What tools do I need

here is a question. for those who like to create content. What are the best tools I would need to say...make textures, create objects, clothes etc. I am new and i want to make something. I don't know what yet but I can't shop and dance for the rest of my SL I would like to contribute to my world.

Start with the inworld stuff first and understand it if you don't already. Go to the Ivory Tower of Primitives and take the tutorials. Take Robin Sojourner's texture tutorials. Visit the particle lab.

For texturing, go to Texturing Tips for the various opinions about the graphical applications to make textures. There are a wide range of apps that you can use, from free to very expensive, and everyone's got an opinion on them.

Same thing if you want to make sculpties, except go to Building Tips. Lots of tutorials about making sculpties and importing them.

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That's got all the info (and then some) on creating anything in SL. Just have to figure out what you're going to create first, so you can narrow it down to what you truly need to focus on.

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To make clothes: Any decent graphics application that supports layers and can save files as *.tga format (Targa format) will do. Adobe Photoshop is far and away the most popular with designers, but lots of people use the Gimp or other applications.

To make objects: Use the in-world tools first. 95% of the building that can be done in SL can be done just with the in-world tools. Very few of the external "Building tools" will help you to do anything you couldn't already do with the in-world tools. And none of them will do you any good if you don't understand the basics of in-world building.

Sculpties are the one exception to the above - they acn NOT be made excepy via external tools. There are a variety of external tools for making the specialized textures used for creating sculpties. Check the Texture Tips and Building Tips forums and search for "Sculpty" for info on that esoteric aspect of Building.

Welcome to SL, and good luck with your creating!

Well, I have been to ivory tower, stopped by some sandboxes and I have a RL book on the subject. The problem is I am not sure what I want to do and what I want to do with it once I do. Any ideas about that?

Afraid you'll have to find your own Muse. We can tell you where the paint set and brushes are, but no one but you can inspire you to paint with them, or can awaken the creative talent that hopefully lies within you. My best advice is to experiment. Try making all sorts of things, then concentrate on what seems fun and interesting to you.

If your not sure yet what kind of things you want to create, I suggest first you should get familiar with the SL tools that are available free to you. Also visit some of the museums in SL to see many of the amazing things others have done. Hopefully while doing that you will find some things that inspire you to try and create or recreate.

Building stuff: go to the Ivory Tower of Primatives and learn the basics about making objects out of prims. One disadvantage to building stuff in SL is you pretty much have to be in SL work on objects. You can however plan object designs in sketch paper, I used to do that in boring meetings at work in RL. You can work offline if you are making sculptys, using a variety of free 3D modeling tools. There is a lot more about this in the Building Forum.

Textures: there are tons of free textures available in SL already, so no need to start out making your own until you have identified a really special need, even then there are some great texture stores in SL that could have what you are looking for at very reasonable prices, so check them out. See my comments below about software for creating textures. Robin Sojourner in SL has some great tutorials available in SL and on the web about making textures and clothing.

Clothing: Most are made of textures, with some prims added for things like flexi skirts. You will need to learn some basic building skills to make the prim parts. You don't have to start out buying an expensive software like photoshop to make clothing textures, you can use freeware and shareware software like GraphicConverter (Mac), Paintshop (PC), or Gimp (Mac & PC). There is a lot more good information on making clothing in the Textures Forum.

Scripting: After you have developed some basic building skills you may want to enhance your builds with scripts to make them do basic things. As a non-programmer, architect, I have found scripting to be difficult to learn, but persistence has paid off, and I have learned how to do lots of basic things such as controlling items with touch, chat and collision events to open/close doors/windows, change color, texture, transparency and lighting effects, as well as prim sizes and configurations. Recently I'm working more on making prim objects move as in animating animals. If you keep at it and set your goals to simply learn one new thing each day, it eventually builds into some pretty helpful skills. But I still consider myself a rank amateur when it comes to scripting. The FAQ for New Scripters, in the Scripting Tips forum is a good place to start.

Animations: This is an area I don't know much about, but you might want to consider it. The Animation Tips forum has a good FAQ there.

The Second Life Wiki is a good place to go for information on all of these subjects.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Main_Page

Wow. That's a tall order.
You might as well ask us what career would work best for you or what rl hobby would make you happiest.

If you don't have an idea then the only way you are going to find out is by trying them.

In RL I'm a web designer so you'd think I'd like scripting. HATE IT. Maybe it's too much like work. I played around with skins a bit but finally settled on building and love it.

A good friend of mine tried building and can't do it worth a damn, because his hearts not in it, but he's a fabulous scripter.

You just have to find what is going to work for you.

And once you've figured out what to make, make it nice and I'll buy it from you.

To make textures and clothes: Adobe Photoshop, and possibly a digital camera.

To make animations: The freeware Qavimator software, or Poser. And possibly a motion capture rig, if you want really high quality. I'm pretty sure Craig Altman does it that way to make his fantastic couples dances.

To make scripts: The mind of a programmer.

To make gestures: nothing special. Your existing audio software is probably all you need for capturing and editing sound files. If your gestures include custom animations, see above.

To build things: Except for sculpties, everything can be built with the in-world tools. Sculpties require a 3D modeling program capable of creating "UV weight maps", which are data about the distortions needed to transform a simple 3D mesh object (a cube, or a sphere or cylinder) into a more complex object. The data is represented by color values on the weight map.

My suggestion would be to explore SL. Before logging in, take some time and think about what interests you (in reality or specific to the grid). Then log in and search for those things. Go places and see what others have created.

In SL, stop and look at things and see how they're made. Some of my inspiration has come from seeing what others have done, while other inspiration has come from really just hanging out with friends, having a conversation that turns (more often than not) silly, then making the best version I can of something relative to the conversation.

I admit I've been disappointed in some outcomes, like sculpties (I just couldn't grasp the programs I tried to make the textures for them). But that didn't stop me from forging onward.

In my opinion, the most important thing is to give yourself time (to learn, to explore, to be inspired) and lots of room for error and just plain failure. Not everyone can make or do everything, but that's what makes the SL (and RL) experience so great.

Just enjoy what you do and that'll show in the end result

Good luck & Happy New Year!

I've always felt that it is important to master the basics before deciding to build the Taj Mahal. Start out by building things that you know: chairs, tables, etc... Then move on to something like a box house. Don't worry about making something to "sell" worry about making a high quality basic chair that is nicely textured and aligned. Play around with different leg styles on the table and watch what happens to textures when they are applied to different types of objects. Once you have spent some time getting to know each of the shapes in the build menu - build something that you like in RL. Try and recreate something in your living room as close as possible or an item that you treasure. The idea is to strengthen your grasp of the basics so that when you do decide to take on a project that is more complex it won't be as daunting.

I suggest experimenting if you have Art program and just see what you can do with it.
Let your creativity flow.
For building I did the same but it is bit hit and miss.
Gimp is free, there also other programs similar out there that you use for free or whole let less then Adobe Photoshop if you don't have it.
Do a lot of reading in the building and texture forums, some of it might not make sense until you have explore bit more with different tools.
Tower of the Ivory Prims never made much sense to me personally.
Most of all just be patient with yourself, have fun, explore, explore being creative and pace your self there is lot of information out there about content creation and it can be bit daunting and overwhelming at first.
Also taking few classes in world if possible might give you ideas or basic foundation on how to use in world content building tools.