Ani-Cats offer a wonderful breeding experience due to the choices applied in development. We've been working well over a year to bring Ani-Cats to eager breeders in SecondLife. We've worked to understand features that breeders appreciate, and to stay away from implementations that trigger consternation. Ani-Cats offer a very low load experience for both the region server and the user experence. This is made possible by use of Animesh for animating movement and by creating efficient code that runs only when necessary. Our pets don't suffer from body-part separation when moving around. By not hogging the server's resources, our pets don't inhibit each other, or other creator's pets, from working properly.
For the reasons listed above, you should really consider letting your cats run free. Leave their movements enabled. Let them be animated. That's what gives life to your cats. You're not just paying for the ability to breed for traits, you're paying Linden Dollars to enjoy this creation. We highly recommend that you select 'All Cats' on your HUD and toggle the movement button to ON. That will turn on the Animations at the same time. You may find yourself quite surprised at how much can happen with animesh pets that could never happen with other breedables, or even moveable pets.
Let your Ani-Cats be real cats! Let them move around. Let them have that ability to wag their tails and lick their paws. Let them be free!
As you develop a breeding methodology for your Ani-Cats, you will find your pets either maintaining their previous traits or moving forward along the trait path quite reliably. Yes, there will be times your Ani-Cat kittens seem to regress, that's the more dominant traits overpowering a desirable recessive trait. Oh, why didn't I pay more attention in high school biology when they talked about genetics?
There are 'easter eggs' to be found during the breeding. Not only can you breed for stronger lines, but the occasional random hidden traits may pop as a baby is created. You will find that some traits are more dominant and others could be more recessive. As you find new traits, you need to try to strengthen a line. With diligence and community involvement, working out the dominant and recessive traits is a task with which you might all get involved.
Each gen 1 kitty cat is imbued with a random set of hidden traits. As cats mate, those hidden traits may pass down to the offspring. Once in a while, those traits may actually get selected for display on a kitten! If you feel your offspring aren't showing any signs of new traits popping, you can easily mix in a new starter (or even simply a cat from a different line) to mix up and potentially add to the hidden traits your adults are passing on.
