Writing my first AO

I want to write an AO.

I am not concerned with the mechanics of the animation per se. But what I would like to know is what are the guide lines fro this. How long should the walk loop be, what should the lead in and such be those sort of things.

I also assume that for a good AO I need to do more than just the walk, but how are these usually related? Like the walk and the run is there just a frame rate ratio difference? is there any guidline already in existance on this?

I don't think there are any rules for making your AO animations. The AO (animation overrider attachment) just replaces the default SL animations with a user-made one. So just make animations that look good by themselves. I don't think AO animations should have a large lead-in or lead-out time. Especially walking since it will look like you're sliding across the floor.

As far as the relation between animations in an AO the only thing I'd suggest is to make sure they all match in terms of style. So you can't put a feminine walk and a manly stance together in one AO.

Hmm how about a good rate? Frames per footfall for walk or fast walk... or is it just geuss and go from there

No idea on framerate! I've never made a walk animation. I guess there is a certain framerate to follow so it doesn't look like you are walking on ice. You can download the bvh files for the default walk and run animations from the second life website and look at what those are set to.