how to transition smoothly between many image textures?

I'm trying to make Minecraft lava, and I have the 20 image textures that make up the animated texture, but In the game it transition smoothly between the images. how would I achieve this transitioning effect? i have two Ideas, both of which i don't know how to execute.

Idea one: somehow transition smoothly between the image textures.

Idea two: make transition frames as images, and use a regular image sequence node to animate the texture.