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Hey - hope I've got the right subforum here.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:976743

Wanted to spread the word about a project of mine I that's been running for a few days now on Thingiverse. I own a plastic filament 3D printer and have access to other 3D printing, CNC mills, and plastic injection equipment at my job, so combined with 10 years of 3D modeling and art background, I found myself in kind of a unique position when my son and I dusted off my old tabletop Battletech stuff (as opposed to my mountains of the video games going back to 1995...) earlier this year and got back into it after many many years.

Long story short, I love the look of fully detailed terrain layouts, but BT's hexless rules feel cumbersome for me and the new streamlined / hexless Alpha Strike is oversimplified for my tastes. HeroScape terrain has a lot of potential, but going on 5 years out of print, it's more than I want to spend for the size of terrain library I'd like to have. So my solution was... make my own modular hex system for detailed 3D terrain layouts, and design it so I can make it in volume. All the base hex designs are engineered to be usable as master files for milling out plastic-injection molds, so I can modify a drill press or a shop press and crank these out in ABS by the dozens and dozens.

I also included what I feel is a nifty feature, a modular ring that fits in the edge gutter of each hex. You can build trees, smoke, fire, walls, whatever you want onto a module ring, and it fits onto any hex in the layout. Plus, it's designed so that generally, there's still enough room in the center for the miniature (BattleTech minis are 1.35" hex bases circumscribed) to occupy the hex. Presto - a light woods hex that looks filled with light woods, but a Mech can still stand in the middle of the trees. (I should probably see if I need to patent that...)

HOWEVER: these can be printed at ANY x/y scale, so I can make these 2", 5", 6" 12"... and the hexes themselves can have subvariants with different surface depictions: concrete, metal plates, desert, bone piles, whatever. Digital masters makes life awesome.

Then I figured, "why just me?". So I decided to make it an open source project, similar to OpenForge, which has turned out some fantastic stuff. After some bantering back and forth with my 11-year-old son, we hit on the name Open WarHex for the banner of the project (because open war... bad pun. Anyway). Anyone who wants to design compatible parts is welcome to contribute them to Thingiverse and use that name. I'm not selling this; it's an open project, similar to Linux, or RepRap.

Currently single hexes, double hexes, triple hexes, seven hex circles, twelve hex fields, the modular scenery base for the hex gutter - explained below - and three different depths of "water" hex are available for download as .stl files:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:976743

Open WarHex is my personal project to make a modular, scenic terrain system for my tabletop gaming. I have a thermoplastic filament 3D printer and access to plastic injection molding equipment, and these are designed to be buildable both as additive 3D prints, and subtractive machined molds used for plastic injection in ABS.

The Open WarHex is a 1.35" (nominal 1.5") hex with a .2" gutter, for a full diameter of 1.75". Height per layer is .75" The gutter allows for seamless and secure vertical stacking. The gutter also features a self-centering contour for a secondary modular ring base that complex scenery additions such as forest lines or smoke walls can be built on. This allows the hex to be surrounded with modular, movable scenery or details, but leaves ample room in the center for a miniature to still occupy the hex itself.

These terrain pieces can create an awesome, three-dimensional, visually striking tabletop battlefield - especially with some finishing work, such as painting and flocking.

Current pieces include plain single and double hexes and the modular scenery ring. Triple hexes and twelve hex flat areas will be included soon. Compatible scenery parts such as flame hex markers, smoke columns, and other modules will be added over time. Specialty hexes such as roads, water, rough terrain, and others may also be added based on interest.

Anyone that wishes to make compatible hex or scenery parts is welcome to do so, under the Open WarHex banner.

I play tabletop BattleTech, but this terrain system is usable for a wide variety of tabletop games.

Feedback is appreciated! Please leave suggestions, experiences, critical failure analysis, gripes, squawks, wishlists, and any other input you feel could help improve and expand Open WarHex!

This would also work for HeroScape, Starfire, Advanced Squad Leader... anything that uses hexes. It'd probably do a pretty good job as a quick, modular terrain system for hexless games, too, if you wanted.

Anyhow, I'm hungry for feedback and hoping to grow and evolve this into an easy go-to standard for cheap, modular terrain systems that people can make themselves either with their own printer or by commissioning prints online in an inexpensive material (I use ABS). If you play hex-map games, or have friends that play hex-map games, or want to learn to play them, or just want to help a fellow gamer grow a fun project, please help me spread the word on this system so more people can try it, add to it, and improve it. And if you have a 3D printer or have access to one, give it a shot yourself! I want this to hopefully evolve into something tabletop players everywhere can always go find and grab for their games and their collection.

- GB9

Ok - I have a good sized number of prototypes 3D printed on my printer, so time for pictures!



Sample layout with all the different pieces used, for demonstration. (Colors are simply filament differences and aren't representational of different terrain types or anything)




Sample layout shown with PlasTech miniature for scale.




Close-up of sample layout showing modular scenery rings in place on various hexes. In this case, white and black rings were deliberately put on contrasting hexes simply for ease of visibility in the photo, since I'm using my potato phone camera.




Sample layout with PlasTech miniature shown for scale.




These are a small addition to the core Open WarHex system, and are Depth 1, Depth 2, and Depth 3 hexes (Depth 3 is the shortest). They are recessed below the normal hex height to give a visual sense of submersion to the miniature. I am sourcing some translucent blue filament or plastic to try printing these with - should look awesome.




Close-up of a single hex with a modular scenery ring in place.




The main pieces of Open WarHex:
- Single Hex
- Double Hex
- Triple Hex
- Seven Hex circle
- Twelve hex field
- Modular scenery ring

Also shown, in mid lower right:
- Depth 1 hex
- Depth 2 hex
- Depth 3 hex



Single hex




Double and Triple hexes




Seven hex circle




Twelve hex field




All pieces with PlasTech miniature shown for scale.



Close-up of the single hex with modular scenery ring and miniature in place, showing room for miniature in center and remaining room available to build scenery onto the modular ring.




Close-up of modular scenery rings in adjacent hexes to show placement compatibility.




Demonstrating stackability.


Progress continues...