Question gameplay animator to timeline animator methods?

hi folks - i've got timeline animations directly recorded on Animation tracks but NOT converted to clips. what i'd like to do is have an Animator control the positions of the objects externally and then blend between that position to the Timeline once the Timeline is loaded and starts playing. i've noticed my object positions jump from a strange position to the position of the Timeline. the starting position can vary as well.

so i'm thinking i can make an Animator Controller, and have that save the correct starting position for the objects as a looping 1 frame animation and then blend that into the Timeline just as it starts playing.

am i assuming the best way to manage the transition is to convert the animation to a recorded clip and then set the ease in on the clip? what would be lovely would be to have an Animation State that was basically the Timeline and then transition to it on certain conditions, but i don't think that's possible.

any suggestions, clips or code examples would be most welcome. thanks!

 

I have no practical experience with this, but what I have seen is most people report Timeline just takes over completely and there is no real support for blending between Timeline and Animator Controllers.

I think I do remember one thread where someone rewrote a custom version of playable director or something to do better blending between them, but I did not keep track of the thread sorry. That might have useful sample code.