skis and skates etc

what sort of script do I need so that the skis or skates on my feet animate me? Thanks.

Without more detail I'm guessing you're just needing an Animation Override. This will change your animation from walking to skiing/skating. If you look out for free/open source AO's (Animation Override) such as ZHAO (which is just the first off the top of my head). This allows you to drop your animation into it and set it up with a notecard, no scripting required.

If that's not quite what you were looking for and you in fact wanted to script your own then you'll be looking at the functions llStartAnimation, llStopAnimation and llGetAnimationList, to name the main culprits. From these you'll grab a list of what animations are currently in use and if you see the walking animation then you stop it and start your own walking/skating/skiing anim to override it. Then when your script sees the standing animation you stop your walking/skating/skiing anim (and stop the standing anim if you wish to replace it).

Develop your question and we'll do what we can to answer it.

Im wanting to create skates to sell for example so that when the buyer wears them they then skate instead of walk. In regards to the functions you have mentioned above, what sort of script would I look for if I was to buy one? Thanks

I'd reiterate the suggestion of starting with ZHAO: it's free and open-source and gives a pretty good example of how to use the LSL functions mentioned. The commercial skates on the market (and probably skis, too) usually include a few specializations: a HUD designed for the particular product, with buttons to activate different sets of animations, perhaps, and control bindings for activating particular "trick" animations (so the avatar might do a "jump" instead of "flying" when PageUp is pressed). But an understanding of ZHAO would go a long way toward scripting a differentiated product if that's desired, and initially would allow one to exercise the animations without any scripting at all. (To get a copy, I think everywhere that sells ZHAO-based AOs is required to distribute an unpopulated full-perm ZHAO--though some might not comply. I'd probably just wander around Animation Warehouse till I found a merchant complying with the GPL terms.)

What Qie said

Additionally, take a look at Moopf Murray's skoopf skates http://www.moopf.com/products.php for an idea of how the HUD AO system integrates with the skates. Can't fault Moopf's work on these.