# What is the pixels to units property in Unity sprites used for?

I'm starting to learn Unity for 2D development.

So, I am importing several sprites into the game, and I couldn't help but notice that there is a "pixels to units" property, by default on 100. I normally set it to 1. Is there a reason why I would need to have this value different than 1? Or, more generally, is there a reason to have multiple sprites with different

100 pixels per unit would mean a sprite that's 100 pixels would equal 1 unit in the scene. It's simply a scale to say how many pixels equal one unit. This can affect things like physics. A lower pixels to units setting would require more force to move one unit than a higher pixels to units setting.

Yes, there may be times where you'll want to manipulate the pixels per unit. If you have a tile sheet of 16x16 tiles, you may want to consider setting the pixels per unit to 16 so that you can easily snap tiles together in a scene, for example.

• A higher pixels to units setting would require more force to move one unit than a lower pixels to units setting. Isn't it the other way round? Lower setting = larger object in the physics simulation (eg. setting it to 1 with a sprite that is 200 pixels tall will make the sprite 200 meter tall in the physics engine). – bummzack Sep 15 '14 at 7:22
• Ah yes, you're right. Got that mixed up! Thanks for pointing it out. Edited my answer. – Cooper Sep 15 '14 at 11:08

Answering the question in your title, units in Unity are arbitrary. It's just a number; the most common interpretation is that 1 unit means 1 meter, but that's just the most commonly agreed upon value. You could decide 1 unit = 1 foot, or 1 unit = 1 inch, etc.

As for why you would use the default setting of 100 pixels, it's because the physics system doesn't like values that are too large. If you set 1 unit = 1 pixel, then the physics system would be moving objects hundreds of units per frame, and the physics calculations tend to break down in that situation. By setting 1 unit = 100 pixels, then physics will be moving objects more like a couple units per frame.