Pointer
Read pointer position, button state, scroll, pressure, and tilt from a mouse, trackpad, or pen tablet.
What it does
Pointer reads the mouse, trackpad or pen tablet live: cursor position, button states, scroll, pen pressure and pen tilt. Position is available three ways, as a 3D scene point where the cursor lands on the canvas (following pan and camera), in viewport pixels, or normalised 0–1 across the viewport. It also reports frame-to-frame velocity and a hovering flag.
Being a live input, its outputs update continuously. There is nothing to trigger or bake.
When to use it
Cursor-follow effects, paint tools and interactive masks reacting to where the pointer is
Click and drag state: Left/Middle/Right Button wired into a gate or switch
Scroll-driven values: zoom, scrub, or parameter dials tied to the wheel
Pressure- or tilt-sensitive work with a pen tablet
| Parameter | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
coordinate_space | String | "scene" |
Gotchas
Coordinate Space changes what
positionmeans.scene, the default, gives a 3D world point where the cursor ray meets the canvas, pan and camera aware;screenandnormalizedgive a flat 2D point in viewport pixels or 0–1 respectively. Switch away fromscenefor a downstream node that expects a 2D point.screen_positionis always viewport pixels regardless of Coordinate Space. Use it for pan-invariant screen coordinates alongside a scene-spaceposition.Pressure and Tilt come from a pen tablet. On a plain mouse, Pressure reads as pressed or not pressed (0 or 1) and Tilt stays at [0, 0].
hovering goes to 0 the moment the cursor leaves the viewport. Gate click or drag logic on it so effects do not fire from clicks elsewhere in the app.
Worked example
Add a Pointer node.
Wire
positioninto a shape or particle source to make it follow the cursor.Wire
left_buttoninto a gate so an effect only runs while the mouse is held down.For flat pixel coordinates instead of a 3D scene point, switch Coordinate Space to
screenornormalized.