I am having trouble setting up an NPC to literally only do one animation (use a custom item with a custom animation). I have followed the tutorial at the CS wiki and even set it up with the pickidle running all the time in a script.

scn AnimationActorScriptbegin gamemodepickidleend

However, the NPC stands normally until I talk to her, THEN she goes into the animation. I know that the animation is playing because I added the model as an animation prop and it shows up all the time, but she only goes into he animation pose once I talk to her.

The animation is set under the conditions that she has a specific object (an animation token, as in the tutorial)
Like I said, this is the only animation I ever want her to play. I took a look at the skooma addicts for inspiration but I didn't find anything I could apply.
Thanks

That script may be the problem. Since it's not checking to see if the animation is already playing it re-starts it every time the script runs, and the result is it's probably stuck at the first frame. When you interrupt that by talking to the NPC, the animation gets to complete. Just remove the script and see what happens. The game will do a Pickidle whenever there's no higher-priority animation needed.

Thanks, worked like a charm