Triggers

Triggers in Geometry Dash are special objects in the level editor that are used to change the surrounding objects and some standards of the levels state, color, X/Y position, in custom player-made levels, mostly introduced in Update 2.0. There are twenty-one different types of them: color, move, pulse, toggle, spawn, secondary trail (unofficial name), transition (unofficial name), stop, rotation, follow, follow player, shake, animation, touch-toggle, count, instant count, pickup, collision, on-death, show (player), hide (Player), background effect on, and background effect off. Triggers can be selected in the 12th tab, which is represented by a currently non-existent background trigger. All but the 'Start Pos" 'trigger' are used in levels as a effect trigger.

How to Use
Color Triggers= Color triggers can color the background, ground, ground 2, line, the default outline of hitboxes on objects, 3DL, and any color that is used in decoration, indicated by BG, G1, G2, Line, Obj, and 3DL, respectively.

To change a color using a color trigger, press the Edit Object button at the right of the screen. A screen titled "Select Color" will pop up. The color circles in the middle are used to change the color. The outer circle selects the hue, while the inner circle dominates the tone and value. The fade time is the amount of time it will take to fade from the previous color to the one the player are currently selecting. The player can use the slide bar beneath it to change it or type the number in. The time value ranges from 0.00 to 10.00 seconds but can be set for more than that manually. The Player Color 1 checkbox and the Player Color 2 checkbox make the trigger ignore the colour circles, and will then change the color to the player's primary/secondary colour, for whoever plays the level. The Copy and Paste buttons in the top-right copies the colour currently displayed, which then can be pasted into another color trigger. The Copy Color option allows the player to take any other channel and change its hue, saturation, or brightness. It will also cause the channel to change with its source. The Copy Opacity option will cause the channel to have the same opacity value as its source. Touch trigger and Spawn Trigger will be discussed further down on this page.

These next few features only appear in the Col, Line, and 3DL colour triggers. In the right side of the screen, there is an opacity slider which determines how transparent/opaque the colour is. Similar to it is the Blending option, which allows the colour to stack with others, with darker colours being more transparent.

Move Trigger= Move triggers are triggers that move certain groups of objects around in a level. To use this the player will have to know how to group objects under a specific group.

Once the player has given the group of objects a group ID, they may open the "Edit Object" menu while the move trigger is selected. The player will get a Move X input, a Move Y input, 2 checkboxes labelled "Lock to player X/Y", an Easing option, a moving time, a target Group ID, and the touch-triggered and spawn-triggered checkboxes.

The Target Group ID controls which group of objects the player are currently going to be moving. Set the number equal to the number of the group that the player want to move. The player can then change the Move X and the Move Y to control the amount of movement the group will move. Putting a 10 into the X will move the group 1 unit right. Putting a 1 in the X will not move the group 1 unit right, but rather 1/10 of a unit. If X is positive the group moves right. If X is negative, the group will move left. If Y is positive the group will move upwards, and if Y is negative, the group will move downwards. The player can put a number in for both X and Y to make it move diagonally. The slider allows movement from -100 to 100, but the actual range is -9999 to 99999, as the player can input 5-digit integers outside that range.

The "Lock to Player X/Y" checkboxes will ignore the number inputted above them and will instead move the group perfectly to any move the player makes. It will look like the object is moving at the same speed of the player, or is just not moving at all depending on how much of the level the player see. Applying two locking to player X's will make the objects move twice the speed of the player, and if enough objects are in the group and they are used correctly, can make it seem like the player is moving backwards through the level.

The easing controls the distribution of movement across time. Some are easy to understand, such as “bounce”, but others are not as straightforward and if used creatively can achieve special effects (for example, the sine easing allows circular motion of objects).

The move time controls how long it will take to complete the movement. As soon as that much time has elapsed, the group will be at the target destination and will stop moving, unless there is another move trigger. Similar to color triggers, the time range is from 0.00s to 10.00s and can be set for more than that manually.

Triggers and speed portals can only be moved vertically. Form portals' grids will not move with the portals, making it possible to make an offset of the grid.

Pulse Trigger= Pulse Triggers will change a colour channel or group to one colour temporarily.

In the bottom-right of the screen, there should be a field marked "Channel ID". Right above it are two buttons, one labelled "Channel" and one labelled "Group". The channel button will cause all objects using or copying the specified channel to pulse, while the group button will do the same except it will affect all objects using a group.

Above those two are two more buttons, one reading "Color" and the other "HSV". Color should be automatically selected and will cause the colour wheel to appear. A colour may be chosen from there to cause the specified group/channel to pulse the chosen color. The HSV is for selecting colours similar to another and will change when the source colour is changed.

Below the HSV options/colour wheel, there are three sliders, one "Fade-In," one "Hold," and one "Fade-Out." These are self-explanatory; the values in the fields should match the time in seconds the color should fade in, stay, and fade out respectively.

Similar to Colour Triggers, there are two buttons labelled Copy and Paste in the top-right, both serving the same function.

This trigger appears as yellow in the level editor.

Alpha Trigger= Alpha triggers are triggers that affect the transparency of a group of objects. Under the Group ID field, there are two sliders: FadeTime and Opacity. FadeTime is the time in seconds it should take for the specified group to reach the opacity selected using the Opacity slider.

This trigger appears as cyan in the level editor.

Toggle Trigger= Toggle triggers completely (de)activate a group of objects. If the tick box "Activate Group" is left unticked, the group will immediately disappear when passing by the trigger and the player can go through any platforms or obstacles in this particular group. If it is ticked, then the opposite will happen: the group will reappear and the player will not be able to pass through the hazards and static objects.

Note that toggle triggers can take on two different colours in the editor depending on whether they are set to on or off. When it activates a group, it appears green. When it deactivates a group, it appears red. In the editor, it appears as default red.

Spawn Trigger= Spawn triggers activate a certain group of triggers that are marked "Spawn Triggered". When activated, the group to be activated will be triggered at the same time, regardless of horizontal placement. In Update 2.1 the trigger was updated with an option to delay the group's activation with a slider. The triggers activated by a spawn trigger can only be triggered once, even if the player passes by multiple spawn triggers activating the same triggers.

This trigger appears as teal in the level editor.

Stop Trigger= The stop trigger terminates the functions of all triggers within a selected group. To do this, the player must input the group ID of a trigger they wish to stop in the text box labelled "Group ID," and place the trigger in a convenient location.

This trigger incorporates the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as magenta in the level editor.

Rotation Trigger= Rotation triggers allow the player to rotate objects within levels. In this trigger's edit menu, there is a degrees slider, a Times 360 slider, 3 checkboxes labelled "Target Group ID," "Center Group ID," and "Lock Object Rotation," an easing option, a moving time, and the touch-triggered and spawn-triggered checkboxes.

The target group is the group of objects that are to be rotated; the center group is the object the target group will rotate around. As stated in this trigger's help text, only one object can be in the center group.

The number of degrees the target group will rotate is circumscribed by the "degrees" slider, and the "Times 360" slider defines how many times the objects will rotate by 360 degrees alongside the amount determined by the "degrees" slider.

Selecting "Lock object rotation" will keep the objects in their original position upon and throughout their rotation. Not selecting this will result in the rotation of the objects within the target group around their own axises, corresponding with the degrees each object rotates around the center group.

The move time controls how long it will take to complete the movement. As soon as that much time has elapsed, the group will be at the target destination and will stop moving, unless there is another rotation trigger. Similar to move triggers, the time range is from 0.00s to 10.00s and can be set for more than that manually. The easing controls the distribution of movement across time. Some are easy to understand, such as “bounce”, but others are not as straightforward and if used creatively can achieve special effects.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as light-blue in the level editor.

Follow Trigger= The follow trigger allows specific objects to follow other objects that are being moved with the move trigger. This trigger's edit menu includes 3 sliders and 2 selectors: "X Mod," "Y Mod," "Move Time," & "Target Group ID," and "Follow Group ID."

The "target" group is the objects that will follow the specified "follow" group. The target group will only follow the "follow" group if the objects therein are moving.

The X-modification and Y-modification sliders define how abnormal the target destination will be in reference to the follow group's destination. Setting 1 as the X or Y-Mod will result in a complete movement to the X or Y-position the follow group is at. Therefore, the numbers are based on percentages: -1 would be a -100%, or exact opposite, movement; 0.5 would be a 50%, or half-finished, movement, and so forth. The X and Y-Mod ranges are from -1 to 1, but it can be set for more than manually.

The move time controls how long it will take to complete the movement. As soon as that much time has elapsed, the group will stop moving, regardless of whether it is at the target destination or not, unless there is another follow trigger. Similar to color, move and rotation triggers, the time range is from 0.00s to 10.00s and can be set for more than that manually.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as hot-pink in the level editor.

Shake Trigger= Shake triggers shake the view of the screen. Upon editing this trigger the player will see 3 selectors: Shake, Interval, and Duration. These allow the player to alter how intense the shaking is, the rate at which the shaking gets more intense, and how long the shaking lasts.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options. It also looks very distinctive from the other triggers; it appears in the level editor as a zig-zagged line with the word "Shake" above it (most likely relating it to seismographic data).

Animation Trigger= This trigger grants the manipulation of animations' movements. In this trigger's edit menu, there are 2 selectors: "Group ID" and "Animation ID." The Group ID is the animation(s) that the player wants to animate (this trigger does not work on non-animated objects). Animation IDs are numbers assigned to specific animated object's movements; editing this changes said an animated object's movement. Below is a list of animation IDs for each animated object:

Bat

 * 1) The bat's default animation
 * 2) The bat does one mock.
 * 3) The bat appears angry for approximately 1 second.
 * 4) The bat spits a fireball.
 * 5) The bat opens its mouth and keeps it open.
 * 6) The bat closes its mouth (Continuation of the above)
 * 7) The bat stops flying and falls asleep.
 * 8) The bat's sleeping animation on loop.
 * 9) The bat wakes up (Continuation of the above).

Monster (Big Beast)

 * 1) The monster's default animation.
 * 2) The monster's mouth opens and keeps it open.
 * 3) The monster goes to the default animation (Continuation of the above)
 * 4) The monster's mouth closes

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as amber in the level editor.

Follow Player Y Trigger= This trigger is a variation of the Follow Trigger; it allows selected objects to follow the player in the Y-axis. In this trigger's edit menu, there are 3 sliders, 2 input boxes, and 1 selector: "Speed," "Delay," "MoveTime," "Offset," "Max Speed," "Target Group ID,".

The Speed slider is the multiplier of the target group's velocity when following the Player's Y axis position, the max being the player's Y velocity.

The Delay slider controls how much time it should pass before the target group goes to the Player's Y-Axis current position.

The "Move time" slider is how long the function should take effect.

The "Offset" input box tells what position the target group should be (Positive number being above the player, negative being below)

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as vanilla in the level editor.

Touch Trigger= The touch trigger may be configured to make tapping/holding the screen (or the mouse) (de)activate a group of objects. In this triggers edit menu, there is 1 selector and 4 tick boxes: "Group ID," "Dual Mode," "Hold Mode," "Toggle On," & "Toggle Off."

If the "Dual Mode" tick box is left unticked, the trigger works for both of the icons if the player is in dual mode. If it is not, the trigger only works with the original icon.

If the player checks the tick box labelled "Hold Mode," the trigger functions as long as the player is holding down on their mouse, screen, or spacebar, and the player's icon is past the trigger or within it (if the touch-triggered tick box is ticked).

"Toggle On" and "Toggle Off" determines whether or not holding/tapping/clicking will toggle the specified group on or off. If left unchecked, continued tapping will cycle between toggle on and off. In "Hold Mode", holding will toggle on and releasing will toggle off, but if "Toggle On" is selected, the actions are reversed.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as cyan in the level editor.

Count Trigger=

Count triggers are used to trigger actions after the player has collected a specific amount of items. In this trigger's edit menu, there are 3 selectors and 2 tickboxes: "Item ID," "Target ID," "Target Count," and "Activate Group," and "Multi Activate."

The target group is the group that is to be (de)activated; the item group is the group of items that are deemed the collectables; the target count is the amount of items needed to (de)activate the target group.

The player may select whether or not achieving the target count deactivates or activates the target group with the "Activate Group" tick box (ticked = activates; unticked = deactivates).

In correspondence with this trigger, there is a live object counter that shows the player's progress regarding how many of the specific items they have collected.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as light-pink in the level editor.

Instant Count Trigger= The instant count trigger serves as a secondary, conditional Count Trigger. This trigger's edit menu is almost identical to that of the Count Trigger's, there are 3 selectors and 4 tick boxes: "Item ID," "Target ID," "Target Count," and "Activate Group," "Equals," "Larger," & "Smaller."

The target group is the group that is to be (de)activated; the item group is the group of items that are deemed the collectables; the target count is the number of items that determines when the target group will be (de)activated.

The tick boxes, "Equals," "Larger," and "Smaller", determine when the target group will be (de)activated.
 * If "equals" is selected, the player must achieve the exact target count to (de)activate the target group.
 * If "larger" is selected, the player must gain more objects than the target count to (de)activate the target group.
 * If "smaller" is selected, the target group will be (de)activated until the player reaches the target goal or gains more than thereof.

The player may select whether or not achieving the target count deactivates or activates the target group with the "Activate Group" tick box (ticked = activates; unticked = deactivates).

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as pink in the level editor.

Pickup Trigger= The pickup trigger serves as a secondary count trigger. There are 2 selectors in this trigger's edit menu: "Item ID" and "Count." The item ID is the ID given to an object counter and the "count" selector defines which number the counter should begin counting on.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as orange in the level editor.

Collision Trigger= The collision trigger sets off an action upon two selected collision block's encounter. It uses a special block called "Collision block"

The player is to assign IDs to 2 blocks (block A/B), which are the blocks that are to collide. Keep in note that one of the said blocks must have the "Dynamic Block" box checked in order to work.

The player may determine whether block A and B's collision shall make the target objects activate or deactivate. The player must also input the "Target ID," which is the Group ID of the object(s) the player wishes to (de)activate.

If the "Trigger On Exit" tick box is checked, the trigger will function when both blocks were but are no longer within each other's hitbox.

When the trigger functions, the target group will be (de)activated, and it will work as a Spawn trigger to the same group; every "Spawn-Triggered" trigger in the group will be activated (if the player chose to activate the target group).

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as dark blue in the level editor.

On Death Trigger= The on death Trigger triggers an action upon the player's icon's death. The player must first entitle the trigger to a group of objects with an ID. Then, the player may choose to either activate or disable the group of objects.

This trigger includes the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options and appears as pink in the level editor.

Show/Hide Player Triggers= The hide player trigger is a simple trigger makes the player transparent, whereas the Show Player Trigger nullifies that effect. The player is unable to edit this trigger.

The show player Trigger appears as the 1st main icon with the word "Show" above it. The Hide Player Trigger appears as the outline of the 1st main icon with the word "Hide" above it.

Background Effect On/Off Triggers= Background Effect Off triggers eliminate the particles the player's cube (if grounded), ship, UFO, and/or wave exert; the Background Effect On trigger nullifies the elimination thereof. This trigger is not editable, thus the only thing the player must do is place this trigger in a convenient position.

The Background Effect On and Off triggers include the Spawn-Triggered and Touch-Triggered options, they appear in the editor as the words "BG Effect" followed by "On" & "Off" and are green & red, respectively.

Trail Triggers= Trail Triggers enable or disable the secondary trail left by the player. The secondary trail is a copy of the player's primary color in the shape of the icon at its current position that is repeated as the other copies fade away behind the player.

These triggers are pretty straightforward with no parameters needed. They are indicated by a cube leaving a trail. There are two triggers for this: Enable and Disable. Enable will enable the secondary trail. Disable will disable the secondary trail.

Transition Triggers= The player may have noticed animations at the edges of the screen as objects come onto the screen before. These triggers control such animations. These triggers are indicated by a default block with some annotations around it. The annotations are designed to tell the player what the animation is, but some of them are difficult to discern what they are. Here are the descriptions in order of the triggers’ appearance in the editor:
 * No transition. Objects will simply fade in and out.
 * Blocks will appear moving downwards and disappear moving upwards.
 * Blocks will appear moving upwards and disappear moving downwards.
 * Blocks will appear moving to the right and disappear moving from the right.
 * Blocks will appear moving to the left and disappear moving from the left.
 * Blocks will shrink to the left and grow from the right.
 * Blocks will grow to the right and shrink from the left.
 * Blocks will implode in front of the player and explode behind the player.
 * Blocks will explode in front of the player and implode behind the player.
 * Blocks will appear by moving inwards from the top and bottom and disappear by moving outwards from the bottom and top.
 * Blocks will appear by moving outwards from the top and bottom and disappear by moving inwards from the bottom and top.

Touch Triggered and Spawn Triggered
All triggers except for the transition ones have a "Touch Triggered" option. Enabling this will give a trigger a hitbox; the trigger will be activated only if the player enters the hitbox.

Every trigger mentioned hereinbefore excluding the transition triggers also have a "Spawn Triggered" option. Enabling this will make the trigger not activate at all (not even if the player goes past it) until it is spawned using the spawn mechanic found in spawn, touch, count, and collision triggers.

Trivia

 * Currently, almost every trigger added in Update 2.1 has either unfinished or placeholder help text like "X trigger help" or "X trigger command help." This is an oversight from the update's development.
 * To compensate for the unfinished help text, RobTop has created two levels named "Editor Examples 002" and "Editor Examples 003", which demonstrates the functions of the new 2.1 triggers.
 * The square-shaped custom orb in the editor serves as a toggle trigger: it can (de)activate a group upon tapping.
 * The item pickups may also serve as touch toggle triggers: it can (de)activate a group upon being touched.
 * The player may disable the effects of shake triggers in Options, wherein they may select "Disable Shake Effects."
 * In Update 2.1, the triggers that changed the line, ground 1, ground 2, background, object colour, and 3DL were removed from the level editor.
 * However, every special colour channel was set as a variation of the Color trigger. The player can navigate to the "+" symbol in the Color trigger, thereby opening the "Special Color Select" to acquire the ability to change a special colour.
 * The original special color triggers (BG, G, G2, LINE, OBJ, 3DL) can be used by copying one of them as a special object in a level made before Update 2.1 was released.
 * This proves that the original special color triggers are not completely removed from the game and are still in the files of Geometry Dash. This is to prevent incompatibility with older levels.
 * The BG Effect On and BG Effect Off triggers were accessible in Update 2.0 by locating the "GameSheet02" files.
 * If you dig through the files of Geometry Dash, you can see an unused Counter Trigger.

{{Togglebox |header = The following has been extracted from the Map Components article. Appropriate information should be retained. |body = A number of map components are purely cosmetic, or may have effects applied to them. Physical objects can cycle through colours and opacity, which may be distracting while playing. In contrast, what may look like physical objects can also be background objects, which may again fool the player (for example fake spikes, sawblades, and thorns).

Other objects may be used as markers to identify routes or hazards (punctuation marks, crosses, arrow signs, etc). Three-dimensional blocks were also introduced in Update 1.9 and in-game text, with 12 different fonts, was introduced in Update 2.0, which does not affect gameplay but has the potential to make a level look more polished.

In Update 2.0, infinite color channels were introduced, allowing players to now use a lot of colors in various background objects and tiles, unlike before in 1.9, when players are limited to only four color channels.

Moving, pulsing, alpha, toggle, and spawn triggers are invisible objects that can be used to either confuse a player or make a level better and more vibrant. They can be set to where it can only be activated if the player gets in range of the player's hitbox, which is useful for secret coins or increasing the difficulty of a level. Also introduced in Update 2.0 were keys and keyholes. Their function is only to serve as a visual guide for the triggers (such as move triggers, toggle triggers, alpha triggers, rotatation triggers, etc.)

Design and transition
The BG, GRND, GRND2, Line, Obj, 3DL and Col can change colour as a way to create a more vibrant gameplay experience. Each has its own trigger with the amount of options varying from each one, e.g. the BG trigger having "Tint Ground" as an option whilst the others do not. In Update 2.1, though, all the triggers were replaced with the Col trigger where the special colour channels BG, GRND, GRND2, Line, Obj and 3DL are selectable from a plus button near the Target Colour ID option. It is noticable that the "Tint Ground" option is not included if the Target Colour ID is the BG Colour Channel. The colours can also be changed to one of the player's assigned colour, making the level's design affected by a player's choice.

Other map components change the way objects transition into and out of a level, not physically affecting anything, as further visual enhancement, but may reduce the amount of time the player has to react to their entry. With Update 2.0, grounds with two colors were introduced.

}}