Post Your Unity Layouts Here!

Depends on the project and working place, on a one monitor setup like the MacBook Pro, i normally start with:

Game--------------------------------------------Hierarchy--Project-----Inspector---------------
Scene/Profiler/Animation-----------------"--------------"--------------Console-----------------

Whilst the Gameview has an 16:10 aspect ratio which is zoomed as big as possible regarding it's width and detaching the console from the Inspector column as soon as i have to care about bugs, as the messages don't take care of the width of the current window and therefore otherwise get lost.

 

Default wide

Has all I need laid out in a fairly useful fashion with primary estates given to current view and inspector. Hierarchy and Project have smaller amounts.

Space if it's needed will expand or I can drag. I haven't so far needed to change from this default arrangement.

 

Two displays, left is 27" 16:10, right is 19" 4:3 rotated 90 degrees.

I like to have the console visible right next to the game view for quick debugging. Top left scene view is top-down ortho and mostly used for quick navigation/picking and also for viewing debug rays ect when the game is running and I want to view something the in-game camera isn't looking at. Animation/Profile sit over mono on the right, I like to keep enough space to see most of the code window (so I can double check the source while the game is running) and it makes it simple to switch back and forth.

I didn't like the default wide view because I found myself scrolling to much to find things, once a project gets to a certain size it gets a bit frustrating. For some reason I don't use the search filters anywhere near as much as I should.

 

Tall with console attached to the bottom 1/3 of the scene view.
At work where I have a much wider monitor, I modify it so that additionally the project and hierarchy windows are side by side instead of on top of each other.

Btw, I've been meaning to request this, but can we have a separate layout for when the game is playing as opposed to editing, similar to how visual studio and eclipse switch between debug and editing layouts?

 

+1

Wouldn't need to be too complex, just some place where we can set which saved layout Unity auto switches to when the game is running, then it automatically switches back once stopped.

 

I have mine like this.
Scene/Project/Inspector
Game/Hierarchy/Inspector

I have a reasonably large screen. I used to have a smaller screen to the side with Visual Studio Open but it broke.

 

Here's what I use, on my laptop:



Although my project is not based on visuals, so I don't need much game or scene view. Just a nice wide inspector.

 

How did you make change you mono editor theme?
Edit : Nevermind, got it

 

http://patsluth.com/images/1.png
http://patsluth.com/images/2.png

 

Working 2D, so really only need one scene view. Also, can't live without that second monitor.

 

Default tall for me

 

This is how I use it.

Going through one of the example projects for Unity 3.x Game Dev Essentials. I've spent the past month learning C# so I could start scripting in that rather than Javascript.

One 26" 16:10 monitor @ 1920x1200 and another 24" 16:9 @ 1920x1080

http://imgur.com/XjSvJ

 

personally (as i dont have dual display atm) i prefer everything in floating panels. Makes it easier to focus on the scene / game view - which is where most time is spent aside from mono develop

 

I think this is the best one so far. My only problem when I do something like this is the Inspector gets squashed and some variable labels (long ones) get truncated. I wish Unity word-wrapped them instead. Maybe I shouldn't use long names? I always like variable names to be unambiguously self-descriptive without getting unnecessarily long, but sometimes, you can't have both.

I also wish the Hierarchy View had a horizontal scrollbar, when traversing deep structures like character bones.

 

I second that!

 

Only have one screen most of the time. But that is all I need most of the time. My "one size fits all" layout works pretty well for me. I don't have to see the animation/lightmaping or inspector at the same time so I don't; don't need to see the scene/game and Notepad++ (because who wants to use monodevelop) at the same time so I don't. Rarely need to use any other layouts, and that's great because switching layouts is 2 whole more clicks!!!

Edit:
Oh and a horizontal scrollbar would be excellent!

 

@King

That's exactly my layout

 

Classic :

​

 

Can't imagine working without the dual monitors:

 

Mine is like Karl's, just with dark skin and console at the bottom.

 

I used the Pro skin for all of about 2 minutes before switching back to the light version. I wish there was some way to set up custom skins...

 

This one's been working pretty good for me lately:

 

I like the darker one more, because the eyes get tired less. I don't understand why it is pro only, it has nothing to do with functionality ― just different colors.

 

This is a bit of an exaggeration (laptop and upper screen are rarely in use):



This has been my standard layout for years. Inspector is sandwiched between Project and Hierarchy, dual game/scene views, extra stuff (ie Asset Server) is docked alongside scene. It works well even on smaller laptop screens:

 

lol - epic

 

I love the symmetry of this and was about to try it out, until I realised that it would drive me mad selecting objects on the left panel and then having to move all the way to the right to access the inspector.

 

This is my desk.

Top Left is game screen.
Left monitor is for main unity window.
middle monitor is code edit and console.

Right is a iMac for iPhone/android dev.

This is actually Unity PS3 hence the blur!


Chris

 

I saw your screenshot and knew what book you were using before reading your post. I'm working through that same book, I am brand new to programming and Unity. Currently up to chapter 8 and have been using all the C# examples over the Javascript. I'm using a 13" MacBookPro currently but when I get past the learning stages, I'll definitely want to get a more robust layout going for efficiency.

 

@cannon: Stumbled across this thread today and thought your play-mode-layout-switching-idea was really good. After an hour of searching through the docs and experimenting I had this little editor-script. Fill in two names of actual layouts you have in the editor or make two new ones called PLAY and WORK and you're good to go. Every time you enter play-mode the PLAY layout is applied, whenever you exit play-mode you're put back into the WORK layout

 

Fairly basic, it might just be the default, I don't know ^^'

 

this is my center monitor, and i'll sometimes detach a panel for something to another monitor if needed...

 

Tall layout all the way

So layout. Such tall. Wow. Very works

 

I use this except I have the console as a tab on the insepctor

 

So epic i gotta make mine like yours

 

2 by 3 from the Layout dropdown.

 

It's changed a lot, but I think I've settled to it like this.. I like having the inspector on the left side but there are some alignment and fitting issues that periodically crop up with it over there.

I throw in the profiler, mecanim or whatever on the bottom with the console and playmaker editor, the bottom is basically the space where all the stuff happens.

I don't see anyone using the big icons in the hierarchies yet. I thought I might like them when i started playing with the 2d stuff but just can't seem to get into using them.

 

So this is my layout.

I spend most of my time looking at the Inspector, Hierarchy, and Project panels, so I decided to keep them in the middle.

I picked the right side of the left monitor for the Console (and other panels there) because I look at it more than the Scene and Game views, but it doesn't take up a lot of my "glance time".

The Scene view is on the left because I don't care about its proportions being messed up by the Console.

The Game view animation panels are on the right because I like them to take up the full screen and also because it doesn't strain my neck/arm as much to swivel my chair to the right (vs left) since I'm right-handed and most of the work on those screens only uses the mouse (and usually just wasd and/or shift on the keyboard).

 

Right now is more of less the default, a few extra windows thrown in but mostly the same. I'm largely programming at the moment, so I don't worry too much about where everything is. If I start working on a level, I'll end up flipping tables and ransacking the layout.

 

Been using this layout since the beginning I guess it always worked for me, so i never changed it.

I normally don't use it fullscreen, because i only have one monitor, so i have a portion of the right side for other things, like skype, web pages, youtube videos, twitch streams, etc.


But when i work fullscreen, this is what it looks like:


Not the best workflow, but works for me

 

It's beautiful

 

I cant believe I used that horrible layout at one time.

Now I use one similar to the default but with the hierarchy to the right side(with other windows tabbed on the inspector, hierarchy and scene/play windows depending on their function and/or size), on my PC at school I have the same but usually with a few windows on the second monitor.

 

Here's Mine:



I find that having multiple inspector and project panels is a very useful thing. When you're doing some complex object setting-up, I tend to lock one of the inspectors or project panels, and use the others to find the stuff I need.

This layout takes up about 7/8ths of the total screen width, leaving room for a chat window on each side, more or less.

The small panel on the top left is a tool I wrote to not have to constantly go back to the loading scene before playing. It switches scenes automatically, bypasses the main menu, skips texture loading (saves SO much time), and lets you set up a few cheats as well. On stopping the game, it loads the scene you were at before.

That's about it I think.

Cheers

 

Was mucking around last week wishing I could do that.. Read this and just went to tinker around to find how to add the tab. Really cool feature, thanks for sharing.

 

No. It's a mess!

 

Attempted to make mine as compact, yet functional, as possible seeing as I'm primarily working off of a MacBook Pro 13"; one of these days I will cave and purchase a cinematic display.

 

Yeah I love double inspector. I was using Unity for quite a while before I learned about it. I saw it in the tips & tricks video in the live training archive. I feel like its kind of a secret Unity thing.



My layout is pretty strange I think. I rely heavily on my second monitor because I like my scene/game view nice and big.

 

What a kind of monitor setup do you have?
3X 1080p?