The Unity Editor interface has several key windows that you use to create and manage your projects. Each window has a specific purpose, such as organizing sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary content and editing the settings of your project.
Understanding these key windows and how they interact is fundamental to working efficiently in Unity. You can also customize the layout of these windows to suit your workflow.
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Hierarchy window reference | Manage the GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info See in Glossary in your scene in a hierarchical structure. |
| Scene view reference | Navigate and edit your scene with visual tools to position and organize GameObjects. |
| Inspector window reference | View and edit properties and settings for selected GameObjects, assets, and project settingsA broad collection of settings which allow you to configure how Physics, Audio, Networking, Graphics, Input and many other areas of your project behave. More info See in Glossary. |
| Project window reference | Manage all assets in your project, including scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info See in Glossary, textures, models, and prefabsAn asset type that allows you to store a GameObject complete with components and properties. The prefab acts as a template from which you can create new object instances in the scene. More info See in Glossary. |
| Game view reference | Preview how your application looks and plays from the cameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info See in Glossary’s perspective during development. |
| Gizmos and handles | Use gizmosA graphic overlay associated with a GameObject in a Scene, and displayed in the Scene View. Built-in scene tools such as the move tool are Gizmos, and you can create custom Gizmos using textures or scripting. Some Gizmos are only drawn when the GameObject is selected, while other Gizmos are drawn by the Editor regardless of which GameObjects are selected. More info See in Glossary to interact with the Scene viewAn interactive view into the world you are creating. You use the Scene View to select and position scenery, characters, cameras, lights, and all other types of Game Object. More info See in Glossary in the Editor. |
| Console window reference | View error messages, warnings, and debug logs from your scripts and the Unity Editor. |
| Background Tasks window reference | Monitor and manage long-running operations such as asset imports, shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info See in Glossary compilation, and lighting builds. |