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Game Development How to Make a Video Game The Unity Editor and Scene Setup Place Assets in the Scene View

Can't select the "Green Boxes"

At around 00:56 the teacher can click a "Green Box" But when i do this (i selected the environment) it will just deselect everything.

On forums they say this is the answer but i don't understand it:

I figured it out! It was due to the Sprite Renderer component being collapsed in the Inspector. If I expand it, I can move the objects again; collapse it and anything that uses a Sprite Renderer cannot be moved, gets no gizmos, etc.

Stewart Horsfield
Stewart Horsfield
13,293 Points

I'm having the same problem, can you be a bit more specific about the solution you found with the 'Sprite Renderer'? I can't figure out what you mean.

Greg Kitchin
Greg Kitchin
31,522 Points

I'm having the same problem in not being able to click an object, but a workaround is to expand the 'props' asset folder in the Hierarchy (click on the triangle to the left of Props). That will expand the list, showcasing all the prop assets in the scene. You can then select them by clicking on the individual assets there.

15 Answers

Nick Pettit
STAFF
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Muhammad Athar,

There's another issue with this now in Unity 5.3.x that should be fixed soon according to Unity.

Please read the selected "best answer" in this thread and let me know if following those instructions fixes it for you: https://teamtreehouse.com/community/cannot-select-green-boxes

Nick Pettit
STAFF
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

ALRIGHT! I was finally able to replicate this in Unity v5.1.3f1. As Adam Kelm and others have pointed out, here's the fix:

  1. Go to the Edit menu and choose Project Settings > Quality.
  2. In the Inspector window, select the High Quality option.
  3. In the Inspector window, under the Rendering section, change the Anti Aliasing dropdown to Disabled.

This is partially my own fault, because anti-aliasing doesn't work with deferred rendering, so I'm guessing it's that interaction that's triggering this issue. However, I'd also consider this a bug, because it shouldn't have anything to do with the Scene view; only the game view. Not being able to click on game objects in the scene is a really bizarre manifestation of this, and I would have never guessed it without everyone's help. Thanks for being patient and working through this!

In my opinion this a critical content fix. I'm working with our video team to correct the "Setup the Project" video where we talk about Quality Settings so that anti-aliasing is turned off. During the interim, I've added the correction to the Teacher Notes in the videos "Setup the Project" and "Place Assets in the Scene View".

Nick Pettit
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

The "Setup the Project" video has been fixed.

Thanks again for your help everyone!

Charles Harpke
Charles Harpke
33,986 Points

Thank you for the workaround. It works for me now.

Alan Mattanó
Alan Mattanó
Courses Plus Student 12,188 Points

HAHAH Congratulations you pass +10 ! Awesome answer Nick! I do not remember well but I think there is a section of the course where you explain that anti-aliasing doesn't work with deferred rendering. If not (since is important to know) can be included in the Camera or Lights rendering course.

Excuse me,

Solution is simple. In the upper left corner of the window above where it says Hierarchy there are five buttons. The first one is the "hand"(nav tool), the second one is the "multidirectional pointer"(position tool). If you have the "hand" selected you are not able to select items, and you need to switch to the multidirectional pointerr(position tool) right next to it. Only than you are able to select items inside the environment.

Cheers.

Nick Pettit
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Paul,

Were you able to reproduce the bug that people in this thread described using Unity 5.1.3? I'm pretty sure it's a bug with deferred rendering interacting with anti-aliasing; pretty counter-intuitive given the issues people were describing!

Muhammad Athar
Muhammad Athar
4,004 Points

It did indeed! Thank you for replying fast. I was not able to follow along the videos because of it. Love the videos. Thanks again.

Nathan Johnson
Nathan Johnson
825 Points

Even with the Anti Aliasing set to disabled, I still can't click on the rock in the scene window. Help anyone?

Alan Mattanó
PLUS
Alan Mattanó
Courses Plus Student 12,188 Points

Some tips: You can select in "Scene" window and is not posible in "Game" windows. The "Green Box" is a physics box collider. Is use for game collision. Is attach to the game object as a component. You can select the game object by selecting it in the "Hierarchy" window. If you double click it in the "Hierarchy", it will frame (looking at the selected object). In "Scene" window, you can select also the mesh of the game object but not the collider itself. In this case you are not selecting the "Green Boxes", you are selecting the 3D mesh component. Just to let you know, If the mesh is transparent (glass) you can't select the object in a easy way. Also if there is a canvas, selection can be a problem.

Abdullah Mohamed
Abdullah Mohamed
17,323 Points

I still can't figure out how to select an object.

Stewart Horsfield
Stewart Horsfield
13,293 Points

That doesn't really answer the question, I'm having the same problem, and I'm wondering why Nick can simply click on an object to select it, and when I click on an object it deselects everything. What is Nick doing that I'm not?

Alan Mattanó
PLUS
Alan Mattanó
Courses Plus Student 12,188 Points

Is hard to debug why with so little info. Probably i can help if there is a video. I can try to imagine what are you doing. For example If you try to select objects in the "Game" window instead of the "Scene" windows , is not possible to select the object in the game window and can be one reason. Try to select the mesh at the center of the object using right mouse pushing one time. If you select multiple times you are deselecting all. If you select more than one time in the same place (in the scene view) it will select the objects that are in front first and later then the objects that are on the back. Is just one right click in the center of the object and not a box selection. You can make a box selection for multiple objects. And I think if you click the same object 4 times the scene camera will follow the object (if it is moving). So my best advice is to look the video manual because there can be a multiple combinations of problems or in this case make a video?

Hey Guys, I think I got it. Make sure that there's no play/pause happening on the scene. I made the mistake of dragging something earlier and clicking play. Well, as long as there's some type of play/pause, you need to stop it all the way, then your screen will act like Nick Pettit 's

Eric Hodgins
Eric Hodgins
29,207 Points

If you're like me you may have it the play button at the top. And because of that I couldn't select objects like Nick. But once I deselected play (just clicked it again) everything worked normally.

That's exactly what I was trying to communicate but couldn't get it out lol

Nick Pettit
STAFF
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hey everyone,

When you select a game object in the Scene window, it will select the parent prefab first (in this case, the Environment prefab). If you click that same object again, it will select the individual object.

So if you're trying to move a rock around, you may need to click on it once to select the prefab, and then click again to select the rock you're trying to move.

I hope that helps!

Nick I noticed v5.1.3 was just released August 24, and the release notes show lots of changes. This seems like a bug in Unity. Maybe you could try downloading 5.1.3 to see firsthand, but I've even tried expanding the sprite renderer, to no avail. The only way to select object seems to be in the hierarchy.

Nick Pettit
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Adam,

I just downloaded the latest version of Unity v5.1.3f1, imported the asset package, and I was able to click them just fine. :-/

Are you sure you're in the scene view and not the game view? That's a common mistake that I make sometimes. When you click on a rock or a log in the scene view, what happens?

Abdullah Mohamed
Abdullah Mohamed
17,323 Points

Nick Pettit , Adam Kelm Maybe it's a difference between personal and professional versions ? And Nick when I select a rock it deselect everything and I'm in the scene view

Nick Pettit
STAFF
Nick Pettit
Treehouse Teacher

Hey Abdullah Mohamed, Adam Kelm, and Daniel Kirwan

Do you think one of you could post a video of this happening, where you click a game object in the scene view and everything is deselected? This is really strange and I'm having a tough time debugging it. Selecting objects in the scene view in Unity is a very basic action, so I would be very surprised if this is actually a bug. There has to be something simple that I'm missing here, but I can't figure out what it is yet. :-/

Aha! Nick Pettit I noticed this issue only happens in High Quality mode with anti-aliasing enabled. I just remade the whole project, and everything was working fine until I change the quality settings. Click on High Quality, then try to select an object, and it deselects everything. If you go back through and disable anti-aliasing in High Quality mode, then you can again select objects.

Do you get the same result then? Any idea why this might be happening consistently to some of us?

Stewart Horsfield
Stewart Horsfield
13,293 Points

Adam Kelm nailed it, at least for me.

Go to Edit > Project Settings > Quality

Choose the Low Quality mode that we set up earlier.

After doing this I can select objects in the scene view where I couldn't before.

Abdullah Mohamed
Abdullah Mohamed
17,323 Points

Thanks Stewart Horsfield , it worked for me after changing the quality.

All I had to do was disable anti-aliasing, and then you can still work on the project without completely abandoning high-res textures.

Abdullah Mohamed first go to the quality settings as described by Stewart. In the inspector, choose High Quality. Then under Rendering, the fourth option down is Anti Aliasing. The default value is 2x Multi Sampling, so just click that dropdown and select Disabled. Next time you click on any object after that, it should let you select it.

Abdullah Mohamed
Abdullah Mohamed
17,323 Points

Thanks Adam Kelm , it worked and it looks much better because of the quality.

Stewart Horsfield
Stewart Horsfield
13,293 Points

Great job finding this Adam Kelm, you saved a lot of people from unnecessary headaches.

Alan Mattanó
PLUS
Alan Mattanó
Courses Plus Student 12,188 Points

Is not in the known issues: http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-5.1.3

I strongly suggest to make a scene specific to debug and report this issue to Unity using unity.bugreporter.exe (Report a Problem with Unity). They fix bug each week. I will try to look and reproduce this error in the the latest final UNITY 5.2.0F2

Perhaps there are multiple causes to the same symptom. For me it was not bug related. Thanks.

Muhammad Athar
Muhammad Athar
4,004 Points

I am still facing that issue even after changing the quality settings. It was working fine until after using the environment prefab. I can only select something by dragging a selection box around it which makes it frustrating. I still can't select a rock separately. When I drag on a rock it selects the whole environment. Sometimes it selects in 10 or 20 rapid clicks and sometimes it doesn't even in 50 clicks. Very frustrated right now. Version 5.3.4f1 Personal.