How to use custom icons for empty game objects in Scene view - Unity Tips

Here's a quick tip for Unity.

In Unity, its common to use empty game objects for spawn points, and other invisible objects in our scene

Here we have an empty game object called Spawn Point which currently only has a Transform component

When we have the object highlighted in the Hierarchy, it's easy to see.

but when we deselect it, it becomes completely invisible

to solve this, we can assign our empty game object a custom icon

the icon menu is in the upper left corner of the Inspector

by click on it, we can choose a panel icon

which will show the object's name against a coloured panel

we can choose a small circular icon of various colours

a diamond

or we can click Other to choose a custom icon

Here I will assign the default particle texture as the icon

Now when we deselect the object

we can see that the icon causes it to remain visible

these icons will not be visible in the Game view, unless the 'Gizmos' toggle is turned on