How to Show Empty Objects in the Unity Scene View

How to Show Empty Objects in the Unity Scene View

While organizing your Unity scene, there are often invisible GameObjects that are necessary for logic control—like GameManager, SoundManager, or GameData. These are typically created as empty objects with only scripts attached, meaning they have a position in the scene but nothing visible in the Scene view.

Use icons to make empty objects visible

To visualize these objects, you can assign an icon to them. Click the small icon box next to the object name in the Inspector to choose a color-coded icon (such as a red, blue, or green sphere).

Once assigned, the object will appear in the Scene view with the selected icon. You can also move it to a corner of the scene to keep things neat and out of the way.

Adjusting icon size and visibility

Click the Gizmos button in the top-right corner of the Scene view. A slider will appear, allowing you to adjust the icon size. If the icon feels too big or distracting, slide it to the left to reduce its size.

However, be careful not to reduce it too much—setting it all the way to zero can make the icon completely invisible, even though it's still technically there.

Understanding the 3D Icons toggle

The 3D Icons checkbox in the Gizmos menu controls how icons behave with camera distance.

  • On: Enables 3D icon scaling (icon size changes based on camera distance).
    Icon may disappear if the scale is too small.
  • Off: Displays icons as fixed-size 2D (icons stay visible regardless of zoom).

At first glance, it may seem like turning this off disables icons entirely, but that's not the case—it just switches to 2D mode where the size can't be changed.

But what if the icon still doesn't show up?

This is a common pitfall. You might assign an icon but still see nothing in the Scene view. One possible cause is that the 3D icon size slider was accidentally set to zero.

To fix this, open the Gizmos menu again and drag the slider slightly to the right. Once the size increases above the threshold, the icon will become visible again.

Summary

Empty GameObjects are essential in many Unity projects, but managing them visually can be tricky. Assigning icons and properly configuring Gizmos makes it much easier to keep your scene organized and understandable.

Once you start using this method, it becomes second nature—and your scenes will look much cleaner.

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