which software is best?

Hi, I'm new to SL, and I was wondering about a few things.

Firstly, when creating objects, do people use external software much, or do people generally perfer to create them within the SL client? If external software, what would people reccomend I use? (bearing in mind I can't afford 3D studio max )
I have 3D design experience from my university degree.

Secondly, I've noticed non-standard shaped avatars/clothes, for example, a dress with flowing 'strips' that flutter back when the person walks, weird shaped avatars, etc. How is this done?

Thanks in advance

-Jam
(aka neural_jam, negrum veritas, Mindflayer)

I think people prefer the client more over than using an external builder. Mainly for the purpose of being able to texture and script things in the process of building. Also, you get an in-world "visual" scale of things by doing it in-world. If you learn it well enough you can do just as well as you would in a 3D package. Just a matter of getting to know the tools is all. At times there may be some beneficial use to using an external builder but that's up to you.

As for external software you may want to take a look Jeffery Gomez's Offline Builder which uses Blender (Open-source, free software). The Offline Builder may still be in BETA so no gaurantees on results with it. I think they released one for Maya 3D also but just guessing.

Flowing dresses and such are created with a feature called Flexible Path. You can find this in the Build window under the Features tab after you created a Cube, cylinder and I think that's it (it's limited to certain prim types). Tweak the flexible path settings to get the desired effect.

The oddly shaped avatars are a mixture of avatar custom shaping using the Appearance editor and custom prim/object shapes that are attached to particular parts of the body. Beatfox Xevious's Invisibility Prim Public (aka. Invisiprim) allow you to hide certain parts of the base avatar shape to allow for things like mechanical arms or animal-like legs.

yes, I was chatting to someone in SL a few minutes ago, and he was saying pretty much the same stuff, and I've been playing with the flexible path and stuff, fun! lol... thanks!
(oh and you can use it on cones too)

out of curiosity, is there any way of making the prim 'flap' in the wind, and also make it randomly change wind direction and windspeed?

Flap in the wind, yes - you play with one of the force numbers for wind - the one labelled Wind suprisingingly enough, under the flexible path list.

The wind is SL is amazingly random. For speed and direction, making it more random is tricky.

lol ok, I'll play a bit more with that. thanks for your input!