Unity Manual

Language : English

Unity 6.1 Beta User Manual
- Documentation versions
- Offline documentation
- Trademarks and terms of use
What's new in Unity
- New in Unity 6
- New in Unity 6 Preview
- New in Unity 2023.2
- New in Unity 2023.1
Install and upgrade
- Install Unity
- Deploy Unity across your enterprise
  - Enable Unity installation by standard users (Windows)
  - Use Unity through web proxies
- Licenses and activation
- Upgrade Unity
The Editor interface
- The Project window
- The Scene view
  - Overlays
  - Scene view grid snapping
  - Pick and select GameObjects in the Scene view
  - Position GameObjects
  - Scene view navigation
  - Scene view Camera
  - Control a camera in first person
  - Scene visibility
  - Scene view Draw Modes and View Options overlays
  - Gizmos menu
  - Scene view context menu
  - Custom Editor tools
- The Game view
- Device Simulator
  - Device Simulator introduction
  - The Simulator view
  - Simulated classes
  - Adding a device
  - Extending the device simulator
- The Hierarchy window
- The Inspector window
  - Manage the Inspector window
  - Inspect items
  - Focus an Inspector window
  - Assign icons to inspected items
  - Manage components and their values
- The Toolbar
- The status bar
- The Background Tasks window
- Console window
- Additional windows
- Undo
- Search in the Editor
- Customizing your workspace
- Preferences
- Shortcuts Manager
- Project Settings
  - Use the Project Settings window
  - Audio
  - Editor
  - Graphics
  - Package Manager
  - Physics
  - Physics 2D reference
  - Player
    - Splash Image Player settings
  - Preset Manager
  - Quality settings tab reference
  - Script Execution Order settings
  - Tags and Layers
  - Time
  - UI Toolkit project settings
  - Version Control
- 2D and 3D mode settings
- Save your work
- Editor analytics
- Troubleshoot the Editor
- Unity Search
  - Search usage
  - Search tables
  - Search Providers
  - Search expressions
    - Functions reference
  - Creating a custom Search Provider
Packages and feature sets
- Unity's Package Manager
- Packages
- Creating custom packages
- Feature sets
Assets and media
- Asset workflow
- Importing assets
  - Importing assets simultaneously
- Caching assets
- Supported Asset Types
- Asset Metadata
- The Asset Database
- Reserved folder name reference
- Import Activity window
- Presets
  - Supporting presets
  - Applying default presets to Assets by folder
- AssetBundles
- Scripting with Assets
- Asset packages
- Archives
- Optimizing assets
  - Asset Loading Profiler module
  - Asset loading metrics
- Unity's Asset Store
3D game development
- 2D or 3D projects
- 3D game development quickstart guide
  - Creating a 3D game
- Advanced best practice guides
2D game development
- Introduction to 2D
- Get started with 2D game development
- 2D renderer sorting
- Sprites
- Tilemaps in Unity
- 2D physics
- 2D game development in URP
  - 2D lighting in URP
  - Precise pixel scaling and rotation via the Pixel Perfect Camera in URP
XR
- Overview
- XR project set up
- Run an XR application
- XR graphics
- XR audio
  - Audio spatializers in XR
- Unity XR SDK
Multiplayer
- Unity multiplayer overview
- Use the Multiplayer Center
Platform development
- Cross-platform features and considerations
- Android
- Dedicated Server
- Embedded systems
- iOS
- Linux
- macOS
- tvOS
- Universal Windows Platform
- visionOS
- Web
- Windows
GameObjects
- Introduction to GameObjects
- GameObject fundamentals
- Primitive and placeholder objects
  - Types of 2D primitive GameObjects
- Components
- Models
  - Creating models outside of Unity
  - Importing models into Unity
- Meshes
- Prefabs
- Constraints
Scenes
- Introduction to scenes
- Creating, loading, and saving Scenes
- Work with multiple scenes in Unity
- Scene Templates
- Layers
- Tags
- Text-based Scene files
Cameras
- Introduction to cameras
- The camera view
- Using multiple cameras
- Changing resolution scale
  - Introduction to changing resolution scale
  - Dynamic Resolution
- Excluding hidden objects with occlusion culling
- Simulating real-world cameras with Physical Cameras
- Camera output
- Cameras in URP
- Cameras in the Built-In Render Pipeline
  - Set the camera background with Clear Flags in the Built-In Render Pipeline
  - Camera Inspector window reference for the Built-In Render Pipeline
- Troubleshooting cameras
World building
- Sky
- Terrain
- Terrain Tools package
Physics
- Built-in 3D Physics
Input
- Mobile Keyboard
- Unity XR Input
- Legacy Input
  - Input Manager
  - Mobile device input
- IME in Unity
UI systems
- Comparison of UI systems in Unity
- UI Toolkit
- Unity UI
- Immediate Mode GUI (IMGUI)
Animation
- Mecanim Animation system
- Legacy Animation system
  - Legacy Animation component
Audio
- Audio overview
- Audio files
- Tracker Modules
- Audio Mixer
- Native audio plug-in SDK
- Audio playlist randomization
- Audio Profiler module
- Ambisonic Audio
  - Develop an ambisonic audio decoder
- Audio Reference
Video and cutscenes
- Video sources
- Video Player
- Video Profiler module
Lighting
- Introduction to lighting
- Light sources
- Direct and indirect lighting
- Shadows
- Reflections
- Lighting in URP
- Lighting in the Built-In Render Pipeline
- Optimize lighting in the Built-In Render Pipeline
- Lighting reference
Materials and shaders
- Materials
- Prebuilt materials and shaders
- Custom textures
- Custom shaders
- Color and High Dynamic Range (HDR)
  - Color spaces
  - High dynamic range (HDR)
Visual effects
- Particle effects
- Decals
- Lens flares
- Light halos
  - Create and configure a halo light effect
  - Halo component reference
- Lines and trails
  - Rendering lines
  - Rendering trails
- Visual Effect Graph
Render pipelines
- Introduction to render pipelines
- Scriptable Render Pipeline fundamentals
- Choosing a render pipeline
- Rendering paths in Unity
- Using the Universal Render Pipeline
- Using the High Definition Render Pipeline
- Using the Built-In Render Pipeline
Post-processing
- Introduction to post-processing
- Post-processing effect availability reference
- Post-processing and full-screen effects in URP
Programming in Unity
- Get started with programming in Unity
- Environment and tools
- Object-oriented development
- Compilation and code reload
- Code optimization
  - Asynchronous programming with the Awaitable class
  - Job system
- Debugging and diagnostics
Optimization
- Memory in Unity
- Unity Profiler
- Profiling tools
  - Analyzing profiler traces
- Understanding optimization in Unity
- Graphics performance and profiling
Building and publishing
- Build profiles
- Incremental build pipeline
- Visual Studio C# integration
- RenderDoc integration
- Version control
- Command-line arguments
Unity Services
- Unity IAP
Troubleshooting
Glossary

XR
XR project set up
Develop for Meta Quest workflow

XR Plug-in Management settings

Run an XR application

Develop for Meta Quest workflow

Unity supports development for Meta Quest 2, 3, and 3S, and Quest Pro.

The following sections outline Unity’s resources and packages to develop for Meta Quest devices.

Meta Quest build profile

Unity 6.1 added the Meta Quest platform and build profile to the Build ProfilesA set of customizable configuration settings to use when creating a build for your target platform. More info
See in Glossary window.

By default, the Meta Quest platform shares player settingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info
See in Glossary with the Android build target. You can use the Meta Quest build profile to override 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 specifically for Meta Quest.

Add the Meta Quest build profile

To create a Meta Quest build profile:

Open the Build Profiles window (File > Build Profiles), and select Add Build Profile to open the Platform Browser window.
Select Meta Quest from the list of supported platforms.
Select Add Build Profile, which will create a Meta Quest build profile and install existing package dependencies.

Customize build profile settings

In the Meta Quest Build Profile tab, you can configure the following settings derived from the Meta Quest build target:

Platform Settings: customizable build settings specific for the Meta Quest platform. These settings aren’t shared by the Android build target.
Player Settings, Graphics Settings, and Quality Settings: shared with the Android build target by default. You can customize and override these settings for the Meta Quest platform. To override these settings, select the relevant override option from the Player Settings Overrides section to reveal the override options.

Meta Quest platform settings

The Meta Quest platform is derived from the Android build platform and shares most of its settings with the Android platform. To learn about the settings available in the Android build platform, refer to Android build settings reference.

The following table describes settings that are specific to the Meta Quest platform:

Setting Description

Link Time Optimization

Use the precompiled and link time optimized (ThinLTO) Unity engine code (libunity.so) for non-development builds. Use this property for improved runtime performance and reduced memory usage. The options are:

None: The project build uses the default Unity engine code.
Thin: The project build uses precompiled and thin link time optimized (ThinLTO) Unity engine code. For more information, refer to the ThinLTO Documentation.

Note: You can use link time optimized Unity engine code if your project uses IL2CPP scripting backend and Strip Engine Code is disabled. This doesn’t affect compilation.

Packages

You can install the following packages from the Package Manager:

The Unity OpenXR plug-in integrates core OpenXR features for all XR runtimes, including Meta Quest.
The Unity Meta OpenXR package integrates Meta-specific extensions to provide additional Meta Quest-specific features.

Tip: You can use the Unity OpenXR plug-inA set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info
See in Glossary and the Unity Meta OpenXR package together to develop a cross-platform application that has additional features tailored for Meta Quest devices.

To learn more about the packages Unity provides for XRAn umbrella term encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. Devices supporting these forms of interactive applications can be referred to as XR devices. More info
See in Glossary development, refer to XR packages.

Meta packages

Meta also provides packages to develop for Meta Quest in Unity. Refer to Meta’s Import XR packages documentation to learn about the packages Meta provides.

Note: These packages and related documentation are maintained by Meta.

Templates

You can use the following templates as a starting point for your Meta Quest project:

Refer to Create an XR project to understand how to use templates as a starting point for your project.

Additional resources

Get started developing for Meta Quest 3 with Unity (Unity blog post)
Standalone XR device system requirements

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XR Plug-in Management settings

Run an XR application