Can't assign animation to animation variable declared in script Unity2D

Question

So I'm trying to have my script pause an animation when the user clicks. Here's what I have so far:

I defined the animation up at the top

public Animation anim;

and then further down,

	void Update () {
        if (Input.GetMouseButtonDown(0))
        {
            anim["myAnimation"].speed = 0.0f;
        }
	
	}

Code gives no error, however in Unity I have a GameController object to which this script is attached to. The gamecontroller object has a vacant field into which I drop my animation to. The issue is that when I try and drag and drop my animation or try to place it into that field, nothing happens, I keep getting the error down at the bottom saying that "The variable anim of GameController has not been assigned." How do I go about assigning myAnimation to the variable anim?

When I try and drag and drop my animation file to this, nothing happens. This is under the GameController script which I assigned to a GameController object.

Answer 1

First of all, you must clarify which animation you are talking about.

This one

Or this one

The first one is a Component, which can be assigned to public field of script in the Inspector, the second one is a animation clip, which can be attached to animation controller like Animation or Animator.

So if you are trying to drag-drop an animation clip into an Animation field, nothing will happed.

Answer 2

You have just run into the difference between declaration and definition of a variable. Just because you did this:

public Animation anim;

Does not mean that you're done! This variable currently holds the value null which means "nothing is here." Attempting to act upon a null object at runtime will cause the application to crash with a NullPointerException ("you tried to access something that doesn't exist").

In order to turn a declaration ("this is a variable") into a defined object ("this is a variable with a value") you need to assign something to it, either by using the assignment operator (=) or by using Unity's property inspector. What you assign this variable to, however, is entirely on you to figure out (you haven't supplied enough information about your project).