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1D Blend Tree: A Blend Tree for 1D blending, which blends motion according to a single Animation Parameter. More info

2D Blend Tree: A Blend Tree for 2D blending, which blends motion according to two Animation Parameters. More info

2D Object: A 2D GameObject such as a tilemap or sprite. More info

3D Object: A 3D GameObject such as a cube, terrain or ragdoll. More info

Accelerator: The Unity Accelerator is an external tool that provides an asset cache that keeps copies of a team’s imported assets. The goal of the Accelerator is to speed up teamwork and reduce iteration time by coordinating asset sharing so that you don’t need to reimport portions of your project. More info

active users: Players who recently played your game. Unity Analytics defines an active player as someone who has played within the last 90 calendar days. More info

Ad ARP: (Average Revenue Per User) Average Unity Ads revenue per player. More info

ad revenue: Total Unity Ads revenue. More info

ad starts: The number of video ads that started playing. More info

ADB: An Android Debug Bridge (ADB). You can use an ADB to deploy an Android package (APK) manually after building. More info

ads per DAU: The number of ads started per active player on a given day. More info

age 14 and under: By default, Unity does not breakout analytics data for players under the age of 14. See COPPA Compliance. More info

all spenders: Players who have made any verified or unverified in-app purchases in their lifetime. More info

ambient light: Light that doesn't come from any specific direction, and contributes equal light in all directions to the Scene. More info

ambient occlusion: A method to approximate how much ambient light (light not coming from a specific direction) can hit a point on a surface.

analytics events: Events dispatched to the Analytics Service by instances of your applications. Analytics events contain the data that is processed and aggregated to provide insights into player behavior. More info

Analytics: Abbreviation of Unity Analytics

anchor: A UI layout tool that fixes a UI element to a parent element. Anchors are shown as four small triangular handles in the Scene view and anchor information is also shown in the Inspector. More info

Android Keystore: An Android system that lets you store cryptographic key entries for enhanced device security. More info

Animation Blend Shape: Enables you to make an object change its form by blending between two separate meshes. More info

Animation Blend Tree: Used for continuous blending between similar Animation Clips based on float Animation Parameters. More info

Animation Clip: Animation data that can be used for animated characters or simple animations. It is a simple "unit" piece of motion, such as (one specific instance of) "Idle", "Walk" or "Run". More info

Animation Clip Node: A node in a Blend Tree graph that contains an animation clip, such as a run or walk animation. More info

animation compression: The method of compressing animation data to significantly reduce file sizes without causing a noticeable reduction in motion quality. Animation compression is a trade off between saving on memory and image quality. More info

Animation Curves: Allows you to add data to an imported clip so you can animate the timings of other items based on the state of an animator. For example, for a game set in icy conditions, you could use an extra animation curve to control the emission rate of a particle system to show the player's condensing breath in the cold air. More info

Animation Event: Allows you to add data to an imported clip which determines when certain actions should occur in time with the animation. For example, for an animated character you might want to add events to walk and run cycles to indicate when the footstep sounds should play. More info

Animation Key: The value of an animatable property, set at a specific point in time. Setting at least two keys for the same property creates an animation. More info

Animation Layer: An Animation Layer contains an Animation State Machine that controls animations of a model or part of it. An example of this is if you have a full-body layer for walking or jumping and a higher layer for upper-body motions such as throwing an object or shooting. The higher layers take precedence for the body parts they control. More info

Animation Parameters: Used to communicate between scripting and the Animator Controller. Some parameters can be set in scripting and used by the controller, while other parameters are based on Custom Curves in Animation Clips and can be sampled using the scripting API. More info

Animation State Machine: A graph within an Animator Controller that controls the interaction of Animation States. Each state references an Animation Blend Tree or a single Animation Clip. More info

Animation Transition: Allows a state machine to switch or blend from one animation state to another. Transitions define how long a blend between states should take, and the conditions that activate them. More info

Animator Component: A component on a model that animates that model using the Animation system. The component has a reference to an Animator Controller asset that controls the animation. More info

Animator Controller: Controls animation through Animation Layers with Animation State Machines and Animation Blend Trees, controlled by Animation Parameters. The same Animator Controller can be referenced by multiple models with Animator components. More info

Animator Override Controller: Allows you to create multiple variants of an Animator Controller, with each variant using a different set of animations, while retaining the original Controller's structure, parameters and logic. More info

Animator Window: The window where the Animator Controller is visualized and edited. More info

Aniso Level: The anisotropic filtering (AF) level of a texture. Allows you to increase texture quality when viewing a texture at a steep angle. Good for floor and ground textures. More info

antialiasing: A technique for decreasing artifacts, like jagged lines (jaggies), in images to make them appear smoother.

AOT Compilation: Ahead of Time (AOT) compilation is an optimization method used by all platforms except iOS for optimizing the size of the built player. . More info

APK: The Android Package format output by Unity. An APK is automatically deployed to your device when you select File > Build & Run. More info

application version: Player segments based on application version or bundleid. More info

AR: Augmented Reality More info

ARPDAU: (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User) The average revenue per user who played on a given day. More info

ARPPU: (Average Revenue Per Paying User) Average verified IAP revenue per user who completed a verified IAP transaction. More info

aspect ratio: The relationship of an image's proportional dimensions, such as its width and height.

asset package: A collection of files and data from Unity projects, or elements of projects, which are compressed and stored in one file, similar to Zip files, with the extension. Asset packages are a handy way of sharing and re-using Unity projects and collections of assets. More info

Asset Server: Legacy - An asset and version control system with a graphical user interface integrated into Unity. Enables team members to work together on a project on different computers.

asset: Any media or data that can be used in your game or project. An asset may come from a file created outside of Unity, such as a 3D Model, an audio file or an image. You can also create some asset types in Unity, such as an Animator Controller, an Audio Mixer or a Render Texture. More info

Asset Store: A growing library of free and commercial assets created by Unity and members of the community. Offers a wide variety of assets, from textures, models and animations to whole project examples, tutorials and Editor extensions. More info

Asset Store package: A bundled collection of assets or tools available for purchase or download on the Unity Asset Store, compressed and stored as an asset package ( extension) or a UPM package. You can manage your packages from the Asset Store either on the online store or through the Package Manager window. More info

asset subgraph: A subgraph serialized as its own independent asset file. Asset subgraphs are reusable across multiple graphs. Any changes made to the asset subgraph propagate to all instances of the subgraph. More info

Audio Clip: A container for audio data in Unity. Unity supports mono, stereo and multichannel audio assets (up to eight channels). Unity can import .aif, .wav, .mp3, and .ogg audio file format, and .xm, .mod, .it, and .s3m tracker module formats. More info

Audio Distortion Filter: An audio filter that distorts the sound from an Audio Source or sounds reaching the Audio Listener by simulating the sound of a low quality radio transmission. More info

Audio Effect: Any effect that can modify the output of Audio Mixer components, such as filtering frequency ranges of a sound or applying reverb. More info

Audio Filter: Any audio filter that distorts the sound from an Audio Source or sounds reaching an Audio Listener. More info

Audio High Pass Filter: An audio filter that passes high frequencies of an AudioSource and cuts off signals with frequencies lower than the Cutoff Frequency. More info

Audio Listener: A component that acts like a microphone, receiving sound from Audio Sources in the scene and outputting to the computer speakers. More info

Audio Low Pass Filter: An audio filter that passes low frequencies of an Audio Source or all sound reaching an Audio Listener while removing frequencies higher than the Cutoff Frequency. More info

Audio Source: A component which plays back an Audio Clip in the scene to an audio listener or through an audio mixer. More info

Audio Spatializer: A plug-in that changes the way audio is transmitted from an audio source into the surrounding space. It takes the source and regulates the gains of the left and right ear contributions based on the distance and angle between the AudioListener and the AudioSource. More info

Augmented Reality: Augmented Reality (AR) uses computer graphics or video composited on top of a live video feed to augment the view and create interaction with real and virtual objects. More info

Avatar Mask: A specification for which body parts to include or exclude for an animation rig. Used in Animation Layers and in the importer. More info

Avatar: An interface for retargeting animation from one rig to another. More info

baked lights: Light components whose Mode property is set to Baked. Unity pre-calculates the illumination from Baked Lights before runtime, and does not include them in any runtime lighting calculations. More info

billboard: A textured 2D object that rotates so that it always faces the Camera. More info

Bind-pose: The pose at which the character was modeled.

Blackboard: A panel that displays and manages variables available for use in the graph. Users can create, edit, delete, organize variables and drag them directly onto the graph canvas for immediate use.

Blend Node: A node in a Blend Tree graph that blends animation clip nodes. More info

blend: Transition from one animation to another smoothly and seamlessly, such as blending a character's walking and running animations according to the character's speed.

blit: A shorthand term for "bit block transfer". A blit operation is the process of transferring blocks of data from one place in memory to another.

block node: A special type of node, usable only inside a context node. Block nodes can't exist on their own in the graph. More info

Bloom: A post-processing effect used to reproduce an imaging artifact of real-world cameras. The effect produces fringes of light extending from the borders of bright areas in an image, contributing to the illusion of an extremely bright light overwhelming the camera or eye capturing the scene.

Body Transform: The mass center of the character. It is used in for animation retargeting and provides the most stable displacement model. More info

Body Type: Defines a fixed behavior for a 2D Rigidbody. Can be Dynamic (the body moves under simulation and is affected by forces like gravity), Kinematic (the body moves under simulation, but isn't affected by forces like gravity) or Static (the body doesn't move under simulation). More info

bounding volume: A closed shape representing the edges and faces of a collider or trigger.

Box Collider: A cube-shaped collider component that handles collisions for GameObjects like dice and ice cubes. More info

breadcrumbs: A navigation aid that shows users where they are in the graph hierarchy. Graph users can click the breadcrumbs to jump to parent or child graphs.

broad phase collision detection: A collision detection phase that computes pairs of potentially overlapping objects by judging only their respective bounding volumes. More info

Build Automation: A continuous integration service for Unity projects that automates the process of creating builds on Unity's servers. More info

build profile: A set of customizable configuration settings to use when creating a build for your target platform. More info

build: The process of compiling your project into a format that is ready to run on a specific platform or platforms. More info

built-in package: Built-in packages allow users to toggle Unity features on or off through the Package Manager. Enabling or disabling a package reduces the run-time build size. For example, most projects don't use the legacy Particle System. By removing the abstracted package of this feature, the related code and resources are not part of the final built product. Typically, these packages contain only the package manifest and are bundled with Unity (rather than available on the package registry).

bump map: An image texture used to represent geometric detail across the surface of a mesh, for example bumps and grooves. Can be represented as a heightmap or a normal map. More info

bundled package: Unity stores bundled packages in the global cache when you install Unity. You can install these packages in your project even if you are completely offline (not currently connected to the internet or a local network).

Cache API: A Javascript API to store network request and response pairs in the browser cache. More info

call stack: A list of methods that were called at run time, organized as a last-in-first-out stack.

Camera: A component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info

Canvas Group: A group of UI elements within a Canvas. Use a Canvas Group to control a group of UI elements collectively without needing to handle them each individually. More info

Canvas Renderer: Renders a graphical UI object contained within a Canvas. More info

Canvas Scaler: Controls the overall scale and pixel density of all UI elements in the Canvas, including font sizes and image borders. More info

Canvas: The area that contains all UI elements in a scene. The Canvas area is shown as a rectangle in the Scene View. More info

Capsule Collider: A capsule-shaped collider component that handles collisions for GameObjects like barrels and character limbs. More info

category: A Profiler category identifies the workload data for a Unity subsystem (for example, Rendering, Scripting and Animation categories). Unity applies color-coding to categories to help visually distinguish the types of data in the Profiler window. More info

center of mass: Represents the average position of all mass in a Rigidbody for the purposes of physics calculations. By default it is computed from all colliders belonging to the Rigidbody, but can be modified via script. More info

Character Controller: A simple, capsule-shaped collider component with specialized features for behaving as a character in a game. Unlike true collider components, a Rigidbody is not needed and the momentum effects are not realistic. More info

Character Joint: An extended ball-socket joint which allows a joint to be limited on each axis. Mainly used for Ragdoll effects. More info

churn: The rate at which users are leaving your game during a specified period. Your user churn is important in estimating the lifetime value of your users. Mathematically, churn is the complement of retention (in other words: Churn + Retention = 100%). More info

clipping plane: A plane that limits how far or close a camera can see from its current position. A camera's viewable range is between the far and near clipping planes. See far clipping plane and near clipping plane. More info

closed platform: Includes platforms that require confidentiality and legal agreements with the platform provider for using their developer tools and hardware. These platforms aren't open to development unless you have an established relationship with the provider. For example PlayStation®, Game Core for XBOX®, and Nintendo®.

Cloth: A component that works with the Skinned Mesh Renderer to provide a physics-based solution for simulating fabrics. More info

cohort: A group of players with at least one similar characteristic. You can define and analyze different cohorts of your user base with segments. More info

collider: An invisible shape that is used to handle physical collisions for an object. A collider doesn't need to be exactly the same shape as the object's mesh - a rough approximation is often more efficient and indistinguishable in gameplay. More info

collision detection: An automatic process performed by Unity which determines whether a moving GameObject with a Rigidbody and collider component has come into contact with any other colliders. More info

collision: A collision occurs when the physics engine detects that the colliders of two GameObjects make contact or overlap, when at least one has a Rigidbody component and is in motion. More info

component: A functional part of a GameObject. A GameObject can contain any number of components. Unity has many built-in components, and you can create your own by writing scripts that inherit from MonoBehaviour. More info

compression: A method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression.

Configurable Joint: An extremely customizable joint that other joint types are derived from. It can be used to create anything from adapted versions of existing joints to custom designed and highly specialized joints. More info

connector: The interactive element of a port that serves as the attachment point to start or end a wire connection.

Console window: A Unity Editor window that shows errors, warnings and other messages generated by Unity, or your own scripts. More info

console: Abbreviation of game console

Constant Force: A simple component for adding a constant force or torque to game objects with a Rigidbody. More info

constant node: A specialized node that outputs a fixed value of a specific data type. You can convert constant nodes to variable nodes. More info

constraints: Settings on Joint components which limit movement or rotation. The type and number of constraints vary depending on the type of Joint. More info

contact distance: A joint limit property that sets the minimum distance tolerance between the joint position and the limit at which the limit will be enforced. More info

Context node: A specialized node that serves as a dynamic container for compatible block nodes. More info

continuous collision detection: A collision detection method that calculates and resolves collisions over the entire physics simulation step. This can prevent fast-moving objects from tunnelling through walls during a simulation step. More info

conversion rate: The percentage of users who complete an action or sequence of actions. More info

COPPA: (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) COPPA is a US law that applies to apps that collect personal information and are targeted to children under the age of 13. More info

core events: Core events are the basic events dispatched by the Unity Analytics code in your game. These events, and the analytics based on them, become available by turning on Unity Analytics for a project. Core events include: app running, app start, and device info. More info

CTR: (Click Through Rate) The percentage of players who click a link in an ad displayed in your game. More info

Cubemap: A collection of six square textures that can represent the reflections in an environment or the skybox drawn behind your geometry. The six squares form the faces of an imaginary cube that surrounds an object; each face represents the view along the directions of the world axes (up, down, left, right, forward and back). More info

Culling Mask: Allows you to include or omit objects to be rendered by a Camera, by Layer.

custom events: Custom events are freeform events that you can dispatch when an appropriate standard event is not available. Custom events can have any name and up to ten parameters. Use standard events in preference to custom events where possible. More info

damping ratio: A joint setting to control spring oscillation. A higher damping ratio means the spring will come to rest faster. More info

Data Explorer: A Unity Analytics Dashboard page that allows you to build, view and export reports on your Analytics metrics and events. You can also see how metrics and custom events change over time. More info

DAU per MAU: (DAU/MAU) The percentage of monthly active users who play on a given day. Also known as Sticky Factor in the analytics and game industries, this metric is often used as one estimate of player engagement. More info

DAU: (Daily Active Users) The number of different players who started a session on a given day. DAU includes both new and returning players. More info

day 1 retention: The percentage of players who returned to your game one day after playing the first time. More info

day 30 retention: The percentage of players who returned to your game thirty days after playing the first time. More info

day 7 retention: The percentage of players who returned to your game seven days after playing the first time. More info

default package: Unity automatically pre-installs a select number of default packages (for example, the Analytics Library, Unity Timeline, etc.) when you create a new project. This differs from a bundled package because you don't need to install it and it differs from a built-in package because it extends Unity's features rather than being able to enable or disable them.

deferred shading: A rendering path in the Built-in Render Pipeline that places no limit on the number of Lights that can affect a GameObject. All Lights are evaluated per-pixel, which means that they all interact correctly with normal maps and so on. Additionally, all Lights can have cookies and shadows. More info

demographics: Player segments based on reported demographics. More info

depth buffer: A memory store that holds the z-value depth of each pixel in an image, where the z-value is the depth for each rendered pixel from the projection plane. More info

depth of field: A post-processing effect that simulates the focus properties of a camera lens. More info

development build: A development build includes debug symbols and enables the Profiler. More info

dimetric projection: A form of parallel projection where the dimensions of a 3D object are projected onto a 2D plane, and only two of the three angles between the axes are equal to each other. This form of projection is commonly used in isometric video games to simulate three-dimensional depth. More info

Direct Blend Tree: A Blend Tree that allows you to map animator parameters directly to the weight of a Blend Tree child. This is useful when you want to have exact control over the animations that are being blended rather than blend them indirectly using one or two parameters (in the case of 1D and 2D blend trees). More info

Direct dependency: A direct dependency occurs when your project "requests" a specific package version. To create a direct dependency, you add that package and version to the dependencies property in your project manifest (expressed in the form ). More info

discrete collision detection: A collision detection method that calculates and resolves collisions based on the pose of objects at the end of each physics simulation step. More info

Distance Shadowmask: A version of the Shadowmask lighting mode that includes high quality shadows cast from static GameObjects onto dynamic GameObjects. More info

distortion effect: An audio effect that modifies the sound by squashing and clipping the waveform to produce a rough, harsh result. More info

dolphins: Players who have spent between $5 and $19.99. More info

doppler factor: An audio setting that allows you to control how much the velocity of an object (relative to the audio listener) affects the pitch of any audio sources attached to it. More info

dry level: An audio setting that allows you to set the mix level of unprocessed signal in output in mB.

dry mix: An audio setting that allows you to set the volume of the original signal to pass to output.

dynamic friction: A Physics Material property that defines the friction for a Rigidbody when it's in motion. Lower values mean less friction, so a setting of zero represents slipping on ice. More info

dynamic resolution: A Camera setting that allows you to dynamically scale individual render targets to reduce workload on the GPU. More info

eCPM: (estimated Cost Per Mille) The estimated revenue for 1000 ad impressions for your app. More info

Editor scripts: C# source files composed entirely of code that runs in the Unity Editor only and not in the runtime Player build. Keep such scripts in dedicated Editor assemblies either by placing them in a parent folder called Editor or creating an Editor-only assembly definition.

embedded package: An embedded package is a mutable package that you store under the directory at the root of a Unity project. This differs from most packages which you download from a package server and are immutable. More info

Emscripten: The toolchain that Unity uses to convert from C and C++ to WebAssembly. More info

engagement: Engagement is a broad measure of how players enjoy, or are otherwise invested, in your game. Impossible to measure directly, the following metrics are frequently used to estimate engagement: Retention, DAU, MAU, DAU/MAU, number of sessions, and session length. More info

Enlighten: A lighting system by Geomerics used in Unity for Enlighten Realtime Global Illumination. More info

ETC: (Ericsson Texture Compression) A block-based texture format that compresses textures to significantly reduce file sizes without causing a noticeable reduction in image quality. More info

Event System: A way of sending events to objects in the application based on input, be it keyboard, mouse, touch, or custom input. The Event System consists of a few components that work together to send events. More info

exponential fog: A fog model that emulates realistic fog behavior by simulating light absorption over distance by a certain attenuation factor.

exposure value: A value that represents a combination of a camera's shutter speed and f-number. It is essentially a measurement of exposure such that all combinations of shutter speed and f-number that yield the same level of exposure have the same EV.

extrapolate: See Extrapolation

extrapolation: The process of storing the last few known values and using them to predict future values. Used in animation, physics and multiplayer.

Extrude Edges: A Texture property that enables you to define how much area to leave around a sprite in a generated mesh.

F2P: (Free to Play) A business model that offers users free access to a fully functional game and a significant portion of app content. Monetization strategies for these titles generally include microtransactions that allow users to access premium features and virtual goods. More info

far clipping plane: The maximum draw distance for a camera. Geometry beyond the plane defined by this value is not rendered. The plane is perpendicular to the camera's forward (Z) direction.

FBX: Autodesk's proprietary format that Unity uses to import and export Models, animation, and more. More info

feature set: A feature set is a collection of related packages that you can use to achieve specific results in the Unity Editor. You can manage feature sets directly in Unity's Package Manager. More info

fill rate: The rate at which ads are available when you request one. More info

first person shooter: A common game genre, featuring a first-person view of a 3D world, and gun-based combat with other players or NPCs.

Fixed Joint: A joint type that is completely constrained, allowing two objects to be held together. Implemented as a spring so some motion may still occur. More info

Fixed Joint 2D: A 2D joint type which is completely constrained, allowing two objects to be held together. Implemented as a spring so some small motion may still occur. More info

fixed timestep: A customizable frame-rate-independent interval that dictates when physics calculations and FixedUpdate() events are performed. More info

flythrough mode: A Scene view navigation mode that allows you to fly around the scene in first-person, similar to how you would navigate in many games. More info

FMOD: Audio in Unity is built on top of a middleware called FMOD. FMOD is integrated with the Unity engine for creating and playing back interactive audio.

fog: A post-processing effect that overlays a color onto objects depending on the distance from the camera. Use this to simulate fog or mist in outdoor environments, or to hide clipping of objects near the camera's far clip plane. More info

forward kinematics: A method of posing a skeleton for animation by rotating the joint angles to predetermined values. The position of a child joint changes according to the rotation of its parent and so the end point of a chain of joints can be determined from the angles and relative positions of the individual joints it contains.

Forward Rendering: A rendering path that renders each object in one or more passes, depending on lights that affect the object. Lights themselves are also treated differently by Forward Rendering, depending on their settings and intensity. More info

FPS: See first person shooter, frames per second.

frame: A single image from a sequence of images that represent moving graphics. While your game is running, the camera in your game renders frames to the screen as fast as possible. May also refer to a frame from a video clip, or sprite animation frames. See frames per second (FPS).

frames per second: The frequency at which consecutive frames are displayed in a running game. More info

Framework: A reusable collection of pre-built components, tools, and architecture patterns for building applications. Unlike a simple library of functions, a framework defines how components interact and allows the execution of your custom code via specific extension points.

Fresnel Effect: An effect representing the increase in reflectivity on objects when light hits at grazing angles.

frustum: The region of 3D space that a perspective camera can see and render. In the Scene view, the frustum is represented by a truncated rectangular pyramid with its top at the camera’s near clipping plane and its base at the camera’s far clipping plane. More info

funnel: In Analytics, a funnel is a linear sequence of standard or custom events that you expect a player to complete in order. More info

game console: A device that runs and displays video games.

game controller: A device to control objects and characters in a game.

GameObject: The fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject's functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info

geography: Player segments based on country. More info

GI Cache: The cached intermediate files used when Unity precomputes lighting data. Unity keeps this cache to speed up computation. More info

Git dependency: The Package Manager retrieves Git dependencies from a Git repository directly rather than from a package registry. Git dependencies use a Git URL reference instead of a version, and there's no guarantee about the package quality, stability, validity, or even whether the version stated in its file respects Semantic Versioning rules with regards to officially published releases of this package. More info

Gizmo: A graphic overlay associated with a GameObject in a Scene, and displayed in the Scene View. Built-in scene tools such as the move tool are Gizmos, and you can create custom Gizmos using textures or scripting. Some Gizmos are only drawn when the GameObject is selected, while other Gizmos are drawn by the Editor regardless of which GameObjects are selected. More info

global illumination: A group of techniques that model both direct and indirect lighting to provide realistic lighting results.

Gradle: An Android build system that automates several build processes. This automation means that many common build errors are less likely to occur. More info

graph: A collection of nodes linked together by wires.

Graph canvas: The main area of the graph editor window where users can add and manipulate nodes, wires, and other graph elements.

Graph inspector: A panel that provides detailed information about the selected graph elements, such as nodes, wires, placemats or sticky notes. If nothing is selected, it shows the properties of the graph itself.

Graph item library: A catalog of graph elements (nodes, variables, etc.) that you can add to the current graph based on context. The term also refers to the user interface that allows you to browse, search, and insert these items directly into your graph or in the blackboard.

Graph pull model: An execution model where a request for data or execution originates from a graph's output, and nodes retrieve inputs from their predecessors as needed to fulfill the request.

Graph push model: An execution model where nodes actively process data and send outputs to connected nodes, propagating data from inputs to a final output.

Graph window: The Unity Editor window that contains the graph canvas, the blackboard, the minimap, the graph inspector and the toolbars.

Gravity Modifier: A Particle System property that scales the gravity value set in the physics manager. A value of zero switches gravity off. More info

Halo: The glowing light areas around light sources, used to give the impression of small dust particles in the air. More info

hard shadows: A shadow property that produces shadows with a sharp edge. Hard shadows are not particularly realistic compared to Soft Shadows but they involve less processing, and are acceptable for many purposes.

HDR: high dynamic range

HDRI: high dynamic range image

heightmap: A greyscale Texture that stores height data for an object. Each pixel stores the height difference perpendicular to the face that pixel represents.

high twist limit: The higher limit of a Character Joint. More info

Hinge Joint: A joint that groups together two Rigidbody components, constraining them to move like they are connected by a hinge. It is perfect for doors, but can also be used to model chains, pendulums and so on. More info

HLAPI: Abbreviation of High Level API.

host: In a multiplayer network game without a dedicated server, one of the peers in the game acts as the center of authority for the game. This peer is called the "host". It runs a server and a "local client", while the other peers each run a "remote client". More info

Human template: A pre-defined bone-mapping. Used for matching bones from FBX files to the Avatar. More info

Humanoid animation: An animation using humanoid skeletons. Humanoid models generally have the same basic structure, representing the major articulate parts of the body, head and limbs. This makes it easy to map animations from one humanoid skeleton to another, allowing retargeting and inverse kinematics. More info

IAP: See In App Purchase

ignore file: A special file used in many Version Control Systems which specifies files to be excluded from being placed under version control. In Unity projects there are a number of files which could be excluded from version control, and using an Ignore File is the best way to achieve this.

IL2CPP: A Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building projects for some platforms. More info

Image control: An Image control displays a non-interactive image to the user, such as a decoration and icon. You can change the image from a script to reflect changes in other controls. More info

immutable: You cannot change the contents of an immutable (read-only) package. This is the opposite of mutable. Most packages are immutable, including packages downloaded from the package registry or by Git URL.

impressions: The number of times ads are seen in your game. An impression is counted even if the ad is not completed. More info

in app purchase: Revenue from "micro-transactions" within a game. More info

indirect dependency: An indirect, or transitive dependency occurs when your project requests a package which itself "depends on" another package. For example, if your project depends on the package which in turn depends on the package, then your project has an direct dependency on Alembic and an indirect dependency on Timeline. More info

input key: A key on a keyboard relating to the Input class. More info

Input Manager: Settings where you can define all the different input axes, buttons and controls for your project. More info

Input port: A port on a node that you can connect to output ports using wires.

Input/Output variable kind: A category of variable. A variable of this kind represents data that are accessible outside the graph such as subgraph node ports, shader properties, or component fields. Input variables read data from external elements, while output variables write data back to external elements. Input/output kind variables feature color indicators (left for input, right for output) to denote their I/O status.

Inspector: A Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info

Interactable: A UI component property that determines whether the component can accept input. More info

interpolate: See Interpolation

interpolation: The process of calculating values in-between two defined values. Used in animation (between keyframes), physics (between physics time-steps), and multiplayer (between network updates)

inverse kinematics (IK): The automatic calculation of joint angles (eg. the shoulder and elbow joint of an arm) so that the end point (eg. the hand) reaches a desired point in space. In contrast to Forward Kinematics More info

Irradiance Budget: A lightmap property that determines the precision of the incoming light data used to light each texel in the lightmap More info

Irradiance Quality: A lightmap property that sets the number of rays that are cast and used to compute which clusters affect a given output lightmap texel. More info

isometric projection: A form of parallel projection where the dimensions of a 3D object are projected onto a 2D plane, and the angles between all three axes are equal to each other. This form of projection is commonly used in isometric video games to simulate three-dimensional depth. More info

joint: A physics component allowing a dynamic connection between Rigidbody components, usually allowing some degree of movement such as a hinge. More info

Joy Num: An Input Manager property that defines which joystick will be used. More info

Keyframe Reduction: A process that removes redundant keyframes. More info

keyframe: A frame that marks the start or end point of a transition in an animation. Frames in between the keyframes are called inbetweens.

kinematics: The geometry that describes the position and orientation of a character's joints and bodies. Used by inverse kinematics to control character movement.

Layer Mask: A value defining which layers to include or exclude from an operation, such as rendering, collision or your own code. More info

layer: Layers in Unity can be used to selectively opt groups of GameObjects in or out of certain processes or calculations. This includes camera rendering, lighting, physics collisions, or custom calculations in your own code. More info

Lens Flare: A component that simulates the effect of lights refracting inside a camera lens. Use a Lens Flare to represent very bright lights or add atmosphere to your scene. More info

level of detail: The Level Of Detail (LOD) technique is an optimization that reduces the rendering workload to improve performance. More info

Light baker: See Lightmapper

Light Mode: A Light property that defines the use of the Light. Can be set to Realtime, Baked and Mixed. More info

Light Probe Group: A component that enables you to add Light Probes to GameObjects in your scene. More info

Light Probe Proxy Volume: A component that allows you to use more lighting information for large dynamic GameObjects that cannot use baked lightmaps (for example, large Particle Systems or skinned Meshes). More info

Light Probe: Light probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info

lightmap texture: Final rendered texture containing lighting data. Lightmap textures store baked lighting information such as indirect illumination and shadowing, and are applied to meshes via their UVs.

Lightmap: A pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info

Lightmapper: A tool in Unity that bakes lightmaps according to the arrangement of lights and geometry in your scene. More info

Line Renderer: A component that takes an array of two or more points in 3D space and draws a straight line between each one. You can use a single Line Renderer component to draw anything from a simple straight line to a complex spiral. More info

local package: A local package already exists on the file system, usually outside the project folder. To install the package, notify the Package Manager of its location through the Packages window. More info

Local subgraph: A subgraph that's serialized directly within its parent graph. Each local subgraph is a unique instance. Changes to one local subgraph don't affect other local subgraphs, even if you duplicated them from the same source. More info

Local variable kind: A category of variable. A variable of this kind is defined and serialized within the current graph, and you can only access it from within this graph.

LOD Group: A component to manage level of detail (LOD) for GameObjects. More info

LOD: See level of detail

Loop Pose: An animation clip setting that blends the end and start of an animation to create a seamless join. More info

Low Twist Limit: A joint property that sets the lower limit of a joint. More info

LTV: (Lifetime Value) The estimated value of an average player over their lifetime with your application or game. More info

Main Editor Player: The Unity Player that exists in the main Unity Editor.

managed plug-in: A managed .NET assembly that is created with tools like Visual Studio for use in Unity. More info

manifest: There are two types of manifest files: project manifest****s and package manifest****s.

margin: Minimum distance between UV charts within the same layout. Margin helps prevent texture bleeding between charts during filtering and mipmapping, and is usually specified in texels at the target resolution.

marker: A Unity Profiler API structure that describes a CPU or GPU event, such as a button click. Each event marker appears as a vertical lines or label in the Profiler window. More info

mask: Can refer to a Sprite Mask, a UI Mask, or a Layer Mask More info

Material: An asset that defines how a surface should be rendered. More info

MAU: (Monthly Active Users) The number of players who started a session within the last 30 days. More info

mcs: The Mono C# compiler file format. More info

Mesh Collider: A free-form collider component which accepts a mesh reference to define its collision surface shape. More info

Mesh Filter: A mesh component that takes a mesh from your assets and passes it to the Mesh Renderer for rendering on the screen. More info

Mesh Renderer: A mesh component that takes the geometry from the Mesh Filter and renders it at the position defined by the object's Transform component. More info

Mesh: The main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info

MiniMap: A small overview of the entire graph. It allows you to visualize the graph's structure and provides an alternative way to navigate the graph.

minnow: A player who has spent less than $5 in their lifetime. More info

Mixed Lights: Light components whose Mode property is set to Mixed. Some calculations for Mixed Lights are performed in advance, and some calculations for Mixed Lights are performed at runtime. The behavior of all Mixed Lights in a Scene is determined by the Scene's Lighting Mode. More info

mixed reality: Mixed Reality (MR) combines its own virtual environment with the user’s real-world environment and allows them to interact with each other.

model file: A file containing a 3D data, which may include definitions for meshes, bones, animation, materials and textures. More info

model: A 3D model representation of an object, such as a character, a building, or a piece of furniture. More info

Mono: A scripting backend used in Unity. More info

MonoDevelop: An integrated development environment (IDE) supplied with Unity 2017.3 and previous versions. From Unity 2018.1 onwards, MonoDevelop is replaced by Visual Studio. More info

MR: Mixed Reality

muscle definition: This allows you to have more intuitive control over the character's skeleton. When an Avatar is in place, the Animation system works in muscle space, which is more intuitive than bone space. More info

mutable: You can change the contents of a mutable package. This is the opposite of immutable. Only Local package****s and Embedded package****s are mutable.

narrow phase collision detection: A collision detection phase that determines whether the pairs of objects found in the broad phase will actually collide. It then computes the contact points for those pairs and gives them to the solver to use when solving collisions. More info

native plug-in: A platform-specific native code library that is created outside of Unity for use in Unity. Allows you can access features like OS calls and third-party code libraries that would otherwise not be available to Unity. More info

NavMesh: A mesh that Unity generates to approximate the walkable areas and obstacles in your environment for path finding and AI-controlled navigation. More info

near clipping plane: A plane that limits how close a camera can see from its current position. The plane is perpendicular to the camera's forward (Z) direction. More info

networking: The Unity system that enables multiplayer gaming across a computer network. More info

never monetized: Players who have never spent real currency. More info

new users: Users who played your game for the first time. More info

node: A fundamental building block of a graph. It represents a specific operation or piece of logic in the graph. Nodes have options and ports that you can connect to each other with wires. More info

Node header: High-level information to help users quickly identify the node like the title, a subtitle or category, a color and an icon.

Node option: A typed property of a node that can't receive values from other graph elements via wires, unlike ports. Node options typically control structural or functional aspects of the node, or serve as global settings for the node's behavior.

normal map: A type of Bump Map texture that allows you to add surface detail such as bumps, grooves, and scratches to a model which catch the light as if they are represented by real geometry.

normal: The direction perpendicular to the surface of a mesh, represented by a Vector. Unity uses normals to determine object orientation and apply shading. More info

number of unverified transactions: The total number of IAP transactions, whether or not they have been verified. More info

number of users: The cumulative number of unique players over the last 90 days. Users who have not played in more than 90 days are removed from the count. More info

number of verified transactions: IAP transactions that have been verified through the appropriate app store. IAP verification is currently supported by the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. More info

object: See GameObject.

occlusion culling: A process that disables rendering GameObjects that are hidden (occluded) from the view of the camera. More info

ODR: On-demand resources (ODR) is a feature available for the iOS and tvOS platforms, from version 9.0 of iOS and tvOS onwards. It allows you to reduce the size of your application by separating the core assets (those that are needed from application startup) from assets which may be optional, or which appear in later levels of your game. More info

orthographic 3D: A common type of camera view used in games that give you a bird's-eye view of the action, and is sometimes called "2.5D". More info

Output port: A port on a node that you can connect to input ports using wires.

overhead: The amount of supporting code that the Profiler needs to run. This overhead might affect the performance of your application.

package manifest: Each package has a manifest, which provides information about the package to the Package Manager. The manifest contains information such as the name of the package, its version, a description for users, dependencies on other packages (if any), and other details. More info

package: A container that stores various types of features and assets for Unity, including Editor or Runtime tools and libraries, Asset collections, and project templates. Packages are self-contained units that the Unity Package Manager can share across Unity projects. Most of the time these are called packages, but occasionally they are called Unity Package Manager (UPM) packages. The Unity Package Manager (UPM) can display, add, and remove packages from your project. These packages are native to the Unity Package Manager and provide a fundamental method of delivering Unity functionality. However, the Unity Package Manager can also display Asset Store packages that you downloaded from the Asset Store. More info

padding: Minimum distance between different UV layouts in the atlas, specified in texels. Padding prevents cross-object bleeding within a UV atlas to accommodate filtering and mip levels.

parent: An object that contains child objects in a hierarchy. When a GameObject is a Parent of another GameObject, the Child GameObject will move, rotate, and scale exactly as its Parent does. You can think of parenting as being like the relationship between your arms and your body; whenever your body moves, your arms also move along with it. More info

particle system: A component that simulates fluid entities such as liquids, clouds and flames by generating and animating large numbers of small 2D images in the scene. More info

particle: A small, simple image or mesh that is emitted by a particle system. A particle system can display and move particles in great numbers to represent a fluid or amorphous entity. The effect of all the particles together creates the impression of the complete entity, such as smoke. More info

passthrough: A display mode in which an XR headset's cameras capture the user's physical surroundings and display them as the background of the app. Virtual content appears layered over the real world. Apps that use passthrough are a type of Mixed Reality (MR) application. To develop a passthrough app in Unity, you can use the Mixed Reality templates. More info

percentage of population: Your player population as a percentage. Typically only useful when combined with a segment. Calculated as the percentage of the Number of Users metric who are members of a specified segment. More info

Perforce: A version control system for file change management. More info

PhotoCapture: An API that enables you to take photos from a HoloLens web camera and store them in memory or on disk. More info

physically based shading: An advanced lighting model that simulates the interactions between materials and light in a way that mimics reality. More info

physics engine: A system that simulates aspects of physical systems so that objects can accelerate correctly and be affected by collisions, gravity and other forces. More info

Physics Material 2D: Use this to adjust the friction and bounce that occurs between 2D physics objects when they collide More info

Physics Material: A physics asset for adjusting the friction and bouncing effects of colliding objects. More info

ping pong: To repeatedly play an animation to the end, then in reverse back to the beginning, in a loop.

pixel: The smallest unit in a computer image. Pixel size depends on your screen resolution. Pixel lighting is calculated at every screen pixel. More info

Placemat: A visual background element that you can use to organize graph elements such as nodes or sticky notes in a graph. You can use it to show related elements, provide context, or improve the visual layout of the graph.

Play On Awake: Set this to true to make an Audio Source start playing on awake More info

Playable Graph: An API for controlling Playables. Playable Graphs allow you to create, connect and destroy playables. More info

Playables: An API that provides a way to create tools, effects or other gameplay mechanisms by organizing and evaluating data sources in a tree-like structure known as the PlayableGraph. More info

player log: The .log file created by a Standalone Player that contains a record of events, such as script execution times, the compiler version, and AssetImport time. Log files can help diagnose problems. More info

Player Settings: Settings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info

plug-in: A set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info

Port: A connection point on a node. You can connect ports with wires to establish relationships between nodes. A port can be either an input port or an output port. Ports are usually type-specific: you can only connect them to compatible ports or variables of the same type. To connect ports of different types, override .

Port name: A text description of the port.

Portal: A connection point that works in pairs and replaces visible wires with wireless pathways to reduce visual clutter. They respect the same constraints as the wires they replace.

post-processing: A process that improves product visuals by applying filters and effects before the image appears on screen. You can use post-processing effects to simulate physical camera and film properties, for example Bloom and Depth of Field. More info

prefab: An asset type that allows you to store a GameObject complete with components and properties. The prefab acts as a template from which you can create new object instances in the scene. More info

preview package: A preview package is in development and not yet ready for production. A package in preview might be at any stage of development, from the initial stages to near completion.

Profiler category: Identifies the workload data for a Unity subsystem (for example, Rendering, Scripting and Animation categories). Unity applies color-coding to categories to visually distinguish between the types of data in the Profiler window.

profiler counter: Placed in code with the ProfilerCounter API to track metrics, such as the number of enemies spawned in your game. More info

profiler marker: Placed in code to describe a CPU or GPU event that is then displayed in the Unity Profiler window. Added to Unity code by default, or you can use ProfilerMarker API to add your own custom markers. More info

profiler sample: A set of data associated with a Profiler marker, that the Profiler has recorded and collected.

Profiler: A window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info

Progressive Web App: A software application that's delivered through the web. It uses certain browser features to create a user experience on par with a native application. More info

project manifest: Each Unity project has a project manifest, which acts as an entry point for the Package Manager. This file must be available in the directory. The Package Manager uses it to configure many things, including a list of dependencies for that project, as well as any package repository to query for packages. More info

Project Settings: A broad collection of settings which allow you to configure how Physics, Audio, Networking, Graphics, Input and many other areas of your project behave. More info

Project window: A window that shows the contents of your folder (Project tab) More info

project: In Unity, you use a project to design and develop a game. A project stores all of the files that are related to a game, such as the asset and Scene files. More info

Property Drawer: A Unity feature that allows you to customize the look of certain controls in the Inspector window by using attributes on your scripts, or by controlling how a specific Serializable class should look More info

pseudo-depth: A visual simulation of three-dimensional characteristics on a two-dimensional object or environment. This effect is sometimes called "2.5D". More info

Quad: A primitive object that resembles a plane but its edges are only one unit long, it uses only 4 vertices, and the surface is oriented in the XY plane of the local coordinate space. More info

Quaternion: Unity's standard way of representing rotations as data. When writing code that deals with rotations, you should usually use the Quaternion class and its methods. More info

rasterization: The process of generating an image by calculating pixels for each polygon or triangle in the geometry. This is an alternative to ray tracing.

Raw Image: A Visual UI Component that displays a non-interactive image to the user. This can be used for decoration, icons, and so on, and the image can also be changed from a script to reflect changes in other controls. More info

ray tracing: The process of generating an image by tracing out rays from the Camera through each pixel and recording the color contribution at the hit point. This is an alternative to rasterization.

Realtime Lights: Light components whose Mode property is set to Realtime. Unity calculates and updates the lighting of Realtime Lights every frame at runtime. No Realtime Lights are precomputed. More info

Reflection Probe: A rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info

Relative Joint 2D: A 2D joint that allows two game objects controlled by Rigidbody physics to maintain in a position based on each other's location. Use this joint to keep two objects offset from each other, at a position and angle you decide More info

Remote Settings: Remote settings are game variables that you can set remotely on your Analytics Dashboard. More info

render pipeline: A series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info

Render Texture: A special type of Texture that is created and updated at runtime. To use them, first create a new Render Texture and designate one of your Cameras to render into it. Then you can use the Render Texture in a Material just like a regular Texture. More info

rendering layer: A layer that defines how specific effects are applied across different objects. Rendering layers don’t define draw order. They’re selection groups you assign objects to. Rendering layers let lights, decals, shadows, and custom passes include or ignore specific objects.

rendering layer mask: A bitmask that aggregates multiple rendering layers. By assigning one or more rendering layers to an object's MeshRenderer or an effect such as light, decals, or APVs, you can control how and where Unity applies the effect in the scene.

rendering path: The technique that a render pipeline uses to render graphics. Choosing a different rendering path affects how lighting and shading are calculated. Some rendering paths are more suited to different platforms and hardware than others. More info

retargeting: Applying animations created for one model to another. More info

rig: A skeletal hierarchy of joints for a mesh. More info

rigging: The process of building a skeleton hierarchy of joints for your mesh. Performed with an external tool, such as Blender or Autodesk Maya. More info

Rigidbody: A component that allows a GameObject to be affected by simulated gravity and other forces. More info

Root Motion: Motion of character's root node, whether it's controlled by the animation itself or externally. More info

Root node: A transform in an animation hierarchy that allows Unity to establish consistency between Animation clips for a generic model. It also enables Unity to properly blend between Animations that have not been authored "in place" (that is, where the whole Model moves its world position while animating). More info

Root Transform: The Transform at the top of a hierarchy of Transforms. In a Prefab, the Root Transform is the topmost Transform in the Prefab. In an animated humanoid character, the Root Transform is a projection on the Y plane of the Body Transform and is computed at run time. At every frame, a change in the Root Transform is computed, and then this is applied to the GameObject to make it move. More info

Scene View: An interactive view into the world you are creating. You use the Scene View to select and position scenery, characters, cameras, lights, and all other types of Game Object. More info

Scene: A Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info

Scripting Backend: A framework that powers scripting in Unity. Unity supports three different scripting backends depending on target platform: Mono, .NET and IL2CPP. Universal Windows Platform, however, supports only two: .NET and IL2CPP. More info

Scripting Event: A way of allowing a user-driven callback to persist from edit time to run time without the need for additional programming and script configuration More info

Scripts: A piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info

ScrollView: A UI Control which displays a large set of Controls in a viewable area that you can see by using a scrollbar. More info

segment: Segments are subsets of your player base, split apart by key differentiators. Viewing metrics and events by segment can reveal differences in-game behavior between different groups. More info

Self Collision: A cloth property that prevents cloth from penetrating itself. More info

Services: A Unity facility that provides a growing range of complimentary services to help you make games and engage, retain and monetize audiences. More info

session: A single play or usage period. A new session is counted when a player launches your game or brings a suspended game to the foreground after 30 minutes of inactivity. More info

sessions per user: The average number of sessions per person playing on a given day. Also known as Average Number of Sessions per DAU. More info

Shader object: An instance of the Shader class, a Shader object is container for shader programs and GPU instructions, and information that tells Unity how to use them. Use them with materials to determine the appearance of your scene. More info

shader variant: A verion of a shader program that Unity generates according to a specific combination of shader keywords and their status. A Shader object can contain multiple shader variants. More info

shader: A program that runs on the GPU. More info

ShaderLab: Unity's language for defining the structure of Shader objects. More info

Shadow: A UI component that adds a simple outline effect to graphic components such as Text or Image. It must be on the same GameObject as the graphic component. More info

Shadowmask: A shadowmask texture uses the same UV layout and resolution as its corresponding lightmap texture. More info

Skinning: The process of binding bone joints to the vertices of a character's mesh or 'skin'. Performed with an external tool, such as Blender or Autodesk Maya. More info

Skybox: A special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info

Soft Particles: Particles that create semi-transparent effects like smoke, fog or fire. Soft particles fade out as they approach an opaque object, to prevent intersections with the geometry. More info

Soft Shadows: A shadow property that produces shadows with a soft edge. Soft shadows are more realistic compared to Hard Shadows and tend to reduce the "blocky" aliasing effect from the shadow map, but they require more processing.

Spatial Mapping: The process of mapping real-world surfaces into the virtual world.

specular color: The color of a specular highlight.

specular highlight: A bright spot of light that appears on the surface of shiny objects when illuminated.

speculative continuous collision detection: A collision detection method that inflates broad phase AABB of moving objects according to their velocities. This enables support for effects like rotations. More info

Sphere Collider: A sphere-shaped collider component that handles collisions for GameObjects like balls or other things that can be roughly approximated as a sphere for the purposes of physics. More info

Spring Joint: A joint type that connects two Rigidbody components together but allows the distance between them to change as though they were connected by a spring. More info

Sprite Atlas: Graphics: A utility that packs several sprite textures tightly together within a single texture known as an atlas. More info. 2D: A texture that is composed of several smaller textures. Also referred to as a texture atlas, image sprite, sprite sheet or packed texture. More info.

Sprite Mask: A texture which defines which areas of an underlying image to reveal or hide. More info

Sprite Renderer: A component that lets you display images as Sprites for use in both 2D and 3D scenes. More info

Sprite: A 2D graphic objects. If you are used to working in 3D, Sprites are essentially just standard textures but there are special techniques for combining and managing sprite textures for efficiency and convenience during development. More info

standard event: Standard events are application-specific events that you dispatch in response to important player actions or milestones. Standard events have standardized names and defined parameter lists. More info

State Machine Behaviour: A script that attaches to a state within a state machine to control what happens when the state machine enters, exits or remains within a state, such as play sounds as states are entered. More info

State Machine: The set of states in an Animator Controller that a character or animated GameObject can be in, along with a set of transitions between those states and a variable to remember the current state. The states available will depend on the type of gameplay, but typical states include things like idling, walking, running and jumping. More info

Static Batching: A technique Unity uses to draw GameObjects on the screen that combines static (non-moving) GameObjects into big Meshes, and renders them in a faster way. More info

static receiver: A static GameObject that is receiving a shadow from another static or dynamic GameObject More info

stencil buffer: A memory store that holds an 8-bit per-pixel value. In Unity, you can use a stencil buffer to flag pixels, and then only render to pixels that pass the stencil operation. More info

stencil masking meshes: Overflow hidden with either rounded corners or vector image background.

Sticky Factor: An estimate of how compelling a game is to its players. A high "sticky factor" means that players stick with an app over time. More info

Sticky note: A visual element you can use to add comments or annotations to a graph.

subgraph: A graph that's nested within another graph. It allows for the organization and reusability of graph logic. A subgraph can exist either as a local subgraph or as a separate asset subgraph.

Subgraph Node: A specialized node that references a subgraph and exposes its input and output variables as ports.

Surface Shader: A streamlined way of writing shaders for the Built-in Render Pipeline. More info

Swing Axis: A joint property that defines the axis around which the joint can swing. More info

Swing Limit: A joint property that limits the rotation around one element of the defined Swing Axis. More info

T-pose: The pose in which the character has their arms straight out to the sides, forming a "T". The required pose for the character to be in, in order to make an Avatar.

tag: Multiplayer: A reference word that you can assign to a Virtual Player or the main Editor Player to use in a script. For example, you could define a "Red team" ot "Blue team" tag to assign Players to each team. More info. Scripting: A reference word which you can assign to one or more GameObjects to help you identify GameObjects for scripting purposes. For example, you might define and "Edible" Tag for any item the player can eat in your game. More info

target matching: A scripting function that allows you to move characters in such a way that a hand or foot lands in a certain place at a certain time. For example, the character may need to jump across stepping stones or jump and grab an overhead beam. More info

target position: A joint property to set the target position that the joint's drive force should move it to. More info

target velocity: A joint property to set the desired velocity with which the joint should move to the Target Position under the drive force. More info

Terrain Collider: A terrain-shaped collider component that handles collisions for collision surface with the same shape as the Terrain object it is attached to. More info

Terrain: The landscape in your scene. A Terrain GameObject adds a large flat plane to your scene and you can use the Terrain's Inspector window to create a detailed landscape. More info

Test Framework,Test Runner: The Test Framework package (formerly called the Test Runner) is a Unity tool that tests your code in both Edit mode and Play mode, and also on target platforms such as Standalone, Android, or iOS. More info

Text Input Field: A field that allows the user to input a Text string More info

Text Mesh: A Mesh component that displays a Text string More info

Text: A non-interactive piece of text to the user. This can be used to provide captions or labels for other GUI controls or to display instructions or other text. More info

TextField control: A TextField control displays a non-interactive piece of text to the user, such as a caption, label for other GUI controls, or instruction. More info

texture compression: 3D Graphics hardware requires Textures to be compressed in specialized formats which are optimized for fast Texture sampling. More info

texture format: A file format for handling textures during real-time rendering by 3D graphics hardware, such as a graphics card or mobile device. More info

Texture Import Inspector: An Inspector that allows you to define how your images are imported from your project's folder into the Unity Editor. More info

texture overrides: Platform-specific settings that allow you to set the resolution, file size with associated memory size requirements, pixel dimensions, and quality of your textures for each target platform. More info

texture space: The coordinate system that defines a texture's bounds.

texture: An image used when rendering a GameObject, Sprite, or UI element. Textures are often applied to the surface of a mesh to give it visual detail. More info

tile: A simple class that allows a sprite to be rendered on a Tilemap. More info

Tilemap: A GameObject that allows you to quickly create 2D levels using tiles and a grid overlay. More info

Time Manager: A Unity Settings Manager that lets you set a number of properties that control timing within your game. More info

Toggle: A checkbox that allows the user to switch an option on or off. More info

tonemapping: The process of remapping HDR values of an image into a range suitable to be displayed on screen. More info

toolbar: Editor: A row of buttons and basic controls at the top of the Unity Editor that allows you to interact with the Editor in various ways (e.g. scaling, translation). More info. Graph Toolkit: A customizable panel that provides direct access to common actions in the graph window through button controls.

Toolbar button: A button in the toolbar that performs a specific action in the graph window.

total daily playing time per active user: The average playing time of people playing on a given day. More info

total daily playing time: The cumulative playing time of all people playing on a given day. More info

total IAP revenue: The total IAP revenue, including revenue from both verified and unverified transactions. More info

total sessions today: The total number of sessions by all people playing on a given day. Also known as Total Sessions. More info

total verified revenue: Revenue from Unity Ads and verified IAP transactions. IAP verification is currently supported by the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. More info

Trail Renderer: A visual effect that lets you to make trails behind GameObjects in the Scene as they move. More info

Transform component: A Transform component determines the Position, Rotation, and Scale of each object in the scene. Every GameObject has a Transform. More info

transition: The blend from one state to another in a state machine, such as transitioning a character from a walk to a jog animation. Transitions define how long the blend between states should take, and the conditions that activate the blend. More info

Translate DoF: The three degrees-of-freedom associated with translation (movement in X,Y & Z) as opposed to rotation.

Tree: A GameObject and associated Component that allows you to add tree assets to your Scene. You can add branch levels and leaves to trees in the Tree Inspector window. More info

UI Mask: A visual component that lets you restrict images from view to only a small section of an image. For instance, you can apply a Mask to a Panel UI element to block all child images from view. More info

Unity Analytics: A data platform that provides analytics for your Unity game. More info

Unity Build Automation: See Build Automation

Unity Cloud Diagnostics: A suite of cloud-enabled tools that help you collect and identify issues that users encounter with your apps. More info

Unity IAP: Abbreviation of Unity In App Purchase

Unity Remote: A downloadable app designed to help with Android, iOS and tvOS development. The app connects with Unity while you are running your project in Play Mode from the Unity Editor. More info

Unity unit: The unit size used in Unity projects. By default, 1 Unity unit is 1 meter. To use a different scale, set the Scale Factor in the Import Settings when importing assets.

unknown gender: Players to whom you have assigned Gender.Unknown. (Players whose gender has not been reported at all are not included in this segment.) More info

unverified IAP revenue: IAP revenue from sources that do not support verification and from transactions that failed verification. Transactions can fail verification because they are fraudulent or because of missing or malformed information. More info

UPM package: A Package managed by the Unity Package Manager. Refer to Packages.

UV atlas: Collection of multiple UV layouts packed together. A UV atlas combines several meshes' layouts into a single texture space to reduce draw calls and optimize baking workflows like lightmapping.

UV chart: Individual unwrapped section within a UV layout. UV charts are contiguous islands of faces that share a continuous mapping. Their placement determines seams, distortion, and packing efficiency. Also known as a UV island.

UV layout: The 2D representation of a single mesh's UV coordinates. A UV layout defines how the mesh's surface maps to texture space and influences lightmap unwrapping, texture sampling, and packing.

variable: A data container accessible throughout a graph. Each variable has a name, type, and value. Variables appear in the blackboard and are represented as variable nodes when placed in a graph. All variables belong to either local variable kind or input/output variable kind.

variable node: A specialized node that references a variable and produces its value as output. Compatible with conversion to constant nodes.

VBlank: Vertical blanking interval (VBlank) is the time between the end of the final visible line of a frame and the beginning of the first visible line of the next frame. This is the refresh interval as defined by a screen’s refresh rate.

vector field: A 3D texture, where each value represents a directional force that is applied to particles as they move through the field. A vector field is created in 3D animation software, such as Houdini. More info

velocity: A vector that defines the speed and direction of motion of a Rigidbody

verified IAP revenue: Revenue from verified IAP transactions. IAP verification is currently supported by the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. More info

verified package: When a package passes release cycle testing for a specific version of Unity, it receives the Verified For designation. This means that these packages are guaranteed to work with the designated version of Unity.

verified paying users: Players who made verified IAP purchases. IAP verification is currently supported by the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. More info

version control: A system for managing file changes. You can use Unity in conjunction with most common version control tools, including Perforce, Git, Mercurial and Unity Version Control (UVCS). More info

vertex shader: A program that runs on each vertex of a 3D model when the model is being rendered. More info

VideoCapture: A Unity API that allows you to record videos directly to the file system in the MP4 format. More info

viewport: The user's visible area of an app on their screen.

Virtual Player: A Unity Player that exists separately from the main Editor Player. Use a Virtual Player to test multiplayer gameplay on the same device without the need to create a build. More info

virtual reality: Virtual Reality (VR) immerses users in an artificial 3D world of realistic images and sounds, using a headset and motion tracking. More info

visual component: A component that enables you to easily create GUI-specific functionality. More info

visual element: A node of a visual tree that instantiates or derives from the C#

VisualElement

class. You can style the look, define the behaviour, and display it on screen as part of the UI. More info

visual tree: An object graph, made of lightweight nodes, that holds all the elements in a window or panel. It defines every UI you build with the UI Toolkit.

VR: Virtual Reality More info

VSync: Vertical synchronization (VSync) is a display setting that caps a game’s frame rate to match the refresh rate of a monitor, to prevent image tearing. More info

WebGL: A JavaScript API that renders 2D and 3D graphics in a web browser. The Unity Web build option allows Unity to publish content as JavaScript programs which use HTML5 technologies and the WebGL rendering API to run Unity content in a web browser. More info

whales: Players who have spent at least $20 in their lifetime. More info

Wheel Collider: A special collider for grounded vehicles. It has built-in collision detection, wheel physics, and a slip-based tire friction model. It can be used for objects other than wheels, but it is specifically designed for vehicles with wheels. More info

wind zone: A GameObject that adds the effect of wind to your terrain. For instance, Trees within a wind zone will bend in a realistic animated fashion and the wind itself will move in pulses to create natural patterns of movement among the tree. More info

wire: A line that creates a connection between nodes. Usually referred to as arcs or directed edges in Graph theory.

world: The area in your scene in which all objects reside. Often used to specify that coordinates are world-relative, as opposed to object-relative.

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. A term used to describe a system where the user interface closely resembles the final output.

XR: An umbrella term encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. Devices supporting these forms of interactive applications can be referred to as XR devices. More info

zoom: A camera control that lets you scale the view on your screen. To zoom a camera in the Unity Editor, press Alt + right click and drag. More info