Howto Create something simular to Butterfly Rock

I know there are 3 types of up loads, Image (for textures), animations, and sounds. But, for the famous "Butterfly Rock", obviously it is an animation. But why does it show as a box in inventory. To create something simular, would I just create an animation and rez it in the area? or is there something more I am missing?

I have no idea what Butterfly Rock is. Sounds like a cheesy kids show on television.

I'm not sure what this "Butterfly Rock' is either. but it sounds like you have a poseball. It's a prim with the animation inside, and a supporting script to enable it to play the animation when you sit on the ball. You can't rez an animation directly in-world.

Ok, there is this object, in this case, its a rock, every minute, it creates a temp, butterfly which flies around near the object. It can spawn more then one if you wish. What I want to know is, what is this butterfly? Is it just an animation? If so, why does the icon in my inventory look like a box and not like an animation icon? I have pulled the 'Butteryfly' out of the 'Contents'. It is a box, not an animation icon. Is there special 'packaging' needed for some things? Since there are only 3 upload possibilities, Image, sound, and animation, how did this get that way?

Ok, so you said an animation can't be rezed. Then what is the butterfly?

The butterfly is an object with a texture on it (picture of a butterfly) - if you've taken it into your inventory and it's icon is a box. A similar thing could be done with a particle (which can also be textured) - but that isn't a physical 'thing' you could take.

The "Butterfly Rock" is an object also, which contains the butterfly object, and a script which spews out the butterfly object at intervals. It could also spew out textured particles, as above.

The butterfly object possibly contains a script telling it where to go and what to do (at a guess).

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Image: Textures, which can be applied to objects (the bricks of your house, prim hair, a painting), particles and items of clothing.

Sound: Noises Sound clips.

Animation: a file which when 'played' will move your avatar in the way defined in the file (dances, poseballs animations, sexy walks).

OBJECTS can be animated, but that's done by a script that tells it what to do - the 'upload animation' refers only to .bvh files, created in software such as Poser, which affects only the avatar when played.

ok, I understand a bit better now. Erin has it dead on. The butterflies are most likely objects with a script directing their motion. Jeffrey Gomez did create a way to 'animate' prims from a BVH but it's less likely that is the method. More likely it's a script using llSetPrimitiveParameters to change the prims position and rotation dynamically. I'm sure the creator would be more than happy to tell you the overview of what they are doing.

Thank you all. I believe I understand now.