How can I Find All References to an object in the inspector?

However, I'm looking at objects in the hierarchy that need to be investigated, but I can't easily locate all the things controlling it or interacting with it.

Hi @KevinW ! I know it might be a bit late, but there's an elegant solution (an asset) for this.

Its main idea is opposite to Unity's Select Dependencies feature, yet asset is offering much more (see screenshot below).

Key features:

1) It shows you particular fields where the asset is used
2) It allows you to easily replace it
3) Search for further usages of assets in the results list

Asset Store link:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#!/content/59997

NOTE: I'm one of the authors of Asset Usage Finder and I will be happy to answer your possible questions on our product

UPDATE: v3.0 was released! More than 20x faster compared to 2.0 version

There's an ugly way, but it'll give you every reference, and you can script it to make it a littler easier.

Change Asset Serialization to Force Text (Edit > Project Settings > Editor). You need Unity 4+ or Unity 3.x Pro to do this.

The scene file (.unity) will contain blocks of text like this:

 --- !u!1 &1116311739
 GameObject:
   m_Component:
   - 4: {fileID: 1116311741}
   - 114: {fileID: 1116311740}
   m_Name: Object1
 --- !u!114 &1116311740
 MonoBehaviour:
   m_Script: {fileID: 11500000, guid: 522cee70d3f794241885ec229977790f, type: 3}
   anotherObject: {fileID: 107191716}
 --- !u!4 &1116311741

For clarity, I cut several lines. This is a GameObject named "Object1". It has a fileID of "1116311739". It also has a script with a fileID of "1116311740". That script has a field that references another object with file ID "107191716".

So hopefully this gives you an idea of how you can parse through the .unity file to get a list of all references.

If you only want to go through the GUI, then you can make sure everything is built from prefabs or basic types (textures, etc.). Then right-click on each prefab and select "Find References in Scene" similarly to how it's described here: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2011/03/24/ninjacamp-iii-what-references-your-assets/

Or, for something in between, you can use EditorUtility.CollectReferences() but it'll still take some scripting work. This answer gives an idea of how to go about it.

Relevant script here in case it's of use to anyone who, like me, found this page via Google.

Ok so I've got something that might help with that graphically (attached). It lets you examine the scene objects that selects anything which has a dependency on them (using the "@" button). You need to open the window using

 Window > whydoidoit > Recent Selections

Then switch to the Scene Assets tab and open the section for the kind of thing you are looking for etc.

The package is here (should hopefully contain everything): link text

How about using this asset ? https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/69028