Unity Cookbook. Building an executable

Building an executable

Fast native build

  • To create a native build (if you’re on Windows, it’s a Windows build):
  • Go to File > Build Settings
    • See that Platform is Windows, Mac, Linux and Architecture is Intel 64-bit
    • Add all scenes to your build settings (see Scenes)
      • If you only have one scene, you can just click on Add Open Scenes
      • If you have more, you can drag-and-drop them to the Scenes In Build listing
    • Click Build
      • Create a /Builds/ folder and select it

Other platforms

  • To build for other platforms, you need to install the dedicated modules for them in the Unity Hub

Build settings

  • You can make the built game look a bit more polished in Project Settings > Player:
    • Product Name (name of the executable)
    • Default Icon (icon of the executable)
    • Company Name (goes to metadata)

Target resolution

  • Shown resolution is set in the Game view. Click Free Aspect and change the aspect ratio to your liking
  • The exported resolution is set in Project settings > Player > Resolution and Presentation
    • Untick Default Is Native Resolution to set resolution manually
  • If you have Canvas GameObjects (for UI), set the Reference Resolution in the Canvas Scaler component to match the target resolution

Web build

  • If you want your game to be played on a web browser (and you should!), you can create a web build
  • To build for web, go to build settings and select WebGL as a platform.
  • If you haven’t yet, you need to install the WebGL module to build for web on the Unity Hub.
  • Then, check these three settings in Project preferences > Player:

  • On the list to the left on Build settings, choose the WebGL platform and then click on Switch Platform
  • (You might need to restart Unity to see the build tools as installed.)

Running web builds with a server

  • To run a web build, you need a web server
    • …or you can host the web build in itch.io or similar
    • To try out the web build, you can click Build and run
  • xx

Building with Profiler

Manual: Profiling your application Manual: Profiler Unity blog: Tackling profiling

Building for Android

Running the build on your Android phone

  • Enable Developer options to your phone
    • Go to Settings > About Phone > Tap Build number many times
  • Enable USB Debugging
    • System > Advanced > Developer Options > USB Debugging
  • Connect an Android phone to your computer via USB
  • Select your phone from the list in Build Settings > Run Device