A shopping list with nothing on the shelves
I rezzed on the 28th of November 2009 and went looking for things to fill my corner of the grid. The trouble was, the things I wanted didn't exist. Not quite the right shape, not quite the right size, or simply not made at all.
So I started making them myself.
Prims, a calculator, and a lot of patience
Back then you built with prims and sculpties. Sculpties never really clicked for me, so what I made was never quite what I had in my head, and I made do.
Prims, though, I could work with. I'd sit with a calculator and move each piece into place by the numbers: this wide, that high, set in by exactly this much. Slow, but it taught me to build to real measurements rather than by eye.
Then mesh arrived
Mesh changed everything, and Mesh Studio let me turn the prim building I already knew into proper mesh. All those years of working by the numbers carried straight across. For the first time, what came out looked like what I'd pictured.
Making things move
A fireplace should light. A door should open. A pool should bubble. So I learned enough LSL to make my builds do the things their real-life versions do, and kept learning from there.
A favour for a friend
One day a friend asked if I could build something for them. Then another friend asked. Then a friend of a friend. The Marketplace was the natural next step, and ACME DESIGNS.uk opened its doors.
Blender, and the rest is history
Blender opened the last door. Today every piece starts as the real thing: researched, measured and built true to size, then engineered to live lightly on your land.
It's the same idea as that calculator back in 2009, only with better tools: if you want it to look right, build it right.