Yeah, I figured if I were to use morph and want a good result, I would need at least 2 more poses in-between, but then maybe it is still not smooth enough.
I cannot wrap my head around how to make breaking the icon up in segments would work. The icons I need to animate are using strokes and transparency masks. I am trying to figure out inside my head how to make it so the joints will not look 'clunky'. What I mean by that is: the strokes won't align nicely anymore if I rotate them.
I have seen something called 'metaballs' somewhere on this forum. These were circles that kinda sticked together in the shape of an outline of an 8 when you hold them close together. Building on that idea of paths merging dynamically: would it be possible to create the stroke segments 'open ended' and then fill in the space in between the different segments programmatically? This sounds way over my head for now, but maybe if I look into it I'll find it to be manageable.
As looking into any of these options will take a chunk of my time and I am not sure how much effort I need to put to make my deadline for this project, I am going to finish all of the icons with easy animations that I can do right now. Only when I have made significant progress I'll allow myself the time to look into any of these options:
Test to see if multiple in-between poses and using the morph library can create a smooth enough animation.
Research how the 'metaballs' thing works / how to create paths and join paths programmatically.
By the way: You guys are really nice and helpful. Many thanks for your help!