Manipulating Game Objects in Unity

You have Unity, now you want to do something with it. If you want things to move, you need to know about the transform tools.

With Unity open, create a cube in your scene view, so that you can see what happens as we go through them one at a time.

First on this toolbar is the Hand Tool which, though not related to object transforms, allows you to manipulate your view of the scene.

Hand tool for manipulating your scene view

Next is the move Tool which lets you move your selected object in the X, Y, and Z directions

Demonstration of the Move Tool

Continuing toward the right is the Rotate Tool for rotation of selected objects along their X, Y, or Z axes.

Demonstration of rotation tool

Next to that you’ll find the Scale Tool. With it you can change the scale of your object either uniformly, by grabbing the center of the gizmo, or non-uniformly by grabbing one of the axes.

Demonstration of the Scale Tool

And lastly, what I call, the Kitchen Sink of transform tools. It’s official name is the “Move, Scale or Rotate selected object” tool. It allows you, with one gizmo, to perform any of the afore mentioned transforms on your selected object.

Demonstration of the Move, Scale, or Rotate selected object, tool

Now you know hoe to manipulate objects in your scenes.