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

The animation clip added to an Animator Track provides some important settings and options on top of the common ones.

Animation Clip Settings

• Animation Clip. The animation clip to play.
• Clip Offset. This will time offset the actual animation clip start time in relation to the Slate clip start time. (think of this like moving the actual animation clip inside the Slate clip)
• Clip Wrap Mode. Loop or Ping Pong. The default is Loop.
• Clip Weight. The weight the animation clip will have. This weight is multiplied by the track weight.
• Playback Speed. The speed the animation is playing. It can be a positive value or a negative value for reverse playing.

Starting Transforms Settings

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)

• Starting Transforms Mode. If set to “Auto Match Transforms”, the starting position/rotation of this clip will be matched to the previous clip’s latest position/rotation, and thus the animation will have a continuation (this is the default). If set to “Manually Set Transforms” you will be able to manually set the starting position/rotation that the animation will start from (and the relevant options below will be enabled for editing).
• Transform Space. The space that the position/rotation settings below are within. The default is Cutscene Space. See more about Transform Spaces here.
• Starting Position. The starting position for Manual Set Transforms mode only (you can edit this in the Scene View as well).
• Starting Rotation. The starting rotation for Manual Set Transforms mode only (you can edit this in the Scene View as well).

Local Rotation Offset

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.