Daz Studio 3D

   Ok, heres the program I am using to create my animations in SL. Its fairly straight forward and easy to use, which is a plus. And since SL isn't so advanced that they have full on lip sync and articulating fingers, this program works just fine for creating animations. I still need to learn a lot of the ins and outs, but I am getting the hang of it slow but sure. So far I've made two animation sequences with it, but now I am hung up on scripts to actually get them working in world. Sometimes...you just gotta do it yourself.
Anyhow, like I said, the program is free to use for the basic edition, so if you want to play around with it, heres the link.
http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d_art_resource/free_software?cjref=1