The amazing creativity in Second Life

Wow. I've been looking at houses, and I am completely blown away by the creativity of folks here. In the back of my mind, I've had a few daydreams about building something cool, maybe even something people would buy. But when I teleported around to the design studios tonight, it made me realize what a rank amateur I am here, and how much I have to learn.

I was feeling pretty good about making a T-shirt....for a little while...lol

Wonderful energy and ideas here, and it's a pleasure to see what people have done.

Find a Good teacher, i had one and the result is my Jazz Cub in Kiyoshi (Not yet opened) My Girl said she could never learn to build anything, Now she is doing astoundingly detailed micro builds.
The principles are easy enough, i could give them to you in a couple of hours, after that it's just experimentation, and learning to Look at EVERYTHING as though it were made of prims. People are ONLY limited by their Imaginations in SL. Once they have the tools, anything goes.

Angel.

That's the challenge: taking the time in the beginning to learn the basics before rushing into building.

Practice. Look at builds you admire, seek inspiration from them. Ask the question 'how do I...?'.

Concentrate on building something that you really need or want. The next thing you build will be a little better. Repeat.

Oh... keep smiling!

I'd also suggest collecting the notecards from the Ivory Tower of Prim, they can be handy as a reference. Also, when you're shopping, right click on something that you like and "edit" to see how it's constucted.

Lastly, take the time to fiddle and expermiment and see what you can actually make from one prim. My best creations started life as an accident.

I totally agree with you Butch, after my first month in SL on Help Island, learning to build and stuff I finally took the leap into the big world.

I searched for a couple of days and then came across Ivory Towers, the Towers I think is probably the first and most important place a newbie builder/designer should visit.

There is a wealth of information spread over 3 or 4 more floors and you can even try your hand at building the same things by collecting the notecards, then finding a quite Sandbox to experiment.

Look for free training at ASL, TUI, PAU, RUSC find the courses for the next 3 days or so under

search > events > education

There's even a reminder thing that will pop up 5min before an event starts.
Courses are free or cheap, but don't forget to thank & tip the instructors, they don't get paid much to teach 30 people SL skills.

And when you think you know what you are doing, go do a training course and find out the easy way to do things

The learning is the fun part. And don't worry about learning everything and then it won't be fun anymore: I've been building since I started, and still learn new things every day. In fact, the really *fun* learning comes after one has mastered the "how" part.

(One observation: The tedium of texturing grows exponentially with the creativity of the prims to be textured. )

just go out and build if you get an idea just start laying down prims, and if it doesn't work move on to the next thought. if you don't have an idea think of something you like, and try to build it.

keep the first build you make for sentimental reasons, but don't be afraid to throw out anything else. i've been building in sl for years now, and i still trash a lot of my builds because they just aren't working. the important thing when learning is just to keep moving on, practicing and exploring, and at this stage, don't get too hung up on getting things perfect.

most of all, enjoy it

Yeah the way I see it is invest an hour or two either in the forums, or in the prim tower or in a live tutorial in world to understand the basics of the controls ... and then get into a sandbox or onto your own land and start plugging away. It helps to understand "basically" how things work before starting, but in my own personal experience, you really need quite a bit of trial and error to internalize both how things work as well as explore the possibilities that may not have been very apparent to you (and would probably only strike you once you start getting your hands dirty with the building tools).

Millibar,

Yes, there are some very inspirational pieces of all kinds in Second Life. But do not be discouraged or intimidated at the skill level surrounding you. Everyone has to start somewhere.

If building or designing is something that you truly want to pursue, then getting started right away is the best thing to do. I suggest you get familiar with the in-world build tool, any widely used graphics applications, and explore current products that inspire you. If you can find a 3rd party 3D application like Maya or 3D Studio Max, I highly advice that. There are “free” 3D applications, but I’d…stay away from them—stick with the big dogs.

There are a gazillion 3D tutorials on the web. And there are some great books at Borders or Barnes & Noble for Max or Maya, and Photoshop, etc…

The best way to get started is to JUMP IN!!

Swing by my studio sometime, and I’ll give you some hands on training (pro bono naturally)