Animations on ships

Actual animations are limited. There has only been speculation as to whether player initiated, or new state initiated animation sequences could be done via FLHook. But as of yet I’ve not run across an implementation of that.
I’m assuming you mean animation of the ship model itself (bay doors, wings sweeping, etc). You can check this topic for some info on that and its limitations:
Overview and lengthy discussion of mesh animation
note on CMP - Cmpnd\Cons\ contents

If you mean the fires and lighting in the background, that is done with THN scripting. There’s an introductory tutorial for that in the downloads section here.

Aaah ok, you are talking about texture animation then.
here’s your thread then
http://the-starport.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=619.0