Unity Animation (Animator / Mecanim)

Control animation state with Unity 6's Animator and Animator Controllers: parameters, transitions, blend trees, layers, and humanoid IK. Targets Unity 6 (6000.0 LTS).

When to use

• Use when connecting animation clips into a state machine, driving them from script via parameters, blending locomotion (idle→walk→run), layering an upper-body action over movement, or adding foot/hand IK on a humanoid rig.
• Use when the project has *.controller (Animator Controller) and *.anim assets, or a rigged model with an Avatar.

When not to use: simple non-skeletal value tweens (UI fades, position lerps) are better done with a tween/coroutine — see unity-csharp-scripting. Timeline cutscenes are a separate tool. 2D sprite frame animation also uses the Animator but with sprite keyframes.

Core workflow