"Small" little things I want for Unity 5

Hey guys!

I was working with Unity for a couple of time (long time) now and as the time passed I had some ideas (and also annoyances by the lack of some features) for Unity to improve productivity and workflow speed.

Here it goes:

2014

1. 
   
2. Selection ONLY Tool
3. Button to select on Hierarchy the object locked on Inspector
   • Also, quietly warn the user that he is not tweaking the object he selected in the hierarchy.
   • Show a small pin icon on the right side of the object locked name on Hierarchy.
4. Collision view mode with option to control the transparency
   • Also see collision meshes wire in this mode.
5. Scale primitives like on CSG (draggable handles on each corner of it) for faster prototyping and level bounds/block colliders placements. (Can be done with the new Rect Tool but still a little limited when working in perspective view because you can't scale in the 3 axis in the same perspective)
6. View static variables in Inspector
7. 2-axis scaling handles
8. Stick values edited while on Play Mode natively
9. Graphics Emulation mode persist trough sessions
10. Hierarchy panel folders (aka scene folders)
    • “Imaginary” objects that can take other objects (real ones) as their children for better organizing purposes. (And no unnecessary transforms, also, they don't need to be kept after build)
11. UI Mode (something like 2D Mode):
    • Darken the areas beyond canvas.
    • Temporary hide everything that is not in the UI Layer. (On the scene and on the hierarchy).
      • Give an option to disable this of course.
    • Automatically focus on the first Canvas found. (or give an option to select a scene main/default canvas). Also the option to disable this and focus where you left your camera on the last time.
      
    • Create new ui objects right clicking in the canvas (thus, opening a context menu), since middle mouse button already pans the view.

2015

1. Have a visual clue of which transition my StateMachine is selecting when multiple transitions share the same wire on the Animator window.
2. Save mesh with its respective mesh collider in the same model file, but hide the collider mesh somehow, maybe adding _mcol in the end of the mesh name.
3. GameObject's main component icons next to it on he Hierarchy view.
4. Make each scene has its own "last scene camera position", so when you load a previous scene the camera will be where you left it when you saved it instead of a weird position.
5. Make it possible to "Paste Component As New" by righting click on an empty space in the inspector and selecting this option on a context menu.
6. Image effects preview in editor camera.
7. Better editor patching system.
8. Lock Current layout
   1. I'm pretty sure you undocked a window by accident at least once.
9. "Click to inspect" button on the right side of an object field
   • instead of give only the option to open the object referenced on the object field, also give the option to select it whatever it is in the project and inspect it. (You can do this on some object double-clicking it, but not all of them, like a texture for example, if you double-click it you will open your image application, but, what if you want to make some modifications on the image import settings? Currently you need to click to show it on the project window and select it on the project window.)
10. Highlight selected view/pane tab.
11. When creating a new empty game object, leave the game object name in edit mode (just like when creating new scripts, you create, then the script is already there for you to edit, you don't need to type F2 or Right click and rename it)
    
12. Lock objects in hierarchy so you can't select it. (or edit it) (Devil_Inside)
    
13. Improve CharacterController class, add stuff like AddForce for it, also fix the isGrounded issue, change character shape (collider) and etc.
14. Define Default Import Settings (moonjump)
15. Preview not only animator transitions but also the state itself (with option to disable or enable looping).
16. Know an state length trough the animator, so we can be aware of the animation length based on the speed that is currently set there. (for non-looping states)
17. Dark skin available for Personal version.
18. Natively snap object to the ground without an editor script.
19. Bug Reporting and Discussion sub-forum
    1. So we don't report bugs that are not bugs actually but pebkac.

2016

1. Drag to reorder components in inspector.

Big stuff:

1. Native built-in script editor (Code)
   
2. Native built-in visual shader editor
3. Native built-in visual script editor (Graph)
   
4. Better input system (emulate input, etc)
5. Prefab editor (no need to instantiate it in the scene to edit it)
   1. something like an extra scene view openable in parallel with the current scene to especifically tweak some prefab, similar to the avatar editor.
6. Decal system
7. New terrain system (+voxel based)
8. PCSS shadowing
9. Nested prefabs
10. Tab system (Multiple scenes open + prefab editor, etc)
11. Cut-scene editor (Coming soon in 5.5)

 

Hey superpig.

[q]
Selection Tool would be a tool to only select the objects around, while using the Move TooI I always accidentally move the object a little... You can see on Maya and other 3d softwares that you can select objects with the Move Tool, but you also have a tool that only select stuff.


[q]
But the mesh is left behind... :/

Yes, some of those are there... some are not, I don't... being sincere - I don't think the feedback is a very effective way to get your desired feature, or... maybe small stuff like these could be at least cogitated.

 

@superpig, for some reason I can't edit the first post, when I try to edit the message box appears empty.

 

I often have the same problem, but it always lets me when selecting "Go Advanced" at that screen.

 

Here the message box keeps empty even going advanced...

 

The number of times I've switched over from Max or Maya and hit q ... you know what I mean... Muscle memory is important!

All good suggestions.

I'd love to see Asset Server get some TLC too - it's so in need of an update I don't even need to list the things I'd like to see in it.

 

And the ability to move the downloaded assets folder to somewhere else!

 

$mall

 

I'd like this one on Mac Windows.

 

I don't know if those would be hard for them to implement but sometimes those small things help a lot and improve productivity.

@Pix10 lol, agreed!

@Chariots you're right, forgot about this one. A slider on the top bar of the scene view would be handy, and an option to reset the speed...

@inafield I can't comment about this because I don't often use downloaded assets but every little improvement is welcome!

 

I wish we had a built in road tool to create roads on the terrain, including intersections, setting road width, pavement width, number of lanes, creating of building lots etc. That would make it heaps easier to create cities.

Btw there was a program called CityScape it could do all this, but its discontinued after AutoDesk took it over. You could create a terrain just like in unity, paint it, and then draw roads on it, it was something like SimCity++.

 

RE-DEFINE ASSET STORE FOLDER, Path!!!!!!

not as a big deal for me now, since i got a new PC, but it is absolutely lame cant redefine the folder... ... it had made me totally ignore asset store.. (my C drive was almost totally full, but have 3 HDs with Alot of space, now different C drive)

 

@willemsenzo But that would be a complete new module/tool, and not small... But, that would be very cool!

@CaoMengde777 Yes, it would be nice, but where the downloads are saved? They are not saved in the same folder of the unity editor? You could just uninstall the unity editor and install it where you have enough space for the editor and the downloaded assets I think.

 

Ability to set default import settings for assets.

Every time I import a model, I always have to set the import scale, and it is almost always the same scale. It would be nice to make that scale the default.

Most of my images will be changed from compressed, mip maps need to be turned off, max size changed to 2048, etc. I would like to set my usual settings as the default.

Workflow is a big thing for Unity. This would improve workflow. "Project Settings > Import Defaults" would work well.

 

Ability to drag component/s to rearrange them.

Right now we need to click on the component option and choose Move Up to move the component one level "Up",
now try to do that in a gameObject with a lot of component and you want to move the lowest component to the Highest.

 

This. They have sort of started down the path already with the editor options/2d mode, I would like to see it taken further. Usually in a project you will typically use the same settings more often than not, it would be nice to set them in advance for a project.

 

A "Filter by Component" option in the search box in Hierarchy.

i.e. show me everything with a Box Collider, or ngui UILabel.

(We currently do this with editor scripts - it's extremely useful, especially when debugging sanity checking very complex scenes)

 

You mean search game object called "X" that (necessarily) has the component "Y"? Or you mean look for all game objects that has the component "Y"?
I think you can do the second by typing the entire component name on the hierarchy pane search... The first would be nice though!

All good ideas guys, UT team could implement some of these!

 

Type t:BoxCollider in the hierarchy/project view and be amazed. =)

 

If its a component you can right click on it in play mode, click "Copy Component", stop play mode, right click again and "Paste Component Values"

But what I miss the most every day are bone selecting handles for all hierarchies used by SkinnedMeshRenderers. Right now when I click on a character it always just selects the SkinnedMeshRenderer game object, so it is a real pain going down 20 bones in the hierarchy to select a finger bone.

"Collapse/Expand All" options when right-clicking on game objects in the Hierarchy would also be most helpful

 

My god! My poor editor scripts!

Thank you guys, that's put a smile on my face. Just goes to show, little things = happiness

 

I wonder if it would be good if Unity had a separate feedback for small improvements similar to Autodesk's "small annoying things to fix". Not bugs, but little inconveniences that would be quick and easy to improve that may have no hope of being voted on enough to be noticed over the bigger requests in the current feedback system.

 

Thanks Graham Dunnett. I don't have any requests yet since I've not yet used Unity, but I'll keep this in mind when I use Unity soon.

 

I really miss an option to lock an object in the hierarchy so it can't be edited (inspector is grayed out, the object can't be moved,rotated,scaled, selected in the scene, re-ordered in hierarchy).

 

Yes, the only way to do this right now is putting it on a layer and locking the layer. It works but still, a straight way to do this would be really awesome...
Unity really needs to start implementing more of these small features, something like the math operations in the numeric input fields, I really like handy stuff like these, it saves time!

 

The Scene viewports currently predate modern 3D DCC viewport & UI standards. This is an area that is in everybody's face, we all have to use it, and it needs seriously bringing up to date.

• Select Tool (get that transform gizmo out of the way please)
• Selection highlighting (!!)
• Selection Locking (to prevent re-selecting with the other transform Tools)
• Camera/SceneView matching/locking (so obvious it hurts)
• Light views
• split-pane mixed views (or at least proper support for multiple Scene tabs)
• A proper SceneView.camera interface (some of the above can be done through the current interface, but it's woeful as the SceneView.camera isn't a normal camera, and manipulation of it's matrix malforms the Scene UI, i.e. axis picker gizmo, and requires running a Play session to clean itself up).
• etc (look at any 3D application for some great ideas on array operations, alignment tools, selection grouping, background planes, antialias settings and more)

Views are obviously still in active development as Unity 5 brought some nice features for debugging scenes, but these aren't especially helpful to artists or level designers, and these are the guys that use unity as an editor, not just an output monitor.

I find it frustrating enough just editing old-school self contained games with normal levels. I can't imagine how painful it must be for anyone attempting to build huge, complex open-world environments.

 

I think this was in a very recent release note! I completely agree, I want these implemented just as much as I do with major features.

 

I have but one humble suggestion!

I have a lot of scripts in the Execution Order list, and it's a bit hard to find a certain script without some sort of highlight.

Perhaps, when you click on the "Execution Order" button, you could have Unity highlight the script that was previously selected (assuming it's already in the exec.

Or maybe display the execution order value next to the execution order button.