Animation priority for overrides

Hello,

I've looked all through the forums trying to find information on which priorities to use when uploading animations, but I'm still confused about which I should use and how priorities really work. I sure hope someone can clear things up for me a bit.

Some of the animations I've done are looping animations that are basically overides. (for example: "Sitting in a chair, holding a cigarette" or "standing with hands on hips tapping foot". While other animations I've done are single event style animations ("lifting cigarette to mouth and taking a drag, while sitting" or "stretching slowly while standing". My RL husband is making scripts to run my animations, the idea being that we can set an animation as an override (the sitting one, for example), and every so often type a command to take a drag and when that animation is over it goes back to the sitting animation override.

So far I have imported nearly all of my animations at priority 4, because I didn't want the in game sitting leg positions to mess with my sitting poses, or typing to interrupt them, or whatnot. Now I'm wondering if this was a mistake for my purposes.

How do the different priorities really work as far as what overrides what and when?

Can a script make an animation play over/instead of a continually playing animation even if they are both priority 4 animations?

Should I be importing my override/looping/idle animations at priority 3 and my single-event animations at priority 4?

What's the difference between priority 3 and 4?

Will my sitting animations play my correct sitting poses properly even if uploaded as priority 3? Even if they play it while sitting on an object?

Does this post really make any sense?

How are you doing? Lovely weather we're having isn't it?

Thank you for any answers!!!

Shadora

There's no special meaning to the numbers really. It works like this:

If you start an animation that is higher OR the same priority as one that is already playing, it will be able to take control of the body parts the current animation was using.

(i.e. - a priority 3 animation is bending your knees, and you play a priority 4 animation with straight legs, your legs will appear straight.)

If you start an animation that is lower priority than one that is already playing, it will not be able to use any of the body parts the current animation was using.

(so in the above example, if you played a priority 2 animation with straight legs, your legs would still appear bent)


As far as how to use this with your Animation Override anims, most of the time you should be able to have everything at priority 4. When a new animation plays, it will have the same priority as the ones playing and will be able to move whatever parts it needs. (ie- you have a priority 4 stand playing, and you play a priority 4 hand waving anim, you will see your hand wave.)

Edit: Oh I almost forgot, I believe SL's default anims run at priority 1 and 2 (someone correct me if I'm wrong )

You rock!!! Thanks so much for the quick, clear, HELPFUL advice!

Shadora