An interactive screen overlay is a type of screen overlay that renders in screen-space on top of the world, just like a non-interactive screen overlay does, while allowing players to interact with UI elements within the overlay such as buttons, menu options, and more.

Interactive, blocking screen overlays are designed to be used for situations that require the player’s immediate focus and attention. This means they are great for things like in-game shops, tutorials, and other UI that require the player to stop what they are doing and interact with the overlay before they can progress or continue playing.

By design, interactive, blocking screen overlays prevent gameplay-related inputs in order to allow the player to focus fully on the UI, which means this feature is not suitable for creating customized on-screen controls.

Interactive, non-blocking screen overlays are designed to be used as onscreen inputs that can be fully customized in size and appearance. Interactive, non-blocking screen overlays do not prevent gameplay-related inputs, and can be used in combination with the Custom Input API to create custom on-screen controls.

When you set the Display mode property of a Custom UI panel to Screen Overlay, a property named Input mode appears. You can use this property to switch the mode of the panel from No Interaction to Interactive, Blocking or Interactive, Non-Blocking, which allows the overlay to receive input from the current input pointer (such as a mouse, touchscreen, or VR controller).

You can test the interaction by adding a Pressable component to your UI script.

Pressable({
  children: Text({
    text: 'Close',
    style: {
      color: 'white',
    },
  }),
  onClick: () => {
    console.log('Clicked Close');
    this.entity.visible.set(false);
  },
  style: {
    alignItems: 'center',
    backgroundColor: 'red',
    height: 36,
    justifyContent: 'center',
    width: 240,
  },
});

When an interactive, blocking screen overlay is visible on the screen, the following input behavior occurs:

When an interactive, non-blocking screen overlay is visible on the screen, the following behaviour occurs: