Simultaneous and hierarchial movement of sorts

Hi, I am wondering about a couple of things.
Suppose I wish to create an articulated arm(with extra objects attached to each of the main components of the arm) with a few scripted animations.

Is it possible to have the full set of the prims rotate about a central axis(like a 100% alpha sphere), and within the linked set have a secondary level or set of prims rotate about a secondary axis, or joint? And can such movement be simultaneous?
For example, the full arm, including a hand, rotates about a shoulder at the the same time that the forearm and hand rotate about the elbow.

Or would I have to resort to mathematically brute-forcing this with a messy combination of translations and rotations?

Thanks for the help.

Motoko


P.S. I'm very new to LSL, so please excuse me if the answer to this added question is blatantly obvious: Is there a way to enact smooth motion, rather than immediate position changes?

Yes, but it's a little involved. I recently answered a similar question here.


Not really. Each individual prim will move when it gets around to processing the command, which under even moderate lag will make the individual movements noticable.