Animator Controller

An Animator Controller asset is created within Unity and allows you to arrange and maintain a set of animations for a character or object. In most situations, it is normal to have multiple animations and switch between them when certain game conditions occur. For example, you could switch from a walk animation to a jump whenever the spacebar is pressed. However even if you just have a single animation clip you still need to place it into an animator controller to use it on a Game Object.

The controller has references to the animation clips used within it, and manages the various animation states and the transitions between them using a so-called State Machine, which could be thought of as a kind of flow-chart, or a simple program written in a visual programming language within Unity. More information about state machines can be found here.

In some situations, an Animator Controller is automatically created for you, such as in the situation where you begin animating a new GameObject using the Animation Window.

In other cases, you would want to create a new Animator Controller asset yourself and begin to add states to it by dragging in animation clips and creating transitions between them to form a state machine.