Question FPS Animation based game with aim not working

Hey guys, I am new to unity but I am a software developer by trade. I get the coding parts but I am confused when it comes to animation. I am currently making a FPS game that only plays when a button is held. This is because its for my mentally/physically disabled sister, so the regular FPS controllers didnt work for me.

I currently downloaded the YBot character on mixamo, and the pistol idle animation. (https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=pistol+idle&type=Motion,MotionPack)

The way the scene currently plays out is I made an animation that moves the player position around a corner, then when its done it calls an event that lets the character know it can start aim/firing. I rigged up the player animation controller with a base layer that handles this movement of the player.

The next move is given by a trigger in the script called "next", and the aim is a boolean.

It should always do the base layer move, but only do the arms layer aim when the boolean is set.

I got it to work with it only on the base layer, but I dont want to do a web of transitions between aim and each move animation.

I thought about layer avatar masks, but since I am literally only animating the player transform position for the main game loop I didnt know if it would work. I also thought about just moving the gun and letting IK handle the rest of the work but whenever I move the gun even though its under the hand bone it doesnt move the hand.

Does anyone know of a better way to have an animation moving the player transform AND an animation moving the gun from idle position to the aim position?

Thanks!

- aimPlayer animation


- player controller - arms layer


- player controller - base layer

- move animation - game loop