Second Life is a great place to get ideas for your Virtual World. It is also possible to create objects, using a point-and-click menu. The site uses a Linden Scripting Language which incorporates a certain amount of C Programming. If you are not a veteran programmer, you may have trouble trying to write your own scripts. The purpose of having you check out Second Life is not to have you deal with Second Life scripting, but to see how other people are creating thier worlds.

As an example, the flower on the top of this page was created by actually writing the scripts needed to extrude the leaves, stem, petals and stamen. On Second Life, people generally use flat images, pictures of leaves, make the background transparent, then locate them on a tree trunk so that from certain viewpoints the tree seems to have leaves on it. Not quite the same thing, is it?

One thing about Second Life that is very cool is the Avatars they have created. You get an avatar when you sign up. I won't say more about it so that I don't spoil the surprise.