. If you have any initialization logic that depends on other objects in the scene you should use Start.
  • Use the [UdonSynced] attribute on fields that you want to sync over the network for all players.
  • Numeric casts are checked for overflow due to UdonVM limitations.
  • The internal type of variables returned by .GetType() will not always match what you may expect since U# abstracts some types in order to make them work in Udon. For instance, any jagged array type will return a type of object[] instead of something like int[][] for a 2D int jagged array.

Example scripts​

The rotating cube demo​

This rotates the object that it's attached to by 90 degrees every second.

using UnityEngine;
using UdonSharp;

public class RotatingCubeBehaviour : UdonSharpBehaviour
{
    private void Update()
    {
        transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, 90f * Time.deltaTime);
    }
}

Other examples​

  • The VRChat Worlds SDK contains UdonSharp examples in Assets/UdonSharp/UtilityScripts.
    • These scripts can be safely deleted if they are not used.
  • For more example scripts, take a look at the GitHub wiki examples or the Examples folder included with U#.
  • Visit the VRChat Creator Hub to speak to other creators and see their examples.

Frequently asked questions​

Does UdonSharp support all Udon features?​

Yes. If Udon supports it, then so does UdonSharp. You can check the class exposure tree to see everything UdonSharp has access to.

Can I access the player camera?​

No, Udon can not access the player's camera. You can, however, get the head position and rotation. For example, you can use VRCPlayerApi.GetTrackingData like this:

var headPosition = localPlayer.GetTrackingData(TrackingDataType.Head).position

Can I have more than one UdonSharp UdonBehavior on a GameObject?​

Yes.

I'm starting from scratch and need to use C# tutorials. What common aspects of C# don't work in UdonSharp?​

If you are learning UdonSharp and not familiar with C# already, you may run across some commonly used techniques that don't work in Udon and UdonSharp yet. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Generic classes (Class<T>) and generic non-static methods,
  • Interfaces
  • Method overloads
  • Properties