Sculpting props and avatars for dummies?

I've got a friend who's asking if I can create a custom avatar for him. Unfortunately, while I know my way around a 3d modeling package, I've only just picked up secondlife. I need to find a "For Dummies" database - or someone who knows about this sort of thing willing to sit down and talk with me - to learn about the basic ins and outs of modeling objects for use in second life. Things like min/max geometry density, texture sizes, UV mapping requirements, export filetypes and so on.
I've done some searching on my own, and all I really find are scattered bits and pieces of information that assume you already know something about what will break the system.

Any help I can get would be much appreciated. =)
-Rhey

If you use Blender (or you are not afraid to learn it) then http://blog.machinimatrix.org/ is a great place to start. There are a great number of limitations and/or got'chas when building for SL and they are not easily summarised but Gaia's tutorials are a great place to start for sculptie stuff if you like Blender.

well the basics are... a lot to learn. If you are a 3D modeller i think, you will get it fast as it is quite easy to understand. if you are a starter, prepair for some weeks of investigation before you can go productive.

The most basic information is probably that building in SL separates into two areas:

- standard prims
- sculpted prims

You will need to understand both. For standard prims there is a lot of information available inworld. And in general building with standard prims is an inworld affair. There is limitted support for external building and reimporting into SL, but as far as i know this is not very well developed so far. I know there is something named "prim builder" which may be interesting for this purpose...

For sculpted prims in contrary there is virtually no direct support in world, so most efforts to make sculpties is done within third party tools. Fortunately the transport format is easy and "export to sculptie" is supported by many tools by now, often in form of thrid party add ons. For a comprehensive list of tools look at the 3D software guide at:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims:_3d_Software_Guide

Now before you ask, which is the best choice, go out and look for yourself and come back when you got your first impressions. You will find a lot of usefull information allready "ready to read" in this forum and once you know what you have to ask for, a search here often helps quickly finding answers to your particular problems

If you prefer to go into a dialog and talk with someone, you will find builders everywhere in world. Look at the groups, go to the sandboxes... Most people are willing to share knowledge.

If you want "professional support" you even can get this too. I think there is another forum around here, where you can ask for that. Probably asking here does not do any harm either...

I hope, that gives you some initial pointers to jump start ?

Learn by doing, there is no pick up and read manual for SL, you'll get to understand it as you use it. I recommend you learn the basics of building in SL before you attempt sculpties as the two replies above mention.

There are extensive building tools built into SL that can do most things without having to worry about blender or anything like that. Sculpting is something other than what you really want to be learning right now, building is the term you're looking for.