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Physics Effects is a PhysX Painter tool that applies a selected force effect to GameObjects already present in the scene. It does not spawn new objects — it finds existing GameObjects within a sphere around the cursor, temporarily makes them physics-simulated, and applies the active effect’s force to their rigidbodies.
New to Physics Effects? Follow the step-by-step Physics Effects — Getting Started tutorial first.

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Supported resource types

Physics Effects supports:

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How it works

  1. You click or drag in the scene view. The tool fires a ray downward to find the surface point.
  2. The active effect runs Physics.OverlapSphere centered at the surface point offset by the effect’s Position Offset Y, using a radius of Size / 2.
  3. For each collider found in the overlap, the tool gets the prefab root GameObject and checks whether it belongs to a selected prototype.
  4. If the object is within range and its prototype is selected, the tool retrieves or creates a SimulatedBody for it and calls the effect’s ApplyEffect method on its rigidbody.
  5. After processing all overlapping objects, the physics simulator is set to GlobalTimeDisablePhysicsMode (non-acceleration mode) so the objects simulate for a shared global time limit.

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Tool-level settings

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Physics Effects Tool Settings

  • Spacing — minimum cursor travel distance before the effect fires again while dragging. Default: 5. Minimum: 0.5.
  • Effect stack — a list of effects. You select one effect at a time as the active one. The tool runs only the selected effect on each interaction.

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Available effects

Each effect has two shared settings drawn by the base editor, plus its own specific settings: Shared settings (all effects):
  • Position Offset Y — vertical offset of the effect center above the surface hit point. Range: –20 to 20. Default: 0. This shifts where the overlap sphere is centered.
  • Size — diameter of the overlap sphere used to find affected objects. Range: 0 to 100. Default: 10.

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Explosion

Applies Rigidbody.AddExplosionForce from the effect center point. Objects within range are pushed outward in all directions, with upward lift (Unity’s built-in explosion uplift factor of 4.0 is used).
  • Force — explosion force magnitude. Range: 0 to 500. Default: 50.
The scene view sphere is red. Opacity scales with Force relative to the maximum.

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Black Hole

Applies a directional force pulling each affected object toward the effect center. Force is applied proportional to distance (closer objects receive proportionally more pull).
  • Force — pull force magnitude. Range: 0 to 500. Default: 50.
The scene view sphere is black.

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Fly Up

Applies a straight upward force (Vector3.up) to each affected object.
  • Force — upward force magnitude. Range: 0 to 200. Default: 30.
The scene view sphere is blue with an upward arrow indicating direction.

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Simple Force

Applies a horizontal force in a direction controlled by a compass angle. The force direction is computed from the angle in the XZ plane (angle 0 points along +Z, angle 90 points along +X).
  • Angle — direction of the force in degrees, measured in the XZ plane. Range: 0 to 360. Default: 0.
  • Force — force magnitude. Range: 0 to 500. Default: 1.
The scene view sphere is green with a line showing the force direction.

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When to use Physics Effects

Physics Effects is best when you want to:
  • move, push, lift, or attract GameObjects that are already placed in the scene;
  • experiment with physics forces on existing objects without resetting their placement;
  • create interactive physics effects for environment dressing or testing.

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Notes

  • The tool belongs to the PhysX Painter family.
  • Only Unity/GameObject prototypes are supported — Terrain Objects are not affected.
  • The tool only affects objects whose prototype is currently selected in the active group.
  • This tool uses GlobalTimeDisablePhysicsMode (not per-object time), which means all affected objects simulate together for a shared duration after each interaction.
  • The effect runs on the selected effect only — all other effects in the stack are ignored.