Cut your work in half with these #unitytips for productivity

Over the past four months, we’ve gathered the best #unitytips from our community on Twitter. Now, we want to share these ideas with you to get creating even faster. Check out our previous roundup here.

* Please note that these tips are meant to be informative, based solely on the experience of users in the community. They are not guaranteed to work in the exact same way for each use case.

These latest tips are all about customizing your experience to better suit your workflows and increase your overall productivity.

• Did you know you can edit the numbering scheme of duplicate objects in the hierarchy? Harness this capability to standardize naming schemes for your next project.
• Speed up the level design process with Unity’s adjustable grid snap tools.
• Follow this thread to learn more about Editor scripting and build custom tools for your tasks.
• Create and lock multiple inspectors to conveniently compare objects, or keep a reference object onscreen.
• Use the Handles API to easily show values in the Scene view.
• If you’re tired of resetting your object transforms, check this box to create new objects at the origin.
• Here’s a neat trick to generate light cookies for your forest environment.
• Massively improve your Inspector workflow with this free Smart Inspector add-on. Then, discover more features here and here.
• This user demonstrates his workflow for making short films.
• Here’s a free property attribute to name the elements of an array in the Inspector, which is always great for readability.
• Use this helpful read-only attribute to show values in the Inspector without giving permission to modify them.
• Before you export from Blender, be sure to use this drop-down to import your objects’ scale correctly.
• If you’re using HDRP and Shader Graph, freely disable shader features at different material quality levels.
• Read this tip before you waste your whole day trying to make fancy shadows in HDRP.
• Take advantage of these valuable APIs to draw graphs in the Editor.
• Add custom menu items with hotkeys to accelerate your most common tasks.
• Liven up your text with RichText tags in TextMesh Pro.
• This deep dive into Unity Prefabs will teach you how to make the most of them.
• Check out Unity’s new and simple volumetric cloud system.
• If your low-poly models are looking too square, smoothen them out using this import slider directly within the Editor.

Facilitate debugging, solve problems quickly, and mitigate pain points with these productivity tips for programmers.

• Use Influence Maps to store information on your game’s environment. This is particularly useful to give your enemy AI more awareness and even determine their best possible attack position.
• Packing shader data can make your code hard to read. Luckily, you can restore readability with macros.
• This API forces Unity to crash, so you can prepare your projects to handle any future issues with ease.
• Create Addressable Prefabs from code to automate your workflows.
• Learn the main loop pattern to structure your code in a way that’s clear to read and quick to debug.
• Here are three helpful Unity programming patterns to make you more productive: Use the Dependency pattern to easily cache components, the Index pattern to handle global references, and the Facade pattern to simplify Singleton access.
• With the new input system, you can debug touch and pen inputs using your mouse.
• Simultaneously rename a script file and class with this time-saving script.
• Did you know you can iterate over vector properties using indices? This is helpful to loop over x, y, z, and w values.
• If you’ve ever struggled with auto-recompilation at runtime, use this setting to recompile outside of playmode, or try manual recompilation.
• Leverage this library to add GLTF support in Unity (also available at runtime).

Simply put, here are some tips to guarantee fun gameplay.

• These developers explain their approach to making a physics-based character controller.
• This comprehensive character movement summary offers solid advice here and here.

Take a look at these tips to expand your knowledge and tackle new challenges.

• If you’re interested in UI Toolkit, check out this tutorial on building a World Space UI, and this one that focuses on building an Item Management window.
• Learn more about Render Textures for smoother transition between camera views.
• Follow this breakdown for adding anime-style impact effects.
• Confused about Addressables? Check out two great tutorials here and here.
• Have you ever wondered how to make a Twitch chat overlay? Do it in Unity.
• Optimize your project with this comprehensive guide; it can make all the difference.
• Get to know Unity’s standard material blend modes, starting with this summary.

If you’re ready to dive into shaders, we’ve got a slew of time-saving tutorials from the community.

• Learn shaders from the ground up with this awesome ShaderQuest series.
• This video explains how to use white noise to generate randomness in your shaders.
• If you’ve ever wondered how the DDX and DDY HLSL functions work, watch this video and prepare to be amazed.
• If you already write shaders, you’ll love this handy guide to the smoothstep function.
• Writing post-processing filters is another way to get acquainted with Compute shaders.
• Take advantage of signed distance functions with support from this SDF tutorial, and then become an expert with this additional, follow-up SDF tutorial.
• Discover all 22 different blend modes in Shader Graph’s blend node.
• Make some seriously squishy objects with this take on mesh deformation. 
• Create fun, swirly effects using the power of polar coordinates.
• Why struggle with built-in projectors when you can write your own Decal shader?
• Get some details on how to make a stellar black hole shader through raymarching.

We’d love to know which tips are making your life a little bit easier – keep us posted in the comments below. For more, you can search through the #UnityTips hashtag on Twitter, or get involved by sharing your own tips and best practices every Tuesday. Follow @Unity3d for a weekly #UnityTips Tuesday reminder.

Header image credit: Nathan Thomas; @isosmrt