confused by the timeline workflow

in some cases clicking on the red dot will allow to animate things directly, without the need to make an anim clip in an anim controller.
but if the prefab already has an anim controller attached, this doesn't work
so what's the workflow then? do i need to add a root above and another anim controller and then do that red blinky dot thing?
that's what I've been doing and it sucks as a workflow because suddenly your timeline has tracks all over the place without visual representation of their hierarchical conection, i'm sure there is a better way

 

Hi,
there is multiple way to do that. You can create an override track on the animation one, then record what you want on that track. This can also be done simply on another animation track.

here is a small example, you see that my animator has a controller and I have an humanoid animation clip on my first track. I record the movement (since I have no root motion on that clip) on my override track.

 

Thanks!
About 10 minutes after I posted this I discovered override tracks and went bazonka on them!
I bet you've also wondered why those diamond icons can't be moved.

 

Ok I see what you mean by the diamond icons now.
No you can't move them. but you can move the inlines curves that they contain and move those instead. Next to the record button, in my gif, you see the inlines curves button.