I have one character idle animation running inside a game in a loop, over and over again. A a certain time I trigger another animation to be played, for the same character.

The second animation won't play immediately, as will be a discontinuity in my character animation. First I wait for the idle animation to finish and then I play my second animation. Now I have a smooth, continuous animation, BUT I have introduced a delay between my action and character animation.

If I play the second animation right away as it is triggered, the character animation won't be continuous and smooth.

I was thinking on breaking the idle animation in small pieces and also to have the same number of second action animations to match the last frame of the idle pieces. This won't solve the delay completely, only will minimize it a bit.

So it's a magic formula of how can I get rid of this delay?

Thanks.