It is common for a character or other animated Game Object to have several different animations that correspond to different actions it can perform in the game. For example, a character may breathe or sway slightly while idle, walk when commanded to and raise its arms in panic as it falls from a platform. A door may have animations for opening, closing, getting jammed, and being broken open. Mecanim uses a visual layout system similar to a flow-chart, to represent a state machineThe set of states in an Animator Controller that a character or animated GameObject can be in, along with a set of transitions between those states and a variable to remember the current state. The states available will depend on the type of gameplay, but typical states include things like idling, walking, running and jumping. More info
See in Glossary to enable you to control and sequence the animation clipsAnimation data that can be used for animated characters or simple animations. It is a simple “unit” piece of motion, such as (one specific instance of) “Idle”, “Walk” or “Run”. More info
See in Glossary that you want to use on your character or object. This section gives further details about Mecanim’s state machines and explains how to use them.