To start animating, we must first create an animation. By default an empty animation should be created automatically called Animation. You can create more animations by clicking on the Animations in the Hierarchy and then clicking on the New Animation button located at the bottom of your Hierarchy.

We’re going to start by creating our main big keyframes first by manipulating bones using this Transform tool.

Everytime you move anything and want to save those changes on the Timeline, you Key them using these Key icons displayed below. This is called Keyframing:

If you move your character’s bones and browse over to different frames without Keyframing your changes, then the bones that you have transformed in said frames won’t have those changes applied.

Start by Keyframing all your bones into the first frame. Simply highlight all your bones in the workspace without selecting the root. Do this by dragging across your character while holding the left mouse button. Proceed to clicking the Key icons for Rotate, Translate and Scale on your Transform tool. Notice how Keyframing your frame will automatically make little vertical rectangles appear on your Timeline. This means that your character has been Keyframed.

Now that you have created your first major keyframe, it’s time to work on our second major keyframe.

Move your mouse over to any later frame on the Timeline. I usually like to work in intervals of five when setting up my major keyframes.

Notice that after moving onto a new frame, your character bones reset to its’ initial pose. This is because nothing is tweened yet. Tweening is when a transitioning animation is placed in between two Keyframes automatically usually in the form of transformation.

Begin by transforming your bones accordingly. I transformed the bones of my Nutcracker using move and rotate. The results are displayed below: