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Thanks, Ill look up Makers Muse.
When you printed your G8, did you print her straight up and down? Ive seen a couple videos in which people said you get a nicer finish if you print at an angle as opposed to up and down. Just wondering what you had experienced.
I looked into this one. It's a neat printer. It's out of stock now, though.
I've got my sights set on a Creality printer. I know that the cheapest one I'm after is around £250. If I manage to save a little more, then I'll consider an auto levelling bed. It just depends on the cost of the printer at the time.
Apologies on my part. I was in a hurry, and I just couldn't find that part of your comment. I'll definitely be going with a PLA printer.
I know that it was in reply to someone else, but thanks for the link. I'm more determined than ever now to get a 3D printer. There is a figure on there from my favourite gaming franchise, and I've promised myself that it will be the first thing that I print (after a test print, that is).
- Just another n00b question. At which point is the height (plus width and length) worked out? Do you do it when modelling the item, when you slice it, or when you go to print it?
N_R Arts,
Most slicing software will let you scale your model (typically an .stl file). So, you can get an idea if you need to change something.
For example, I often use Slic3r as one of my primary slicing programs, but have others, also. If you have an idea how tall your model is, this same proceedure will give you a starting point.
First, most of the models in these programs are going to measure in metric units. In Slic3r, once a model is loaded and before slicing, click on the model and in the lower left corner the dimensions will be shown.
Let's look at a model that shows a height of 168mm. The conversion is simple enough. There are 25.4 mm per inch, so dividing 168 by 25.4 tells you the model is 6.61 inches tall. Once you know that, you can scale up or down.
One thing to be careful about. If you create your own models and move them back and forth thru different programs, sometimes the scaling factor that is used for export and import can make the model change size and be different than you intended (important to ensure you check import/export scaling). That is why the example above can be useful to check model size.
I disagree. While an fdm printer won't give you as much detail as a resin printer They can get very close. I've got an Ender 3 and the prints are more than good enough for table top use. Detail is as good if not better than the pre-painted d&d or hero clicks figures.
I sliced her in half diagonally, and yes had her vertically aligned, as you can see in my pics here https://sta.sh/22anm90qu4p9 there is a lot of pock marks from the supports, and one thing to watch for is the gap between the supports & the figure where the supports are close to the figure, sometimes they touch once printed as shown in the half painted photo.
I found a couple of interesting articles on using Blender for 3d printing. There is a plugin for it.
https://all3dp.com/2/blender-to-3d-printer-prepare-model/
https://all3dp.com/2/blender-stl-how-to-make-3d-printable-stl-files-in-blender/
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/146673/correcting-non-manifold-edges-in-blender-3d-model-for-3d-print
Just wanted to say that I've pumped about 200 or so of my characters through the Gameprint service, standard fix, and it's worked brilliantly. Being able to assmeble a character and pose and to have a ready-to-print STL a few minutes later is awesome. I haven't used them for a couple of months now, but their service was automated when I was using it so hopefully it's still going strong.
-- Walt Sterdan
So after a whole lot of studying and many, many, MANY re-starts, here is my first prepared model. She is two inches tall. Unfortunately, I forgot to scale her so she will probably be in her own little scene. Daz products that I used for her are https://www.daz3d.com/ariadne-for-v6 , https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/sexy-fashion-for-genesis-2-female-s-/108247/ , https://www.daz3d.com/toon-generations-2-female-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s , and https://www.daz3d.com/the-firearm-pack . I still have to set up the machine and run the test print which I should be able to do by Thursday.
I used Meshmixer, Hexagon and Chitubox. The hair was the biggest nightmare of the whole thing. Im sure that alot of that was do to inexperience. Honestly I dont know if it would be easier to convert daz hair for 3d print or just learn how to create hair for the purposes of the printer. I found hair for sale but considering that I want to do alot of dynamic poses, I dont know how purchasing hair would help. There are a couple things I will do differently next time. I shouldve cut off the pistol to be printed seperately. I believe her arms would also benefit from seperate printing. As for the supports, I really do not know if im overdoing it or not. There is going to be alot of cleanup from the supports.
Im expecting the print to fail... probably at the 85% mark when most of the plastic has already been used. I could be surprised, who knows. Several times I considered using gameprint. Considering the amount of time I put into this model, two dollars a model now seems like it will be a bargain. I wish they did scale and not just set sizes. Thats the only thing that that is keeping me from using their service. Anyhow...
@ Daveso this is a belated thanks for replying to me a while back. At that point I was going to finally build my printer before getting back to you. Then one day passed and one more etc.
Anyway I built the Ender 3 Pro on Saturday and only today got to try my very first print. I'm amazed at how well it turned out but disappointed that the white filament fails to show it well in the pictures I'm attaching.
Although there are many videos online showing the same test models printed over and over again, I took the plunge and tried printing something I downloaded a long time ago - from Sketchfab, I think. I had found it zipped up on my hard drive recently and had tried it out in Carrara.
I'm showing two pictures of it from Carrara (where the light shows the detail - it isn't a huge detailed mesh, however) and two pictures of the print with a drinks can to show the scale. I took minimum time over setting up the model (slicing, etc.) because I was certain I was only setting out on a path of many failures. I'm still surprised that it came out OK.
@ Daveso this is a belated thanks for replying to me a while back. At that point I was going to finally build my printer before getting back to you. Then one day passed and one more etc.
Anyway I built the Ender 3 Pro on Saturday and only today got to try my very first print. I'm amazed at how well it turned out but disappointed that the white filament fails to show it well in the pictures I'm attaching.
Although there are many videos online showing the same test models printed over and over again, I took the plunge and tried printing something I downloaded a long time ago - from Sketchfab, I think. I had found it zipped up on my hard drive recently and had tried it out in Carrara.
I'm showing two pictures of it from Carrara (where the light shows the detail - it isn't a huge detailed mesh, however) and two pictures of the print with a drinks can to show the scale. I took minimum time over setting up the model (slicing, etc.) because I was certain I was only setting out on a path of many failures. I'm still surprised that it came out OK.
In spite of leap-frogging over your post, AnotherUserName, I have to say that I'm following your progress with interest. The model I made had support structures between the base at the back of the dress but none at the front. The structures snapped off very easily and left little sign of having been there. Where there were no structures at the front, the extruder dropped a few 'hairs' of filament which I removed with a craft knife.
Your model has a pose with much more need for support stuctures and I don't think (from my position of total inexperience) that you can overdo it. Your print will take several hours, depending on its size, so it's right to give it a fighting chance in my opinion.
I bought 3d Coat to learn to sculpt and print the results, so I'm perhaps less likely to need to prepare DAZ models. I did trysculpting, though on a Poser figure, building both clothes and hair on the bare figure. The results are pathetic but I'll show a picture to illustrate a possible way to add hair to a (bald) figure. Just sculpt - but take a great deal more care to do it well than I did. (You can sculpt in Blender or Sculptris for free).
As mentioned elsewhere, I've run two hundred or so figures through their service and I agree, the time saving alone is so worth it.
For fixed scaling, whenever I need different models to be scaled absolutely the same, I included a pillar with the model, offset from the model proper, and let that be my standard for matching scales. If I'm going to print some 3-inch models that need to be scaled properly (you run into issues, for example, if one character is sittin and the other standing, etc.) I induced the same pillar with both figures where the pillar is the tallest thing.
Hopefully that helps a bit.
-- Walt Sterdan
Looks great, good job! Fun, isn't it?
-- Walt Sterdan
Hi wsterdan,
Thanks for your comment. Today I took further pictures in daytime light which show the print a bit better. I was aware that I chose a simple model akin to a chess piece for my test and I when I went looking for the original on Sketchfab I found that the uploader's name was 'Makerstation Valencia' so perhaps it was just optimised for printing. I don't know - just saw it as an object file to try out but I think it is an actual scan of a real child. The Creality software automatically put the support structures in. The software looks just like Cura from a quick look at both. The file was downloaded for free and had to be scaled up massively in the software to see it.
I'm attaching images to show two shots of the model in Sketchfab and some slightly better images of my print. You can see two slight flaws in these: (1) A tiny bit of the ear failed to print (2) There is a bit of roughness under the chin (which is an overhang - it had no support structure). Other jagged parts are actually the mesh of the lace as far as I can tell. Lastly, I was pleased that the lines of layer upon layer are so fine that they really aren't noticible when looking at the actual model except in close-up inspection.
I think I had beginner's luck in choice of printer and of choice of test print so I guess I have disappointments ahead. I might confine my next few prints to little additions to the printer itself - like a back piece for the control/display unit and other small bits and pieces.
Hey Marcus,
I actually like the hair that you made. I think that with a good paint job it would look really great.
Absolutely agree with you, AnotherUserName.
I've finally photographed one of my 90mm DAZ figure statues:
Sorry it's not very in focus, my 2009 vintage camera isn't good a macro shots.
This one is Jim Burton's Victoria 3 based 'Glamorous Vickie' with the tube based and now unavailable 'Las Vegas Hair' and the base figure's string bikini. Even the fingernails are visible, the bow on the bikini ties and the string between the two bikini top triangles. I had supports up to each finger before cutting away and filled the witness marks in the base, but none were really needed to any of the hair.
Regards,
Richard.
@ Anotherusername and Richardandtracy, Well I'm pleased if you like the sculpted hair and I'm not trying to be falsely modest by adding that I'm surprised because it really was a 'try out the concept' doodle. The hair was done just with drawing squiggly lines with the mouse using a sculpting 'draw' brush. The clothes were done in much the same way.
In case you haven't tried sculpting, I can point out that the sculpting tools drag out and multiply the faces they are being used to paint on. Meaning that there is no longer a head under that hair - the head became the hair and the waist area became the clothes. It means that the printing software isn't looking at the clothes and hair being separate meshes as they would if they had been put together from separate items.
It's probable that you knew all that but I mentioned it just in case and for the benefit of anyone else.
Incidentally, Hexagon allows a kind of sculpting with its displacement tools. These don't add polygons dynamically as sculpting packages can do but if the mesh is dense enough, they do work.
@ richardandtracy: That's a very well-printed figure you've shown and it's great to see that the arms printed without support (except for the fingers) in that pose. That's encouraging.
Thanks. I'm really happy this is working for you. I need to ocncentrate more and getting this to work with every model. My last print wasn;t too bad. I did it myself with Meshmixer. I also sent the same model to Gameprint, but I have not printed the gameprint STL yet. Will do that. This guy is 3-1/2 inches high. You can see the swirls. I printed in 0.20 layer. I think it needs to be finer and also printed standing up. Pretty good weight balance though.
I think grey shows the detail better than most filament colors.
Daveso, your links were invaluable and it's great to see your print. The contours look very smooth and the whole thing looks clean. That's exactly the height of my print with its base but I haven't got in to knowing about nozzle size and layer thickness at all yet. I've a lot to learn! The printer I have has available upgrades that I thought I'd probably need before getting anywhere - there is a glass bed and an automatic bed-leveller. Apparently some new printer performs as well as the Creality but has these enhancements built in. I don't know what it's called, though.
But for now, I'll see what else I can get done.
Looking pretty good, guys, thaks for sharing. I love seeing other people's prints. Having solid, printed figures of the 3D characters that we've been working with for so long really is so very cool.
-- Walt
It WORKED!!!
Pictures and details tomorrow!
But... IT WORKED!!!
So I got the printer set up in the morning and by noon was ready to do my test print. In accordance to the mars 2 instructions, I put my resin into the vat and plugged the flash drive that had the test print into the printer. I was more than a little suprised when I found out that the flash drive was not readable. After searching the internet for solutions, I found that I needed to download some support files from the manufacture's website. However, I could not dl the files which had something to do with the files being accesed to many times and the website had reached its download limit or some rediculous nonsense like that. So here I was with a vat full of resin and nothing to print do to an unreadable flash drive. I saw some suggestions that said I should reformat the flash drive so thats what I did. OF COURSE, I forgot to copy the files before re-formatting so although the flash drive was now readable, there was nothing on it to print. So I coppied the file of the model I had been working on FOREVER, pulled it up on the printer and hit the start button. She took two hours and fifty three minutes to print and came out great! After washing and curing her I was super happy with the results. She is just over two inches tall with her supports. Here are a couple picks. I messed with the brightness and contrast a little bit so that the detail is easier to see.
The process was generally very easy with the exception of the printer cleanup which resulted in resin being poured all over my desk (my fault). Also, I damaged my FEP film and I think im going to have to replace it. I cleaned it wrong and now its all scrathed up. I did follow Elegoos steps for removing the impurities from the resin and that resulted in alot of dents being put into the FEP film another reason why I think it needs to be replaced. The printer came with 3 replacement fep films, but I dont want to print again until I know the proper method of claening the vat. Everything else cleaned up just fine.
Im really enjoying seeing everyones work and I plan to post more when I can.
Excellent, very impressive, especially for a first print! Congratulations!
-- Walt Sterdan
Congratulations from me too! Even with my inexperienced eye, it's obviously perfect. Although they will be removed, the support structures testify to the accuracy of the print. You've made a good choice of printer and your hard work paid off.
For anyone who might be intersted... Here's Adam Savage's Tested review of the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro Resin Printer;
Anyone who's thinking of printing small miniatures with filament should really reconsider. The best resolutions are pretty poor and require a lot of post print clean up work (and those figures are brittle). And if you are a little picky you probably won't be happy. (FYI... Hero Forge has color prints now, and those are quite good, although still not that high a resolution.)
One question I have for people using 3D printers with Daz, is how they convert Daz models. Last I checked the stuff in Daz is really not compatible with 3D printing. Clothing is infinitely thin, and needs to be processed in order to have some volume before you can consider printing. Other issues can be cleaned up in Daz, like, making limbs thicker so they don't break.
https://www.daz3d.com/gameprint-3d-print-plugin
Making Daz objects printable is one of the features of GamePrint;
https://makeprintable.com/
As a first print, that's really good.
Due to my allergy problems with the resin, I've not done anywhere near as much printing as I wanted, but with a 90mm figure, fingers are easily strong enough at modelled sizes.
Clothing is a bit more of a problem, I have a solution that works for me (written my own Win32 software to thicken selected facets). Hair is a severe problem as many hair models have more than a million facets, and that then goes over the 1Gb array limit for the type of dynamic arrays I've used in the program, and it dies horribly. If it wasn't such a serious problem, I'd release the program generally. I want to make a work around, possibly saving straight to file, but it will take time and thought. Time is not in short supply, thinking is.
Regards
Richard
Heres what I did (in a very general sense). This was also the fastest technique I came up with after many attempts and alot of research. I used daz, hexagon, meshmixer and chitubox. I used G2F. In daz, choose your model and outfit, hair, props then pose the character just like you are going to render. In your Genesis 2 starter essentials there is an item, the Genesis 2 geograft. Add that to your G2 figure. It prepares G2's head for print by simplifying the mouth and the eyes. Save. Next, export each item as an obj. The geograft should combine with G2 when exported. So in my case I had Ariadne.obj, pants.obj, hair.obj, etc, something like 6 or 7 obj. files. In Meshmixer, import your figure. Now use the "Make Solid" function under the Edit menu and play with the numbers until you like what you get. There are alot of youtube videos on this function. Next import and Append the next item, pants, shirt, whatever, and do the same thing with them. Once you have finalized each item by making solid, you will use the "Combine" function to make them all a singular object. Then you can send the completed object into your slicer and add your supports and such.
Obviously, thats a quick and dirty explenation. I had to go into hexagon several times to simplify or fix some items that wouldnt translate right. The hair was also a major pain to get right. I essentially created a helmet for the head that I used to fit the hair to. In that way, I was able to do away with alot of the gaps between the hair and the head. I also modified the hair model itself somewhat.
I hope that makes some sense. I think what gameprint does is essentially the same thing, but they have access to superior hardware and software as well as the knowledge it takes to do things quickly and correctly and with great results.
Hope that helps.
I did actually break out with a small rash on my right hand the day I set the printer up. Whether its because of the printer materials that I handled or just because i m washing my hands 500 times a day, I dont know.
I think the total size for my file came out to 142mb.
"Time is not in short supply, thinking is." LOL, isnt that a fact!
You modelled him yourself? He has really good proportions.
I chose grey for my models just because I plan on painting them all.