Unity Force Modes (2025)

FAQs

What are all the unity force modes? ›

ForceMode allows you to choose from four different ways to affect the GameObject using this Force: Acceleration, Force, Impulse, and VelocityChange.

AddForce applies force to a rigidbody in world space, while AddRelativeForce applies force relative to a rigidbody's local space coordinates.

This mode is useful for applying forces that happen instantly, such as forces from explosions or collisions. In this mode, the unit of the force parameter is applied to the rigidbody as mass*distance/time.

That's because Force treats your force input as force per second, whereas Impulse treats your force input as force per timestep. The other two ForceModes, Acceleration and VelocityChange, are even simpler because they leave mass out of the equation.

Unity's built-in physics engine is based on NVIDIA's PhysX 3.4, which is a widely used and reliable physics middleware. Unity's physics engine offers a simple and intuitive interface for creating and manipulating rigid bodies, colliders, joints, and triggers.

AddForce() function, you didn't need to multiply the value by Time. deltaTime.

So the answer to that is that you use OnPointerDown on UI objects, while using OnMouseDown for in scene objects. For your second question: You can create an empty parent object, then child as many objects as you like. Assuming those objects have the same component, you can then modify those components.

AddForce, as the name implied, adds a force to the object. This accelerates it into some direction. So by definition, adding a force is basically acceleration. Doing it each frame results in going faster and faster, just like if you kept the pedal pressed in a car.

For a trigger collider to work, at least one GameObject involved in the collision must have a Rigidbody. Trigger colliders can be any collider type (static or Rigidbody), but in most cases it's good practice to make the trigger collider a static collider.

What is the difference between velocity and AddForce in Unity? ›

velocity sets the velocity property of the rigidbody while AddForce affects velocity while taking other factors into account (drag etc.) in a per-fixed-frame fashion (per FixedUpdate). A similar real world example would be letting a slingshot go vs pushing a heavy box.

The total impulse is obtained by summing up impulses applied at all contact points in this collision pair. To work out the total force applied you can divide the total impulse by the last frame's fixedDeltaTime.

The main difference between RigidBody and KinematicBody / CharacterBody is who is in charge of moving the object. With KinematicBody / CharacterBody your code is responsible for moving the object, using move_and_slide et.al. methods. With RigidBody the physics engine is responsible for moving the object.

Whereas Rigidbodies allow objects to be controlled by physics, Colliders allow objects to collide with each other. Colliders must be added to objects independently of Rigidbodies.

When you apply a constant force, the speed of movement accelerates over time based on the value of the force. In real life, this acceleration continues indefinitely.

Force: Interprets the input as force (measured in Newtons), and changes the velocity by the value of force * DT / mass. The effect depends on the simulation step length and the mass of the body.

A newton (N) is the international unit of measure for force. One newton is equal to 1 kilogram meter per second squared. In plain English, 1 newton of force is the force required to accelerate an object with a mass of 1 kilogram 1 meter per second per second.

Use flythrough mode

See in Glossary to fly around the Scene view in first-person, similar to how you would navigate in many games. Flythrough mode is designed for Perspective Mode. In Orthographic Mode, if you click and hold the right mouse button and move your mouse, your view orbits the Camera instead.

force=1/2mvv which m is mass and v is velocity. I've put a couple of answers together and came up with this: Vector3 forwardSpeed = (rigidbody.