For example, we do not know the length of an animation: this would be extremely useful in developing linked animations etc.
Also, it would be extremely helpful to be able to pre-load animations into the client side. An llLoadAnimation(string anim) would be very helpful in reducing the lag on first. However, if we were to have the llSetAnimationPriority, then we would be able to run an amimation at priority 1 (or 0 even!) and do that behind another animation.play of animations, which become very difficult to synchronize thereof.

If an animation completes, it would be useful to receive an event that this has occurred.

It would also be useful to be able to change the frame rate, and the starting point upon llStartAnimation, as well as loop points for looping animations.

llStartAnimationPriority(integer priority, string anim);

starts an animation with the defined priority, instead of the one encoded in the asset.

As for Aimee's concern, there is a very easy way to mute the unwanted animations in that situation: Turn off the AO. I believe that C:SI and most other melee combat sims prohibit the use of anything that overrides the attack animations during combat anyways.

Dibbs has some good points, although keep in mind that preloading the animation, as with preloading sounds, doesn't necessarily decrease lag, it just changes where the lag occurs, shifting the load to the front (however, this might not necessarily be a bad thing). One thing that I sometimes use instead of llPreloadSound() is to simply trigger the sounds on_rez or on_attach at a very very low volume. They can't be heard, but triggering them pre-loads them. It might be possible to do:

llStartAnimation(anim);
llSleep(0.1);
llStopAnimation(anim);

or something similar (might not even need the quick sleep) so as to load the anim without playing it.

As for changing the length and framerate and starting point....while useful, they are things that you can change in the animation before it's uploaded. WIth regards to animation length, I always have my animator tell me (or better yet, send in a notecard) the framerate and number of frames for each animation (ie 60 frames at 20 FPS = 3 seconds). It helps quite a bit.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-138?focusedCommentId=99603&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_99603

"Crystal - sadly, making the priority mutable is more work than i think the lab wishes to do at this moment... (there are some tricky details with the per-joint priorities i mentioned earlier.) whereas raising the max priority is quite easy, and can be done immediately.

so yes, i do understand that the mutability is a superior solution... it's just too expensive ATM."