I tend to use transitional frames added at the beginning and end of the animation. For example, a walk loop. Starting with a standing or idle animation, I'd make the first step and put it at frame 10, then again at frame 30. Then in frame 20 I'd have the opposite walk pose, basically swap the left and right legs, arms etc positions. Now the walk loop can be adjusted to suit. Then frames 1 to 9 become an idle to walk animation, and frames 31 to 40 become a walking to idle animation. As you can imagine, you start idle, play the animation, looping at frame 30 unless the character was stopping, at which point you'd let the animation run to frame 40 and back to idle again. If I was making a running animation to match it, I'd use frame 20 as a basis and try and get the running anim to fit that pose in as much as possible - then you can use frame 20 as a transition frame, like if the character is walking then wants to start running, you'd change the animation frame at frame 20, looping at the running animation. The running animation can often hijack the walking transition frames, you might only need a loop.
Van-B
I laugh in the face of fate!
