Help Preventing Animation Interrupts

[Ziro2k]

Greetings. Usually I can find the solutions to any problems I come across by searching around on this forum, but I'm stumped and I can't seem to find any similar experiences. 

In my mod I'm creating a custom ability for WX-78, where the player can hold Rshift in order to charge another player in range with a buff, until they let go. The ability itself is functionally fine, it just looks atrocious. I'm using the in game "channeling" animation for the ability and while it does execute,  the problem is that it doesn't prevent other animations, namely the idle animation, from interrupting it.  The result is WX-78 flickering every few seconds between the channeling and idle animations, before returning to channeling.

The code for the ability is:

function shock_charge(player)-- Rshift ability for WX-78. Hold to temporary charge a nearby ally.
				
	if not GLOBAL.TheWorld.ismastersim then
		return
	end
	
local current_target
local ps
local old_target = nil


	let_player_move(player, false)--disable player movement
	player.components.locomotor:Stop() -- stop movement
	player.components.locomotor:Clear()
	player:ClearBufferedAction() -- and any actions you were going to do
	player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_pre")
	player.SoundEmitter:KillSound("charge_sound")
	player.SoundEmitter:PlaySound("dontstarve/characters/wx78/charged", "charge_sound")
		 shock_charge_task = player:DoPeriodicTask(TUNING.WX78ShockChargeSpeed, function(player)
			if not player.AnimState:IsCurrentAnimation("channel_loop") then --refresh channel animation incase somehow knocked out of it
				player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_loop", true)
			end
			current_target = nil-- get new current target every cycle
			if player:HasTag("charging") and not player:HasTag("groggy") and not player:HasTag("playerghost") then
				current_target = FindClosestPlayerToPlayerInRange(player, TUNING.WX78ShockRange, true)
				if current_target == nil and old_target == nil then --no players in range, and no previous target, do nothing
					player.components.talker:Say("SEARCHING FOR TARGET...",2.5,true)
				elseif current_target ~= nil and old_target == nil then --player in range, no previous target, initialize buff
					ps = current_target:GetPosition()
					player.components.talker:Say("TARGET ACQUIRED",2.5, true)
					SpawnPrefab("shock_fx").Transform:SetPosition(ps:Get())
					charge_ally(current_target)
					old_target = current_target
				elseif current_target == nil and old_target ~= nil then	
					discharge_ally(old_target)
					old_target = nil
				elseif (current_target ~= nil and old_target ~= nil) and current_target ~= old_target then
					discharge_ally(old_target)
					charge_ally(current_target)
					old_target = current_target
				elseif (current_target ~= nil and old_target ~= nil) and current_target == old_target then
				end
			else
				if old_target ~= nil then
					discharge_ally(old_target)
					old_target = nil
				end
				let_player_move(player, true)--enable movement

				player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_pst")
				player.SoundEmitter:KillSound("charge_sound")
				shock_charge_task:Cancel()
			end
		end)
	return
end				

The key relevant parts are: 

player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_pre") ---when the function is first called

...

if not player.AnimState:IsCurrentAnimation("channel_loop") then  ----(when it repeats)
                player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_loop", true)
            end
...

player.AnimState:PlayAnimation("channel_pst")--- when it ends

I know I can't be utilizing this correctly. So, is there a way to prevent other animations from interrupting ones that I manually call? Or better yet, is there a way to make my character do the channeling animation other than by manually calling each animation state?

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

 

[ZupaleX]

You should create a proper state for the stategraph and put relevant StateTags like "busy" to that new state so the idle anim cannot interrupt it.