the way you describe is the general way to do it - many times you would also have some kind of other animation before the door opening animation that would be used to position the player in the right spot so your door animation will line up.
So, I'm using Maya to model and animate models for a game that I'm designing in Unity. An animation I want to do is having my character reach for the door, turn the knob, and walk through the door. The Problem? In a game environment, the door and the character are two separate elements. How I'm imagining going about this…
To elaborate on what sprunghunt said... You can put an empty gameobject in front of the door. In game, the door opening animation on the player would have him take a step forward, then reach for the door. While he's stepping you quickly (programmatically) slide him into place, so that when he starts reaching he'll grab the…