Stopping animations - Does it pause or cancel?

[Traslogan]

I'm looking into creating an object that can disappear partially as it is interacted (aka after x interacts, part of the model is gone).

My original thought was to do this via animation and pause it at keyframes showing the missing piece, but I don't know if llStopAnimation pauses an animation or completely resets it. Can someone tell me? 

If it resets instead of pauses, is there a way to just pause the animation?

[Rolig Loon]

Animations are all played client side, so each person potentially sees your animation at a different stage.  Thus, there is no way to pause an animation.  You'd have no way to control where it was being paused.  llStopAnimation does exactly what it says: it stops it dead.  When you issue a llStartAnimation call, it starts at the beginning.  Your best bet is to divide your anim into two or three segments and play them sequentially, putting up with the inevitable hiccup if the transitions aren't seamless.

[Sassy Romano]

Just to add that if you upload an animation and have it loop in the middle, even you"stop" the animation, it stops the loop and the animation, then runs to the end. Can be handy, can be a pain.