This post was written by Ron Millar (@VRDesignGuy), Chief Creative Officer of VRChat.
Recently, VRChat lost one of its most prolific and talented creators. Earlier this week we were informed that 1001 had passed away. Needless to say we were all in shock and deeply saddened by the news. It hit me pretty hard. He was a close friend and someone I enjoyed spending time with in VRChat or chatting to on Discord.
1001 is best known as the creator/co-creator (along with SCRN) of Treehouse in the Shade, Bamboo Temple, Fluid Flow Studio, Music Visualizer, and other worlds. They have many friends in our community, and expressed their talent by creating amazing things in VRChat.
I met 1001 and SCRN shortly after they released “Treehouse in the Shade’’ in July of 2018. It was a collaborative effort and maybe one of the most startling worlds VRChat had ever seen — definitely at that time. It immediately blew my mind and I even made it my home. Not only can you change the shaders on the fly, but you can control them with an X,Y pad up in the treehouse! There’s also a jetpack that lets you fly through the raymarched shaders in real-time. So wild! I finally met 1001 and SCRN about a month later, in August of 2018. SCRN and 1001 had these incredible shader “creatures” they could manipulate in front of them as part of their avatars.
I can’t tell you how many people I took to that world. I spent a lot of good times there with friends, family, streamers, VRChat team, partner companies, and famous people. Deadmau5 hung out there with me a few times. One of his streams is 1001, mau5 and myself hanging out and talking about the world, flying around on the jetpacks, and chatting about maybe getting some of 1001’s shaders onto the mau5cube. I took investors and various VIPs in to see worlds he and SCRN had worked on. Everyone that saw it had the same reaction — they were blown away, and it would leave a lasting impression. It showed them what was possible. We even chose to use Treehouse in the Shade in our trailer and in our main marketing images.
One night, 1001 took us to this incredible forest. We had this wild experience where 1001 would lead us to these different shader “entities” that were hovering just above the ground. They had audio coming off of them. Merlin was another person I met that would hang out with 1001 and SCRN. He was there too that night. Merlin said “Let me contain this…” and cast a spell and moved around the entity. It was incredible. My jaw was on the floor — and I’ve seen a lot in VRChat. 1001 and SCRN would also be doing shader FX while Merlin circled the creature. We moved on from entity to entity and pretended we were on some kind of adventure. It was from here that I started calling them all “The Shader Wizards”.
What they were making for me was showing the potential of VRChat, even back then. It was showing what fantastic mind-blowing stuff could be made even with the limited tools we had provided to build with. I was getting a taste of the far future VRChat. Of the potential of role-playing and games, of audio/visual experiences. Artistic explorations. It filled me with inspiration and creativity. It charged me up at work the next day to keep improving things. I loved it so much. I still love it. 1001, SCRN, and Merlin continued to do this often for me even up to recently with their incredible creations and worlds.
Not only was 1001 an amazingly talented creator, but he was a really sweet soul. He was a kind person that would gladly talk to you about what he was working on. I loved watching him enjoy people experiencing the things he had created. He also had a really nice voice and laugh. It was soothing and made you feel relaxed. If you ever met him or talked to him, you’d know what I mean. I would seek him out after a long and busy day of VRChat work and roaming so that I could just relax before bed. We’d often go check out some new fractal world he was working on or he’d join on my world exploration adventures with SCRN and some others. All of us would just chill out together or party a bit and have a laugh… chat about stuff as you do.
For many of us in the community, this is the true magic of VRChat. Spending time becoming close with friends you may never have gotten the chance to meet in real life. This was also true for 1001. I never met him IRL, I don’t know his real name, all I knew was his avatars, his voice and his creations. At the same time I felt like I knew him very well. That we’d spent time together and shared experiences just as much as you do in real life. It’s the first time for me I’ve lost someone this close that I met through VRChat. Spending time with someone in VR really binds you more to people than even I expected. It’s pretty wild and wonderful. I’m thankful for that, and for all our time together, but it also left a void with his departure. One that hurt a little bit more than I expected. All that said, I’m still so very glad to have gotten to know him as I did.
1001 was a great contributor to the community — but he was so humble. I’m sure I don’t know how much he did. I’m betting others know more and have nice stories to tell about him. If you do, I encourage you to share them with me on Twitter.
1001 was one of the founding members of the VRCPrefabs community. He inspired a lot of people to get into shaders in VRChat. He shared his love of synths and electronic music with me and our friends. Not sure if people know but he was an audio engineer and music producer in a past life. I’d often get a little ping on Discord during the day or at night about some piece of music he’d made or liked — or maybe a preview screenshot of something awesome he, SCRN, or Merlin were working on. Each thing was like a confection to enjoy.
I’m not sure what I’m writing here really encompasses how much I enjoyed everything that 1001 helped create or how much I adored him. How much others enjoyed his work, his shader knowledge or spending time with him. He was a really good friend and a lovely human being. What I am sure about is that I am glad to have gotten to know him, experience his creativity and see all the joy he brought to others. I know myself, the VRChat team, our community and all that knew him are going to miss him dearly.
I hope you will take a little time to go explore worlds he had a hand in creating with his close friend and creative partner SCRN. We’ll be setting up a world row for a little while up at the top of the VRChat Worlds menu for everyone to have a chance to go experience for themselves. As a forewarning, some of the worlds are quite CPU/GPU intensive, and do not have Quest versions. However, if you can check them out, you will not be disappointed. We’ll also list all the world links below.
— Ron Millar and the VRChat Team
raymarching shaders‚ chill music‚ jetpacks and a video screen‚ by 1001 and SCRN.
Epilepsy Warning — This world contains bright flashing lights and imagery that may cause discomfort and／or seizure for those with photosensitive epilepsy․ By SCRN and 1001․
Quest Compatible
Take a boat ride around the lake‚ cross platform build․ updated˸ better boats‚ better performance‚ towers can be climbed.
