I have a character mesh and rig already in Unity3d, and I wanted to add a very simple animation like “turn to my left” or “wave” without finding some .anim file that someone else already authored and sold on a market. If absolutely necessary, I can export the mesh and rig OUT to Blender, fuss with Blender’s animation stuff, and reimport the new animation back in. However, isn’t there a way to look at the character’s rig and manipulate it, to make a new .anim I can then add as a node in the Animator graph?
What about using one of the many free animations in Unity’s mocap package? Raw Mocap Data for Mecanim | 3D Animations | Unity Asset Store
You can create a (legacy-style) animation in the Animation window, but it’s not retargetable. You could use it on the same rig. Just drag the .anim file onto your Animator graph.