Creating simple fade animation with Unity3D

I recently used fade animation or opacity animation with one of my Unity game, it was used to fade then earned points during game play. Initially I struggled a bit to achieve opacity animation due to confusion between using Animation or Animator. Look like from Unity version 4.3 we need to use Animator to animate the properties. I was trying to use Animation instead of Animator, was not able to perform opacity animation properly.
In this post I will show, how I accomplished the Fading animation. below is video of final effect and whole process to achieve animation.

First create a initial setup of scene. Following is how my scene looks like.

I wanted to add fading effect to 3D text, which signifies the points earned during game play. Now scene looks like below.

Now we need to add animator component to text.

Now, that we have added animator, we can go to Animation windows and setup our first key.

First key is from where our animation will start, we need to setup second key where animation will end. Create a second key at desired location and move text at appropriate location.

I also wanted to animate opacity with size and location. So lets add new curve for color animation.

Setup the opacity value for color curve for both first key and second key. Following is how my keys looks like.

Now if you press play button or play animation you will be able to see fade animation. Thanks for reading my blog.