I'm not sure, but I'll answer to the best of my abilities.

1) In the squad, set the initial and return state to "sleeping". That way, they will sleep, until they hear a noise. Check the Halo Scripting Bible for ways to change state, and use the command to change state to "alert" or whatever you want, after you enter the trigger volume.

2) I think you could use a loop, but I'm not sure how to do this. Let me check in on it...

What kind of animation do you mean?

To make them jump contiously, for example, simply make a looping command list.

As far as I know Gruntos cannot be woken by triggers, but can be woken by noises.

Foot Steps? Probably not. Then it would be impossible to sneak up behind them. I'm pretty sure gunfire or other sounds of that nature would work.

Nah, not footsteps.

Now, to make the grunt sleep at startup, make his default state "sleeping" in Sapien when you are placing the squad.

You said you wanted the grunt to wake up once you entered a trigger volume, right?

For this, I'm going to assume that you know how to script. If you do not, ask.

(script startup wakeupbeforeikillyou
(sleep_until (= (volume_test_objects (players)) true) 15)
(ai_set_current_state (encounter with said grunt) (state of AI*))
)

*Valid values for this slot are "asleep", "alert", "guarding", "guarding at guard position", etc. Look in Sapien or Guerilla for the rest.
Edited by drillinstructor on Feb 4, 2009 at 02:57 PM

OK, well concerning the grunts/zombies, the same principle applies.

Should be interesting to see that in action.