Unity | Introduction to Interface

The article “Game Development with Unity | Introduction” introduces about Unity and how to install it. In this article, we will see how to create a new project and understand the interface of the Unity Game Editor.

Creating a new project

1. Open the Unity Hub.
2. Click on New button at the top right.
3. Select 3D Project.
4. Give a Project Name and create the project.

The Unity editor will open by default with a sample scene. The arrangements of different tabs in the Editor window gives easy access to the most common functionalities. The image below shows the default layout:

Summary of all different tabs and their uses:

• Project Window:
  

  

  The project window consists of two panels. The left panel of the browser shows the folder structure of the project as a hierarchical list. When a folder is chosen from the list by clicking, its contents are going to be shown within the panel to the proper. You can click the tiny triangle to expand or collapse the folder, displaying any nested folders it contains. Hold down Alt while you click to expand or collapse any nested folders recursively.

• Scene/Game View:
  

  

  The Scene Window is a place where we will actually make our game. The Game window shows the starting scene of the Game when we hit the play button. We will learn more about these in future articles.

• Inspector Window:
  

  

  The inspector window shows the properties of any selected GameObjects.

• Toolbar:
  

  

  The toolbar contains various icons for different functionalities. These buttons are for:

  1. The first 6 buttons from the left (from the hand button to the bulls-eye button) are called Transform Tools. They are used to change the view of the scene and to apply basic changes to game objects like changing their position, rotation, etc.
  2. The next two Buttons (The Center/Pivot and the Global/Local) are called Gizmo tools. They are used to change the views of a game object.
  3. Next are the Play/Pause/Step Buttons. These are used to run the games that we create in the scene.
  4. The cloud button opens the Unity Services window.
  5. The Account button is used for accessing your Unity account.
  6. The Layers button is used to select which game objects are to be displayed.
  7. The Layout button gives different options to arrange all these discussed windows. The view which opened by default is named Default.
• Hierarchy Window:
  

  

  The Hierarchy window shows the list of all the active game objects in the scene. These game objects can be visible or hidden. Hidden game objects are greyed out in the hierarchy tab.

Detailed information on all the aspects of the Editor can be found in the official manual link.