Moving platforms

In this mini-guide we will make platforms move smoothly from side to side in a sinusoidal motion.

We’re building on the work in Godot Quick Start - 3D Platformer, but the instructions and script should work for similar types of 3D scenes in Godot 4.

• Select the platform you want to make moving
• Click the Attach Script button

• Update the name of the script (in Path)
  • For example scripts/moving_platform.gd
• Press Create

• Replace the new script with this code:

extends Node3D

var time := 0.0
@export var time_offset := 0.0
@export var distance := 2.0
@export var distance_offset := 0.0
@export var speed := 2.0

@onready var startpos := position

func _process(delta):
	# Sine movement
	position = startpos
	position.x += cos((time + time_offset) * speed/distance) * distance + distance_offset

	time += delta

• Try your changes. The platform with the script should have started moving.
• You can adjust the distance, speed etc. with the properties we added with the @export vars in the script.

Now, there is just one problem. The player doesn’t move with the platform!! 😢

This is fortunately quite easy to fix: Just change the body type from StaticBody3D to CharacterBody3D:

• Click the Open in Editor icon on the platform

• Right click the StaticBody3D node

• Find the CharacterBody3D type

• Press Change

• Switch back to the scene that contains your moving platform and try again.

To make additional platforms moving, you just need to attach the same script to the platform nodes:

• Drag moving_platform.gd from FileSystem onto additional platform nodes.

💡 In the example video above, I’ve set a different value for the Time Offset property on each platform so they move out of sync.

Now, you can extend the script to support other types of movements, or make separate scripts for each type of movement. I leave you with a few ideas:

• Up-down motion - just change y instead of x of position
• Rotation instead of moving
• Harder: Move between two points. Either specify the two points using coordinates, or maybe use an @export var Path

Have fun!