Not sure how to tackle alternate animations

Hello, I'm making a 2D platforming game - with the option of holding down left mouse button to extend your arm and point it at the cursor. However, during this phase of extending the arm, I have a new set of animations to replace the current ones - and I have no idea how to implement this. I've done a lot of googling, but so far no luck. I tried expanding my Enum of "States" (such as running, jumping etc) to include the new ones like "RunningNoArm" and "JumpingNoArm" - then adding a whole bunch of IF/ELSE statements, but had no success with that, and just broke the code entirely. And if I had managed to get the correct states anyway, I would then somehow have to add connections between every single animation in the Animator? Surely there's a better way

Thank you in advance;
A complete beginner^^

Example Code:

Code (CSharp):

1. private void VelocityState()
2.     {
3.  
4.  
5.         if(state == State.jumping)
6.         {
7.             if(rb.velocity.y < .1f)
8.             {
9.                 state = State.falling;
10.  
11.             }
12.  
13.         }
14.  
15.         else if (state == State.falling)
16.         {
17.             if (coll.IsTouchingLayers(ground))
18.             {
19.                 state = State.idle;
20.  
21.             }
22.  
23.         }
24.         //If an absolute number of movement on x axis is greather than the absolute lowest possible, then use running animation
25.         else if (Mathf.Abs(rb.velocity.x) > 2f)
26.         {
27.             //Moving
28.             state = State.running;
29.  
30.         }
31.  
32.  
33.         //otherwise, use idle animation
34.  
35.         else
36.         {
37.             state = State.idle;
38.         }
39.        
40.     }
41. }

 

Update: I have now found the Asset called Animation Override Controller. So I've made one of those, and applied the alternate animations to it - now I'm just struggling to figure out how to implement that one

 

SOLVED - created two overrides, one for default animations, one for the new ones, and assigned the animator to the appropriate one during the right conditions

 

so you could create a sub state machine for like "default" with your current states and transitions and then copy pasta it, call the copy "aim" and fill the states with the new clips, then just have an "isAiming" bool that transitions between the sub state machines...

or honestly if it's a 2d platformer and you're already managing the state in your code, you could forgo state transitions and parameters entirely and simply call "animator.Play(state)" directly from code. Theres a youtube vid called "Escaping Animator Hell" where the guy describes how he implemented this technique and how it saved him a bunch of headache. Of course if you're using blend trees and layers and stuff you'd prolly wanna buy an asset called "Animancer" but if you're doing a 2d platformer you shouldn't need it.