The game uses controls very similar to programs like Blender when building, and it has it's own scripting language (LSL) that uses variables and integers and functions similar to other programming languages.

Yes, it's very much possible to make real life money in Second Life, especially if you are an expert 3d artist or really good at programming.

Roughly 270 Linden Dollars = 1 US Dollar, and thousands of people are playing Second Life at any given time, many of them are trying to make real life money from the game, but most realize that you need some skills to make something valuable in game, which inspires a lot of people to learn programs like Gimp, PS, Blender, or the LSL language.

When Second Life first began, the biggest money maker was selling virtual land. Everyone was buying it, it was cheap, some lady in Asia became a real life millionaire from it…crazy crazy stuff.

These days, like I said, you need to be creative, but the opportunity to make thousands of dollars is still there.

For Blender artists, one of the best money makers is to just design realistic 3d sculpts for the world and sell them in full permission packs for an affordable price on http://www.xstreetsl.com. Builders within Second Life are always looking for new sculpties that they can use to texture, form, script, and animate into their own products and are willing to pay a thousand linden or more to obtain really good sculpt packs.

So do the math, 1000 linden = around 3-4 dollars USD. Thousands of builders in SL. Make some attractive sculpts that builders can use in their products and there's pretty good potential to make thousands per year just uploading your Blender work to Second Life. :)

Maybe not something that will buy you a house in Beverly Hills but it will help put food on the table.

I have friends who are amazed that I'm so consumed by Second Life and for a long time could not understand why. It's so simple for me. They love football, or baseball. They go to all the games they can, listen to other games on the radio or watch them on TV, participate in "fantasy football" and such, and invest a lot of time and money into their passion. Yet they in turn tell me I'm a damned fool for spending so much time in Second Life.

Finally, one day I got fed up with it and I hooked my media center pc up to my 42" flatscreen TV and made them spend a few hours watching me in Second Life. They have never since said one word putting my passion down again.

In those few hours I showed them some of the most beautiful landscapes, islands, and architectural wonders they'd ever seen. I showed them some of my own land and islands and they watched me start with literally nothing, then prim by prim I created a gorgeous table, a lamp, a chair, and then proceeded to create a fish pond complete with rocks, plants, sparkling waterfall and swimming fish. All this I did with hardly a thought, even down to writing the scripts for the swimming fish from scratch.

They quickly realized that their hobbies paled in comparison. While they sat passively watching grown men tackle one another while they gorged themselves on pizza and beer I sat there creating amazing things they'd never seen before and exercised every part of my mind as I created and shaped things and relied on geometry and physics and some trigonometry thrown in and plenty of outright creativity. I proved to them within a matter of two hours that my "waste of time" exercised so many parts of my mind. And in the end the degree by which I glowed with pride and satisfaction as I listened to them oohing and awing my creativity was obvious.

I asked them how often they actively contemplated the X, Y and Z axis of a football as it drifted through the air and how often they mentally calculated the trajectory during game play. Then I had to pause for a moment to explain to one of them what "trajectory" meant and what the hell X, Y and Z stands for.

Second Life is no game. Second Life is a way of life. And yes, I have very healthy and satisfying relationships in real life. But I can assure you, I will never give up Second Life for anyone. I've even got to the stage now where I model my avatar in Second Life to look as much like me as possible. Though friends tell me it's actually that my real life appearance seems more and more to look like my Second Life avatar. Maybe.

I do know this though – either you love it or you hate it.

watch it closely second life gonna be a big thing by power of blender user.
If you are blender user and you also visit second life too. please contact me you can visit my blog or you can email to me. I want to make friend with blender user…. yes we're family.. ;)

You may Contact me inworld (SecondLife.com) my name there is Bab Hax, to see my Creations, Teleport from my Picks in my profile.

Be well All

If you want to drive a car you can either make the car, add the scripts, sounds, physics through the tools provided, or buy one made by someone else and give it a go. If you want to go to war with the spartans, with a little cooperative planning you can have a small version of that battle.

The thing is Second Life's tools are very dated. Linden labs really needs a major update.

Dont get rid of prims just make it where we have the option to build in a true 3d environment. Primcount went out with Nintendo 64. Everything is calculated in Pixels, Triangles, Verticals now days and building in prims is more of a pain than otherwise. This would make the Sandbox end up with many more high quality products. A 3d designer like myself actually had to unlearn many of the techniques I learned over the years so that I could re-teach myself how to work in a "Primative" 3d environment.

The other main thing I would like to see them change is the way files are transfered. It takes up entirely to much bandwidth to enjoy.

Overall Second Life is an alright place to hang out, however it truely needs to be brought into the 21st century with some small tweaks.

As of the Blog Posters question. I have actually made a living off of second life. For about a year back in 2007 I was unemployed and had to use whatever means I could to make a living. Starting small and building a well known business is just like in the real world. It takes Time, Patience, and a product or service that people want…. That and the ability to do it better than everyone else.

You can be anyone or anything you want.

Its not all about porn. Blue Maverick Music regularly has live performers for their concerts. Yeah that is right LIVE concerts. Fresh original music that rivals professional artists. — so don't be a poseball poser. Use your mind :)

And a lil tech note… many laggy sims can be better experienced if you set your draw distance to under 100 m

Now for playtime… I have spent about 70$ of my own money getting weapons, clothes, tools… for my particular type of roleplay (combat type roleplays). Alika weaponry and Harbringers have seen a lot of my hobby dollars.