Six Weeks Down a Rabbit Hole – Meeting My Maker Adventure

The past six weeks have been quite arduous. If you've checked out the Back 2 Base-ix website lately, you probably noticed some fairly large changes. But behind the scenes, even more has been happening than you might think.

I've been building and pushing the boundaries of three custom product designers: Shape Maker, Movement Tray Maker, and Token Maker. What started as a fairly straightforward idea, giving customers more control over the products they order, has become one of the biggest development adventures I've undertaken in more than 20 years of running Back 2 Base-ix.

The idea behind the Makers was always simple. But I wanted to take the visual experience much further. Instead of picking from menus and hoping the final product matches what you entered, I wanted you to see your design live in 3D. This way, you can check exactly what you're buying. All the details are saved during the design process and in your cart and order history, so you and I both have a clear record of what's being made.

Building all this on a website has taken a lot of learning, experimenting, testing, problem-solving, and patience.

It Started With Shape Maker.

Shape Maker was always working, but I wanted to improve it. I added more shapes, more flexibility, better previews, and a smoother ordering process. What started as a simple 2D visual environment, still used on mobile phone displays, was later expanded into a 3D preview system, which you’ll see on Tablet and PC. I highly recommend using these devices when making anything from the Maker series, as they offer much more accessible control.

Movement Tray Maker – Taking Things into the Third Dimension

MTM has always been solid in its design, but it needed more text on the page to explain the menus' and trays' capabilities and limitations. I wanted the designer to show you any issues live so you could adjust your plans as you went along.

I've lost count of how many trays I've created, adjusted, rotated, inspected and tested over the past few weeks. But seeing a custom tray appear in 3D, complete with the correct materials and construction, has been particularly satisfying.

And Then Came Token Maker...

As if the other two weren't keeping me busy enough, I decided it was time to tackle something I'd wanted to offer for quite a while. Custom gaming tokens. I wanted customers to create their own by selecting backgrounds, icons, text, colours, positioning, and front-and-back designs from a growing collection.

What started as a fairly basic designer has evolved into something much more capable, with controls for positioning, copying layouts between tokens for uniformity, searching the library, and a bunch of fine-tuning options.

I've worked through font rendering, curved text, icon placement, colour differences, and turning customer designs into production-ready files. I still have more to do, and I’m looking forward to seeing it grow into an online tool for gamers everywhere.

From an Idea to Something You Can Actually Hold

For me, this has always been the most important part. I'm not developing these tools simply to have something clever running on the website. I need them to produce real, physical products. Every selection a customer makes needs to carry through from the designer to the shopping cart, through checkout, into the order details and eventually onto my production equipment.

That connection between the digital design and the physical product has driven much of the development work over the past six weeks. And when everything finally lines up, from the customer's original design to the finished item sitting on my workbench, it feels pretty good. More importantly, I need you, the customer, to be happy, satisfied and trusting in the process. And like always, if I’ve fallen short somewhere, I’m only an email or call away to help fix any issues you’ve had.

Six Weeks Later...

The three Makers are not 100% finished. I don't think they ever will be. But looking back at where things were six weeks ago, I'm genuinely pleased with how far they've come. Sure, there have been countless tests, plenty of frustrations, a few colourful words directed at the computer. But that's part of testing myself. I’ve always said ‘you’re never too old to learn something new’. And I’ve got a lot to learn. Ha!

If you haven't looked at the Makers recently, you might be surprised by what's changed. And if you come across something that could work better, or have an idea for something you'd like to see included, please let me know. Customer feedback and suggestions have always been an important part of developing Back 2 Base-ix products, and these new design tools are no exception.

Cheers,

Aaron.