A tour of the editor – Tallow Engine

This tour covers the panels you will use every day, how to move around a scene and how to place objects. Open any project to follow along. An Empty project works well.

Step 1: Meet the panels

Panel	What it does
Hierarchy	Every object in the scene, as a tree. Drag an object onto another to make it a child. Right-click for Rename (F2), Duplicate, Delete, Frame in Scene and Save as Prefab.
Scene	Where you build. You see the world from a free camera.
Game	What the game's camera sees when you press Play.
Inspector	The selected object's components and their fields.
Project	The files in your project. Drag models into the scene, and drop files from your desktop here to import them.
Console	Messages, warnings and compile errors. Click an error to jump to the line.

Panels can be dragged by their tabs and docked anywhere. If you lose one, use Window > Reset Layout.

Step 2: Fly the Scene camera

Click in the Scene view, then:

Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse to look around. While holding it, W A S D move and Q / E go down and up.
Middle-drag pans.
The mouse wheel moves forward and back.
F frames the selected object.

Try flying away from the scene, selecting an object in the Hierarchy and pressing F to come back.

Step 3: Add an object

Open GameObject > 3D Object > Cube. A cube appears and is selected. The same menu has lights, cameras, water, particle systems and more, and GameObject > With Component creates an object with any component already on it. You can also right-click in the Hierarchy.

Step 4: Move, rotate and scale

With the cube selected, the keys switch the gizmo in the Scene view:

Key	Tool
W	Move
E	Rotate
R	Scale
T	All three at once

Drag the gizmo's handles, or type exact values in the Transform at the top of the Inspector. A click on a number field turns it into a text box. Dragging it changes the value.

Edit has handy extras: Duplicate (Ctrl+D), Drop to Surface (End), Snap to Grid and Turn 90 Degrees.

Step 5: Add a component

Objects get their behaviour from components. With the cube selected, press Add Component at the bottom of the Inspector, type light and pick Light. Its fields, such as type, colour and intensity, appear in the Inspector. Right-click a component's header for Copy Component, Paste Component Values and Remove Component.

Step 6: Undo, save and play

Ctrl+Z undoes and Ctrl+Y redoes.
Ctrl+S saves the scene. A * after the scene's name in the menu bar means there are unsaved changes.
Ctrl+P starts and stops play mode. Changes made while playing are thrown away when you stop.

Next, give your cube some behaviour in Your first script.