Playing an animation from a script

Unity Engine
1

For what I’m trying to do, I just want to play a specific animation on command. I don’t need to have the animation blend and I don’t need to set up a network of states to dictate a flow; I just want to play a given animation clip. As such, I want to bypass using an animation controller and just drop an animation clip or two into a script in the inspector.

I recall setting sprite animations to play with a script command, but maybe I’m remembering wrong.
But right now I’m working with some animated 3D meshes, and things are a bit different from what I’m used to.
I’m not seeing an option within the animator to just play a given animation clip. I could play a state, but that would require me to set up a proper animation controller.

I do see a component I can add that’s just called “Animation” and it had the capacity to play an animation clip on command, but for some reason some of the character models I got from the asset store won’t work with this; I get an error saying that the given clip must be marked as Legacy, but I don’t see how to mark that within the animation.

2

You can also use the newer Playables API.

Or mark clips as legacy using the debug view.

3

Ah, that’s where the legacy check box is.
That sounds like the easier method, but what does marking an animation as legacy actually do?
I imagine it’s still the easier method since I don’t need anything complicated here, but it would be wise for me to understand what I’m doing when I do a thing.

4

Ahhg, I can’t actually change the animation to legacy. All the debug options are grayed out and I can’t change them.

5

If it’s built into the model, try duplicating the clip first.