Gizmos menu

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 and the Game view both have a 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 menu. Click the Gizmos button in the toolbarA row of buttons and basic controls at the top of the Unity Editor that allows you to interact with the Editor in various ways (e.g. scaling, translation). More info
See in Glossary of the 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 view or the Game view to access the Gizmos menu.

Gizmos and Icons

Gizmos

Gizmos are graphics associated with 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 the Scene. Some Gizmos are only drawn when the GameObject is selected, while other Gizmos are drawn by the Editor regardless of which GameObjects are selected. They are usually wireframes, drawn with code rather than bitmap graphics, and can be interactive. 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 Gizmo and Light direction Gizmo (shown below) are both examples of built-in Gizmos; you can also create your own Gizmos using script. See documentation on Understanding Frustum for more information about the Camera.

Some Gizmos are passive graphical overlays, shown for reference (such as the Light direction Gizmo, which shows the direction of the light). Other Gizmos are interactive, such as the AudioSource spherical range Gizmo, which you can click and drag to adjust the maximum range of the AudioSource.

The Move, Scale, Rotate and Transform tools are also interactive Gizmos. See documentation on Positioning GameObjects to learn more about these tools.

See the Script Reference page for the OnDrawGizmos function for further information about implementing custom Gizmos in your 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.

Icons

You can display icons in the Game view or Scene view. They are flat, billboard-style overlays which you can use to clearly indicate a GameObject’s position while you work on your game. The Camera icon and Light icon are examples of built-in icons; you can also assign your own to GameObjects or individual scripts (see documentation on Assigning Icons to lean how to do this).

Show Grid

The Show Grid feature toggles a grid on the plane of your Scene. The following images show how this appears in the Scene view:

To change the colour of the grid, go to Unity > Preferences > Colors and alter the Grid setting. In this image, the Scene view grid is colored dark blue so that it shows up better against the light-colored floor:

Selection Outline and Selection Wire

Selection Outline

When Selection Outline is enabled, then when you select a GameObject in the Scene view or Hierarchy window, an orange outline appears around that GameObject in the Scene view:

If the selected GameObject fills most of the Scene view and extends beyond the edges of the window, the selection outline runs along the edge of the window:

Selection Wire

When Selection Wire is enabled, then when you select a GameObject in the Scene view or Hierarchy window, the wireframe MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary for that GameObject is made visible in the Scene view:

Selection colors

You can set custom colours to selection wireframes; to do this, go to Unity > Preferences > Colors and alter the Selected Outline setting to change the Selection Outline, or the Selected Wireframe to change the Selection Wire setting.

Built-in Components

Use the Built-in Components list to control the visibility of the icons and Gizmos of all component types that have an icon or Gizmo.

Some built-in component types (such as Rigidbody) are not listed here because they do not have an icon or Gizmo shown in the Scene view. Only components which have an icon or a Gizmo are listed.

The Editor also lists some of your project scripts here, above the built-in components. These are:

• Scripts with an icon assigned to them (see documentation on Assigning icons).

• Scripts which implement the OnDrawGizmos function.

• Scripts which implement the OnDrawGizmosSelected function.

Recently changed items are at the top of the list.

The icon column shows or hides the icons for each listed type of component. Click the small icon under the icon column to toggle visibility of that icon. If the icon is in full colour in the menu then it is displayed in the Scene view; if it is greyed out in the menu, then it is not visible in the Scene view. Any scripts with custom icons show a small drop-down menu arrow. Click this to show the icon selector menu, where you can change the script’s icon.

Note: If an item in the list has a Gizmo but no icon, there is no option in the icon column.

Tick the checkboxes in the Gizmo column to select whether Gizmo graphics are drawn by the Editor for a particular component type. For example, CollidersAn invisible shape that is used to handle physical collisions for an object. A collider doesn’t need to be exactly the same shape as the object’s mesh - a rough approximation is often more efficient and indistinguishable in gameplay. More info
See in Glossary have a predefined wireframe Gizmo to show their shape, and Cameras have a Gizmo which shows the view frustum. Your own scripts can draw custom Gizmos appropriate to their purpose; implement OnDrawGizmos or OnDrawGizmosSelected to do this. Uncheck the checkboxes in this column to turn these Gizmos off.

Note: If an item in the list has an icon but no Gizmo, there is no checkbox in this column.