In Unity, can I make a GameObject within a prefab disabled by default?

Question

If I create a simple object hierarchy in my scene...

-ExampleGameObject
--Child1 [is active]
--Child2 [is not active]

...how can I accurately store this as a prefab? If I drag ExampleGameObject to a new prefab, then instantiate that prefab, both Child1 and Child2 will be active, which isn't what I want.

Answer 1

Yes you can! If you uncheck the checkmark next to the name of the game object that you want disabled in the inspector. There is also a way to do it via code without checking, i think you just call the gameObject you want to be disabled and set .active to false

Answer 2

Annoyingly, the simplest way is to attach a script to one of the prefab GameObjects that set the enabled flag manually when the object is dropped into the editor.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

#pragma strict

public class SetInactive : MonoBehaviour {

    #if UNITY_EDITOR

    void OnDrawGizmos()
    {   
        this.gameObject.SetActiveRecursively(false);
    }

    #endif
}


#endif