Designing

[Qster1981]

I am studying Games design and keen to make new objects, such as furniture and/or clothing. 

Can anyone explain or help how I can start this?

I have been playing SL for 14 days or so and keen to put my 2D designs in my sketchbooks designs in the game world.

Many Thanks

 

Qster1981 a.k.a Thierry

[Rolig Loon]

Begin by mastering the basic building tools that all residents have through theirviewers.  Even though there's a lot of justifiable excitement about mesh objects these days, the basic tools remain the foundation for creating objects in SL. Until you understand how to move, shape, join, texture, and animate objects, anything you make with more sophisticated tools will be wasted effort.  So, visit the Ivory Tower of Prims in world, spend a lot of time with tutorials, and then practice in a safe, quiet sandbox somewhere.  You'll find more reference materials in the SL wiki at https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Creation_Portal.

Then, once you have all that under your belt, start thinking about the possibility of 3D modeling software like Blender for making mesh objects.  Ask Google to find a zillion tutorials to get you started, and look at places like http://blog.nalates.net/2012/05/20/second-life-mesh-clothes-blender-2-6-setup-2012-tutorial/ to get a feel for how they apply to Second Life.

[Frawmusl]

There are a lot of things to consider in game design besides just what looks nice. Consider things like Occlusion and what redering engine or physics engine SL uses. A simple google search will turn you over to a lot of information

[LepreKhaun]

There are a number of inworld groups that not only give building classes but have many residents willing to help the beginner get up to speed.

 

My recommendation along that line would be the Builders Brewery ( http://www.buildersbrewery.com/ ). They not only have regular (free!) classes for everyone from the complete novice to advanced but a very active chat with knowledgeable people on it 24/7 for immediate help with your "question of the moment".

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

Now the question is are you actually 'studying' game design at some sort of academy, or do you mean you are generally interested in it and looking information up on your own?

- Should the first one be the case, the best is maybe to go to your teacher and tell them about your project / ideas, and ask
  for their advice  and things you should be aware of when creating 3D models / meshes for certain game engines.

- Software choice is up to you and of course depending on what you can afford. But again in case you are studying you
  might want to stick to the software that will be used in your course / classes. Otherwise you have to learn several
  programs at once and things might get confusing and too time intense.

- Generally you are good with looking up all information about game prop design and game character design, in order
  to figure good values for polygon count, handling of materials, UV techniques, modeling techniques, texturing techniques
  and everything similar. 

- Unless you are just planning on building your concepts with the regular set of primitives insides of SL. Then there are
  also lots of tutorials on the web and ingame builders courses. (as suggested in one of the other answers) But that is 
  a different mater and much more simple compared to 3D modeling.

 

- If you could describe a bit more on 'how' you were planning to bring your concepts into SecondLife , especially with
  information about what software you are planning to use.  This makes it way easier to give you related links and direct
  tips.