The Animator Track is able to playback animation clips created for mecanim. The actor needs to have the Animator component, however you do not need to create or assign any state machine controller to the Animator at all. If you do though, then the Animator Track can blend on top of the animation that the controller is playing.
Multiple Animator Tracks can be added in the same Actor Group. If so, each track will represent a separate animation layer each one with its own weight, possible to blend (Override or Additive) with the layer beneath it and optionally affect different body parts of the actor by using Avatar Masks.
Root Motion from animation can also be used if the “Use Root Motion” parameter is enabled in the first Animator Track. Please note, that only the first (bottom) Animator Track has this option, and Root Motion can only be applied from the Animation Clips that will be played within that first Animator Track only. As with most clips in Slate, animation clips used in Animator Tracks can also be blended together, or blend in/out of the animation that is currently playing in the Animator Tracks (and thus layers) below.
The animation clip added to an Animator Track provides some important settings and options on top of the common ones.
The settings here are most relevant when the animation has root motion and you have enabled “Use Root Motion” in the Animator Track (which is enabled by default anyway)
This animatable parameter allows you to animate an offset to the rotation of the actor. This can be handy to make the actor turn while just using a “Walk” animation for example (by animating “Y”).
If your animations are not looping, please ensure that the AnimationClip has “Loop Time” checked as illustrated below.