Look at this 3D-Printer


- It prints with a resolution of 25 microns, that is 40 points on a millimeter or 1816 dpi.
- It prints in in full color.
- It is a desktop device
- It only costs 2.849$.
- It will be available on 1st October 2013.

This is the first 3D Printer I heard of that can print a 28mm miniature in sufficient resolution and in full color for a affordable price. Imagine you could print every model you wanted at your home and it would be pro-painted immediately.

I must admit 2.849$ is not really cheap but its not more then some people pay for a high-end coffee machine, or a well painted space marine army on ebay. Even if is to pricey for most hobbyists it certainly is not for a small business.

To make a 3D mesh and a color skin is not that hard to do. And there will sure be many models of Not Space Marines to load from the net, once this takes of. You could customize everything and make the models and the terrain you really want. Also painting like GD-winner is a skill not given to everyone. To make a skin on the computer is something everyone can do. And of course you can use it not only for miniatures but for everything else.

So what will GW do about it? It may not be a treat now. But as you know, the prices for printers will only go down (while GWs prices only know the opposite direction) and at least when the 7th edition comes around more and more people will have devices like this.

 Bellicist wrote:
So what will GW do about it?

Stick their heads in the sand whilst sending out C&D's.

Other companies might try to adapt to the new technology though.

It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

I am all for having a replicator myself. I just might be able to get enough termigaunts for my 5 tervigon list.

They've probably got about 10 or so years to adapt before they get eaten alive by this, presuming they make it that long without something else doing them in.

Eventually I see Games Workshop and other manufacturers becoming a virtual storefront only, selling dxf files for download to some DRM'd, proprietary printing application.


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 Bellicist wrote:
To make a 3D mesh and a color skin is not that hard to do

Sure.

Doing it well, on the other hand...

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

Someone with less time and more money could think differently. It may not be cheaper but it is feasible for the first time to print models.
The tradeoff would be that you can change the models to your liking and skip the painting. 3D-programs have become quite easy to use. If you make a poseable model you could easily make a whole squad of different models. Also there are already enough free 3D-models out there that would lend themself for gaming.

There would even be a piracy issue, because some people would surely try to extract models from GWs PC-games and print those.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

Well of course. I remember when a Sony DVD player was $700. Now everything has a DVD player built-in. There are even some printers where it's cheaper to just buy another printer than it is to replace the ink when it runs out.

The same will happen with this technology.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

Well of course. I remember when a Sony DVD player was $700. Now everything has a DVD player built-in. There are even some printers where it's cheaper to just buy another printer than it is to replace the ink when it runs out.

The same will happen with this technology.

Of course it will in time. However, I still have yet to see a real world example of where a replicating device has killed the market it relates to.

Even digital documentation hasn't killed the print industry.

It'll definitely require GW to re-evalutate their pricing, however.

And, while the printer itself may be a steep up-front cost at $3,000, anyone who has even a little talent should have no problem raising 3 grand via crowdfunding to buy one with only some concept art/renders and maybe a single protoype printed from Shapeways.

I've heard tell of some truly awful kickstarters easily raising in excess of $3,000 in 2 weeks; imagine what could be done with a talented artist and decent stretch goals.

At that point, they can either learn to print the masters in 3d and then recast in resin (a few hundred bucks more to learn) or hell, even outsource it out to Troll Forged or someone like that. It would eat into their bottom line, but the barrier to market is, like, nonexistent now.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There are even some printers where it's cheaper to just buy another printer than it is to replace the ink when it runs out.

I used to do that. It's actually cheaper still to buy a low end laser printer since the toner lasts forever. You can get a nice Brother wireless laser printer for like $120 now, it pays for itself pretty quickly as compared to buying either new printers or cartridges alone.

No, this will not kill GW. I hope every time a new 3d printer is marketed it doesnt spawn another thread.

The question posed should be more general anyway, why not, will this kill Privateer? The question is always framed in response to GW when in fact this technology really could be a boon or bane to any particular line of miniatures manufacturer depending on how they react.

I can think of many questions that are infinetly more interesting to discuss than "Will this kill/harm/nerf/destroy GW. So many people with GW obsession on this forum need to take a step back from their automatic responses.

I can think of a number of ways that 3d printing could change the industry. Not all of them would be good for traditional manufacturers but likewise not all would be bad either

It also depends on how expensive the material is, it speaks of cartridges, which smells of printer company style price-gouging.

It will take a few years for the prices to do down low enough to make it affordable for your average household, but at that point, GW would be pretty much out of business.

JWhex wrote:The question posed should be more general anyway, why not, will this kill Privateer? The question is always framed in response to GW when in fact this technology really could be a boon or bane to any particular line of miniatures manufacturer depending on how they react.

Well, because Games Workshop is a catchy shorthand for the wargaming industry establishment.

I don't really see any ways that affordable, and ultra-precise 3d printing is going to work out for gee-dubs or really any of the other big companies (if you know why it can be beneficial, by all means, share with the class!) unless and until they become so fast they can produce them on demand; i.e customize a figure in an application and print it in the store in 30 minutes. I haven't yet seen such a device. I've seen some pretty good precision, especially on DLP printing, but not the speed.

But, assuming that resolution comes faster than speed, as it has so far, GWS and the rest of the big companies are in serious danger of being Kodak in a digital camera world.

That being said, while I don't see this being particularly good for the monolithic companies that makes Warhams, it's going to be totally, totally awesome for wargames; a real renaissance awaits us of homebrew sculpts for every possible concept.

Shandara wrote:It also depends on how expensive the material is, it speaks of cartridges, which smells of printer company style price-gouging.

I'm not too worried about that, since if they go that route, their competitors will not and will eat them. People can't make their own razor blades at home, but you CAN build your own printer, and DLP printing is neither conceptually nor mechanically difficult to ship a good, affordable, and reasonably easy to assemble kit for, if not today then surely just a short way down the road - 2 or 3 years I bet.

GW is targeted because GW is the archetype for an antiquated company seemingly unwilling to move forward with progress.

Its hard to see any of the other companies not grasping the new technology and finding ways to adapt and use it to their advantage.

Like in books, same can happen with miniature games, Print on Demand may be a nice way forward for the miniature manufacturers and a nice way to exploit a market demand that cannot be easily filled with present technology.

Would one imagine GW even thinking such thing? personally I would be highly surprised if they did, that's why GW is targeted.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
GW is targeted because GW is the archetype for an antiquated company seemingly unwilling to move forward with progress.

GW still leads the wargaming industry in large plastic kits. They've abandoned metal and are moving to a superior all plastic format (though their stop-gap solution is fairly terrible). They actually embraced digital army books pretty quickly (albeit not in the format some wanted). They've been using 3D sculpting for years.

For all the gak GW cops, they still do all of the things other companies do, they just charge a lot more for them and sometimes the quality is just off (like Finecast), and sometimes it's there but not the format people wanted (the digital codices, despite being iBooks and overpriced, are pretty amazing).

Some of their attitudes are antiquated, like their methods of updating armies and releasing rules updates. Their products themselves aren't.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
GW is targeted because GW is the archetype for an antiquated company seemingly unwilling to move forward with progress.

What are you basing this on?

Are you asking for an itemized list of all the things GWS has done to show it's not interested in new technologies, like an itemized list of Faecebook nukings and such?

Because, I have to say, it smells like a fool's errand from a mile away. It doesn't seem from past experience you're exactly going to be swayed by any argument on this regardless of merit or depth of citation.

The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

Yeah... It's weird how when you consistently do stuff that your established customer base doesn't like, some of them get upset about it.

How dare the sheep!

As long as a manufacturer can make miniatures that are cheaper and of higher quality than 3d printers I dont think the roof will cave in on them.

The manufacturers are always going to have the economies of scale in purchasing raw materials and in production in their favor. I dont doubt that the printers will become less expensive but I wager the supplies for them will not be cheap. I do think that the printers will revolutionize what advanced hobbyists with a good income will be able to accomplish.

JWhex wrote:
As long as a manufacturer can make miniatures that are cheaper and of higher quality than 3d printers I dont think the roof will cave in on them.

The manufacturers are always going to have the economies of scale in purchasing raw materials and in production in their favor. I dont doubt that the printers will become less expensive but I wager the supplies for them will not be cheap. I do think that the printers will revolutionize what advanced hobbyists with a good income will be able to accomplish.

Yeah, I think GW are going to have to reconsider their pricing with 3D printing, but I'm not convinced 3D printing will kill GW. At most it will kill their pricing model, which is good for all (unless they decide that their best course of action is to charge the 5 remaining customers $10,000 per Space Marine ).

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

...and here we thought purposefully alienating your customers would be embraced by the community!

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

Complaining =/= trolling.
It was a ton of legitimate complaints that made GW drop the whole 'social media' thing, somehting which most companies don't do. Huge corporations do dumb gak all the time but when people coimplain they pay PR guys to deal with it instead of cut off all direct contact with their customer base, since it is customers that keep those companies afloat.
And not wanting feedback is just stupid, anyone with any experience selling things will tell you that.

Let's not get dragged off topic. This thread is about the impact of ever more affordable and higher resolution 3d printing technology on the business of selling miniatures.

I think the impact will actually be pretty minimal as long as the value is there. Just like how home printers didn't destroy the publishing of novels, if the value for a miniature is there, then people won't print it for logistical reasons.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I think the impact will actually be pretty minimal as long as the value is there. Just like how home printers didn't destroy the publishing of novels, if the value for a miniature is there, then people won't print it for logistical reasons.

I think the impact will come down to how cheaply you can print things, how quickly you can print things, what quality you can print things and whether GW can match that ratio of price:speed:quality.

Nobody sane prints books at home because it's time consuming and by the time you've printed it you've probably spent more money on paper and ink than if you'd just bought the book, then you still have to bind the book as well.

I really have no idea what sort of costs will be involved in printing a miniature. Even if you own a printer (which cost something, even if prices come down, it still costs "something"), you then have to buy the plastic cartridges (I doubt you can just get a slab of plastic or buy the raw monomers and a catalyst and do it yourself, so just like 2D printers your costs are going to be relative to how much you can actually get the printing medium) and then you still have to spend the time printing it and you need to have a printer good enough to compare to the quality of a GW miniature (after all, no one games with green army men even though they are much cheaper).

If GW can maintain themselves at a competitive price, quality and ease of use, I don't think they have to worry.

Court cases like chapterhouse's will decide how much of GW's IP is legit.
If the courts rule most is not protected, expect more people offering models on shapeways and thingyverse.

The floodgates could be opened

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum.

You don't even recall the "Spots the Space Marine" thing, do you? That's why the Facebook page was taken down, as a direct result of that needless debacle.

 loki old fart wrote:
Court cases like chapterhouse's will decide how much of GW's IP is legit.
If the courts rule most is not protected, expect more people offering models on shapeways and thingyverse.

The floodgates could be opened

I think there is a very big difference between GW's complaint of infringement against chapter house and a situation where someone hypothetically makes a 3d scan of a GW or Privateer miniature and distributes it. Certainly going to be some new legal waters to swim in.

Indeed the relevant decisions may eventually come not from the tabletop miniature game industry but some other sector of manufacturing consumer goods. GW may never even have to spend a dime to get the legal decisions needed to protect their IP. Conversely they could get the rug pulled out from under them but I kind of doubt it.

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

I was very active on the gw forums, its wasn't as trolly as you seem to imply. There are Nobz on every site, but the GW forums weren't as bad as some. I remember quite a few interesting discussions.

The loss of them was frankly, a shock. And it came out of nowhere.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

I was very active on the gw forums, its wasn't as trolly as you seem to imply. There are Nobz on every site, but the GW forums weren't as bad as some. I remember quite a few interesting discussions.

The loss of them was frankly, a shock. And it came out of nowhere.

I agree, I used to spend a decent amount of time on the GW forums back in the day, I was quite surprised when they were taken down and it removed a lot of the reason for visiting the GW website. It was definitely one of the contributing factors to why I stopped collecting GW games back then, as at the time I wasn't involved in any other active GW communities so the closing of the forum meant I was thinking about GW less and as such had less desire to buy GW stuff.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 HisDivineShadow wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

I was very active on the gw forums, its wasn't as trolly as you seem to imply. There are Nobz on every site, but the GW forums weren't as bad as some. I remember quite a few interesting discussions.

The loss of them was frankly, a shock. And it came out of nowhere.

I agree, I used to spend a decent amount of time on the GW forums back in the day, I was quite surprised when they were taken down and it removed a lot of the reason for visiting the GW website. It was definitely one of the contributing factors to why I stopped collecting GW games back then, as at the time I wasn't involved in any other active GW communities so the closing of the forum meant I was thinking about GW less and as such had less desire to buy GW stuff.

None of this is remotely related to the topic, not even by the most lenient of standards.

You really need to think about all the costs that this technology is going to incur. Is it really going to be viable?
1) Intial outlay for the machine. So your out of pocket at this point and you've not done any printing!
2) The actual cost of the material (is it plastic or one of those combinations?). Now you are not going to get very much of this stuff for your money(see how much even a small tin of resin costs), this stuff will be expensive. So casting those large tanks is out of the question.
3) Scenery? Well you could make buildings but I suspect it will work out cheaper to buy them from manufacturers rather than make them yourself.
4) You've still made nowhere near the money back that you paid for the printer!
5)How long does it take to print a miniature? Surely you are not going to try and print a whole army? You are? Do you realise how much it will probably cost you?
6) You spent even more money doing your army. And you're even further away from recouping the original cost of the printer!
7) Piracy. Hmm. I can't see this being cost effective. You may make a copy of a model but A) The bigger the model the more you'll have to charge to make even your money back, are you sure there will be a market?. Also see points 4 and 6; they are very relevant.
8) Also add in all the learning to print practices you will have to do; I wonder if I can print that pencil? Through sheer novelty you will spend a small fortune printing anything to see how it works and to show your friends!Seriously refer to points 4 and 6. Again.
The overall point I'm making here is that I can only see this 3d print thing being useful to manufacturers for making master models and that's it.

Aside from the points in the preceding post, the quality and characteristics of the resin/plastic that your figure is made out of are an important consideration. Some plastics do not take paint well even when you use a real primer. There will also be issues of brittleness or the miniature being too soft.

It may be that the cheapest materials work great for miniatures, or there may be some other result.

 Ouze wrote:
They've probably got about 10 or so years to adapt before they get eaten alive by this, presuming they make it that long without something else doing them in.

Eventually I see Games Workshop and other manufacturers becoming a virtual storefront only, selling dxf files for download to some DRM'd, proprietary printing application.
.

I'd buy into that

(Assuming the templates are unlimited use, and don't cost more than about £30 for a tactical unit)

You're not taking into account that the printer may be used for many other household applications than printing up a toy soldier. Once the price of a sufficiently powerful printer gets down to around $800, I guarantee that I will buy one.

Not sure what your point about resin costs is, 3d materials costs are dirt cheap. http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/

Keep in mind that these are per kilogram 2+ kilo packages; increased demand and production will lower costs as would not printing in color.

*shrug* it's doable in the long-term, maybe 5-10 years from now when everything's cheaper and a GW Rhino costs more than $100.

As a student who has a 3-D printer in his CAD class, and knows how one functions. 3-D printers won't be able to kill GW, ever.

The surfaces of 3-D printed pieces aren't smooth, and any wargamer will turn away after seeing that i'ts not exactly a surface that you would want to paint on.

Sometimes, when you print something out, it doesn't come out as it should, and needs to be tweaked on the computer, especially smaller pieces.

Also, 3-D printers make a kind of grid or honeycomb pattern on the inside rather than making a solid hunk of plastic. Making it hard to keep smaller magnets in place, and drillling holes in gun barrels will reveal the interior, defeating the idea.

The 3-D printer is perfect for engineers that want to make new or unavailable parts for whatever they need to build, but not so much for modellers.

Like I said in the first line, 3-D printers aren't going to kill GW, or any other miniature company for that matter.

Would the 3d printers be able to make nice terrain?

I think that printed example around the Internet, from wargame companies too, counter how "rough" you imply the printing is.

I think that 3D printing has a nice future in the industry and companies will embrace it.

Print on Demand is one idea I feel it will be used, like mantics dreadzone, but also featured in other kickstarters, custom made miniatures or small pieces that are impractical to cast, likewise boutique miniature companies can establish themselves by selling print files like they do now with PDFs.

It is not an if, but a when and the companies that embrace it will have an extra edge.

Now briefly on my comment for GW, they took 10 years to materialize the technology they had acquired back then and I still doubt they use its full capacity, they could have released the kits they release today 10 years ago, and the technology from the actual masters of the large plastic kits, like Bandai and other plastic model companies is way ahead add in that their inability to grasp "the internet" advertisement, ectr, you have a company that is antiquated and unable or unwilling to move forward.

GW is not an industry leader at the moment it leads only in areas it is still uncontested,

 Thesneakycyberman wrote:
As a student who has a 3-D printer in his CAD class, and knows how one functions. 3-D printers won't be able to kill GW, ever.

The surfaces of 3-D printed pieces aren't smooth, and any wargamer will turn away after seeing that i'ts not exactly a surface that you would want to paint on.

Sometimes, when you print something out, it doesn't come out as it should, and needs to be tweaked on the computer, especially smaller pieces.

Also, 3-D printers make a kind of grid or honeycomb pattern on the inside rather than making a solid hunk of plastic. Making it hard to keep smaller magnets in place, and drillling holes in gun barrels will reveal the interior, defeating the idea.

The 3-D printer is perfect for engineers that want to make new or unavailable parts for whatever they need to build, but not so much for modellers.

Like I said in the first line, 3-D printers aren't going to kill GW, or any other miniature company for that matter.

You have access to an older generation printer. Check shapeways for examples of much smoother. The printer in this thread is next-gen and will produce at a level of detail near to sculpted.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum. The reason they don't ask for customer feedback is because the customers just scream rage and hatred at them.

I was very active on the gw forums, its wasn't as trolly as you seem to imply. There are Nobz on every site, but the GW forums weren't as bad as some. I remember quite a few interesting discussions.

The loss of them was frankly, a shock. And it came out of nowhere.

no it didn't. Those threads about prices just never stopped coming so gw shut it down

 agnosto wrote:
You're not taking into account that the printer may be used for many other household applications than printing up a toy soldier.

Like what? With the best will in the world, I can't think of many times I need small plastic objects, and need them so urgently I can't simply nip down the shops, you know?

I can see 3DP being used by small-scale model / terrain manufacturers, or by some shops in a print on demand service. But I really can't see why I'd need one at home.

Likewise people could not see a reason for having printers at home and not going to the local photocopier shop to make their copies.

Once technology has sufficiently matured people will find obvious and obscure reasons to utilize it.

We may see the obvious to us obscure to everybody else application in miniature wargaming as models and terrain, others may print toys for their kids, parts for machinery or tools, maybe covers for items like USB sticks, who knows we will find out when the technology is mature enough.

 Elemental wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
You're not taking into account that the printer may be used for many other household applications than printing up a toy soldier.

Like what? With the best will in the world, I can't think of many times I need small plastic objects, and need them so urgently I can't simply nip down the shops, you know?

I can see 3DP being used by small-scale model / terrain manufacturers, or by some shops in a print on demand service. But I really can't see why I'd need one at home.

It's a convenience item much like many others. Most people don't need a jigsaw or band saw; you might not need/want one, I on the other hand to use one to make gifts for friends/family, design my own art pieces.....the world is full of possibilities and only limited by your imagination.

Hi everyone!, I just signed up here the other day and noticed this topic, with myself looking into using 3D printing i thought i would post a quick reply on this thread. First off great find their!, 25mm printing quality for that price is pretty good really!, though there are now more than a few companies that will print 3D sculpted miniatures for you, some charge insane prices other ones charge very reasonable pricing, you just have to spend some time googling around as they say .

However in long term investing into a 3D printer is a fairly good idea for companies as i have seen so far, I feel the printers wont truly put any company out of business as long as those companies adapt to some degree to this new method. Even if the costs go down for these printers enough for the average joe to purchase one, you still have to pay for material, printing times are very long for high detailed miniatures as well!.

This means it is time consuming and even then the average best material for detailed printed miniatures is quite fragile making them good for masters but too fragile to game with. There is plastics and resins you can print miniatures in but the market still seems to be far off from being able to print that material at a high level of quality and again time issues come into play as well, it would take several days to probally just get a squad or two of guys done depending on the 3D printer size and such overall it still seems to be much cheaper to get a master print and make casts out of it in resin or pweter.

That is my personal two cents worth on this topic, i think it is great however 3D sculpted miniatures allows you to do and bring so many things into this hobby that before would take much longer too do. It also allows ranges to be much more easly expanded for much less of the cost than traditional sculpting method's would allow.

I think we will just have to wait and see what happens with this tech, as we all know the imagination is the only limit !.

Of all the manufacturers, GW is uniquely equipped to adapt to 3D printing due to having storefronts. There will be a period of time where the professional prints suitable for painting will be done via higher-end machines. GW can do 'build-a-bear' printing for people where other manufacturers and 3rd parties simply won't be able to.

If people are going to go drastically out of business, expect the ones who currently make minis to be hurt far before GW... and until minis go 100% digital printing opposed to casting, companies with storefronts who can print for their customers will be best situated to tackle this.

Doesn't mean GW will... but somehow I don't see how home 3D printers or even retail 3D printing in stores is somehow a bullet to the brain to GW but somehow everyone else is fine.

I don't own a DVD burner or a home printer. I simply don't do the throughput to justify one. If I need something printed, I can just print it at work. I agree that I cannot think of a valid need for a 3D printer in my home, especially since many parts must be machined specific ways in order to have structure behind them to make the sturdy enough for machine parts. And it is so amazingly easy to order a part and have it to my house in a day, I can't see any reason to even mess around with a 3D printer.

And people think Rampant piracy of other people's IPs will be a golden age for gaming? Sounds like Tower of Babel to me as many of the large rule-making companies will be hurt, and games will fail and no one will be playing the same game due to lack of unified rule support maintained by model purchases. Right now there are almost universal games most places you go and that is a good thing for the casual gamer who wants to play but can't organize the play. We take for granted that PP games and GW games are easily accessible because selling the minis keeps stores in business so we can always get games in. Enjoy your hundreds of counterfeit printed minis for no cost with no where to play and maintaining play out of your house with a limited number of opponents. I would rather continue seeing organized play supported by retailers and indy events and those will do better with a maintained rule system by a successful company.

You made some good points about the 3D aspect Nkelsh. I think in my case if the programs are dumb downed enough for myself to use, I would use it to repair or replace broken models that I have on hand instead of the standard mold making process. An example would be the Diaz Daemonettes and seekers. It's a royal pain to mold and then to sculpt the tail and make it into one flawless piece.

It is a tool to be used and not a reason to put other companies out of business.

I would not disagree GW is in the prime position to use such technology, after all they are in prime position to be the biggest wargames distributor too and I mean other peoples wargames, not just their own, the point is the following, GW has shown time and again the inability to grasp new technologies and utilize them, on the other hand smaller companies do grasp and utilize successfully new technologies.

For GW its not an "If they can" its a "they will not do".

Now I cannot see this technology getting GW or anybody else out of business, it will give an edge to those that adapt to it, it will help smaller companies break into the scene and probably some security on files and some hacking and file saving will also be involved, but as everything else has not
threaten any viable businesses before it will not hurt them now.

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!

Marine, Blood Angel, Pro Painted.

Hard tooling (which costs a few tens of thousands for the tool) can make many, many parts quickly and inexpensively. This type of "tool" is a metal mold. They last a long time.

Soft tooling (cost thousands) can make a few thousand parts and make them inexpensively. This tool is usually a hard rubber mold.

Both of these make parts quickly and inexpensively. The main different is the cost of the tool, which drives the number of parts you'll get for you non-recurring tool cost.

3D printing is slow and expensive. It is used if you need one or tens of parts and you want to skip the tool making. Your G file can go straight from ProE or SolidWorks directly to printer 9sort of) and a few hours or days later you get a part.

Most likely, what will happen is 3D printers will kill off the soft tool market. That is you use 3D printers to make soft tools that are the negative of the part you want and crank out the parts.

I suggest you all touch a part made by a 3D printer before you claim the death of anything. They are material that you are most likely thinking of.

Im somewhat skeptical about how good a quality this printed "pro paintjob" would be.

25 microns? Really? I work with an industrial 25-micron printer and it still doesn't even have the resolution to print a tapped #4-40 screw hole.

25 microns is not high enough to print a 28mm model.

 Xeriapt wrote:
Im somewhat skeptical about how good a quality this printed "pro paintjob" would be.

It can't be that good. You'd still have to paint the parts at some point in time, probably on the computer. If that's the case, you might as well go into 3D animation since that will be where your skillset lies after. As someone who's tried to get into that industry before as a potential art student, I'd much rather paint. A lot of effects that come naturally from a brush, such as paint texture, are not easily replicated on the computer, even with a tablet.


The worst part about 3D printing a model is the grittiness of the material. It's not smooth.

Oh and to the people claiming 3D printing will be cheap in X years...Yeah, and this year is the year of the Linux desktop...

evancich wrote:
Oh and to the people claiming 3D printing will be cheap in X years...Yeah, and this year is the year of the Linux desktop...

Well. That's debatable. Last year the cheapest 3D printer was at least $2,200. This year we've just seen a Kickstarter for a $250 3D printer.

A better comparison than Linux would be laser printers. Not so many years ago, hideously expensive, and confined largely to businesses as a result. These days, you can buy a laser printer for not much more than an inkjet.

But despite desktop printers being widely available for some time now, they didn't kill of the printing industry, as was so widely predicted back in the 90s.

I'm going to go out on a limb here but surely some people actually like painting?? Isn't that a major part of the hobby which is skipped if they're printed to order already painted.

The Real Cute Hydra

It will not put GW out of business for quite some time. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's the future for what they are doing. But for now it costs heaps of money for some really really slow productions time. It'll take quite some years to perfect it for production sizes for companies as GW.

Also, the main reason why it won't put GW out of business:

3D printers can't create new rules, new novels, new game systems, or new fluff for you. It might hurt their revenue stream if 3D printers become common household items and were of high enough print quality, but not put them out of business.

JWhex wrote:
None of this is remotely related to the topic, not even by the most lenient of standards.

And your post is? There's a "report" button in the top right corner of every post if you think a post is breaking a rule, use it instead of just coming up with even more felgercarb.

nkelsch wrote:
I agree that I cannot think of a valid need for a 3D printer in my home, especially since many parts must be machined specific ways in order to have structure behind them to make the sturdy enough for machine parts. And it is so amazingly easy to order a part and have it to my house in a day, I can't see any reason to even mess around with a 3D printer.

I've been told that I lack "vision", but I agree with this. I struggle to think of a reason why your average joe would want a 3D printer in their home. Printing miniatures is one of the FEW reasons someone would want one in the home, not one of many reasons, and even then only if it's actually economical (if it's more expensive to buy a printer and all the plastic you need to print an army than it is just to buy the army, only enthusiasts who own several armies will want one, and even then probably not all of them will).

For most household items that are easily 3D printed, they can be bought ready-made cheaper than I, as a consumer, could buy the raw materials. Then I'm looking around my house right now thinking there's actually barely anything that I COULD 3D print at home, either due to complexity, due to material or due to size. Even if they get good 3D printing with metals and composite materials, you aren't going to be able to buy a machine that can print a circuit board for you at home.

3D printing is best used for "rapid prototyping", which is how we used to refer to it. That is, you don't use it to mass produce a product because it's not cost and time effective, you use it to create the initial prototypes that prior to 3D printing (and other similar techniques) might have been hand made from clay and such.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

JWhex wrote:
None of this is remotely related to the topic, not even by the most lenient of standards.

And your post is? There's a "report" button in the top right corner of every post if you think a post is breaking a rule, use it instead of just coming up with even more felgercarb.

nkelsch wrote:
I agree that I cannot think of a valid need for a 3D printer in my home, especially since many parts must be machined specific ways in order to have structure behind them to make the sturdy enough for machine parts. And it is so amazingly easy to order a part and have it to my house in a day, I can't see any reason to even mess around with a 3D printer.

I've been told that I lack "vision", but I agree with this. I struggle to think of a reason why your average joe would want a 3D printer in their home. Printing miniatures is one of the FEW reasons someone would want one in the home, not one of many reasons, and even then only if it's actually economical (if it's more expensive to buy a printer and all the plastic you need to print an army than it is just to buy the army, only enthusiasts who own several armies will want one, and even then probably not all of them will).

For most household items that are easily 3D printed, they can be bought ready-made cheaper than I, as a consumer, could buy the raw materials. Then I'm looking around my house right now thinking there's actually barely anything that I COULD 3D print at home, either due to complexity, due to material or due to size. Even if they get good 3D printing with metals and composite materials, you aren't going to be able to buy a machine that can print a circuit board for you at home.

3D printing is best used for "rapid prototyping", which is how we used to refer to it. That is, you don't use it to mass produce a product because it's not cost and time effective, you use it to create the initial prototypes that prior to 3D printing (and other similar techniques) might have been hand made from clay and such.

Some of us here are old enough to remember people saying the EXACT same thing about home computers by the way. I think it is impossible to predict the uses people might find once they become widespread.

Yes yes, I hear that all the time. What I actually want to hear is reasons WHY they'll become a revolution beyond "we can maybe print toy soldiers!".

I'm not THAT old, but I figured there were plenty of good solid arguments as to why personal computing devices would be a revolution beyond the skeptics.

Where as 3D printing I hear a lot of "this will revolutionalise" and "think of all the possibilities", but when asked "such as?" I get very few realistic responses beyond people telling me I lack vision

I do still think computer controlled manufacturing, which has been around for a while and of which 3D printing is one of many types, is currently revolutionalising actual industry and I totally agree it has the potential to change a lot of the products we receive from manufacturers, but I'm not seeing the big thing about personal 3D printing at home.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Yes yes, I hear that all the time. What I actually want to hear is reasons WHY they'll become a revolution beyond "we can maybe print toy soldiers!".

I'm not THAT old, but I figured there were plenty of good solid arguments as to why personal computing devices would be a revolution beyond the skeptics.

Where as 3D printing I hear a lot of "this will revolutionalise" and "think of all the possibilities", but when asked "such as?" I get very few realistic responses beyond people telling me I lack vision

Well you may be hearing it but your NOT getting the point of it, otherwise you would not be demanding your answer now. Spelling it out, unpredictable uses are likely to emerge once a large number of people have ready access to the tool. That is what happened with computers, and fire.

But I'm pretty sure even in the early days of computers people were saying it would revolutionise how we deal with information and in the early days of the Internet people were talking about how it would revolutionise how we share information. I'm sure there were skeptics saying we didn't need to revolutionalise those things, but the ideas were there.

3D printing isn't a new technology, it's been around for 20 or more years and is widely used for rapid prototyping. I've used it for printing an intake plenum which I then got a mould off to make a carbon fibre part.

We are increasingly becoming dependant on devices that are too complex or made from specific materials that are too hard to 3D print in the near future, so forgive me if I'm skeptical.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I'm pretty sure even in the early days of computers people were saying it would revolutionise how we deal with information and in the early days of the Internet people were talking about how it would revolutionise how we share information.

Actually, IIRC, in the early days of both of those things, general opinion was that they really had no practical use.

We are increasingly becoming dependant on devices that are too complex or made from specific materials that are too hard to 3D print in the near future, ...

As 3d printers get more advanced, particularly once they are capable of dealing with multiple materials, or when someone comes up with a more comprehensibly adaptable plastic formulation, that will change. The Star Trek replicator is still a ways off, but is at least somewhat plausible...

See also secretaries and clerk typists.

I know that these things are capable of printing 3D models in full color, but how exactly does it work? Is the medium paper, or something else? Sorry, but I am always super behind in technology and am kind of confused as to what these things are capable of.

Most 3D printers work in plastic, although there are a few different types... some use extruded plastic to build up layers, some use liquid resin and set it with lasers, some use a powder that is melted in layers.

 Xeriapt wrote:
Im somewhat skeptical about how good a quality this printed "pro paintjob" would be.

Well there are the Mcor IRIS printers being used by Staples in Europe now:
http://www.mcortechnologies.com/3d-printers/iris/
Uses paper layering and standard inkjet printing to achieve its affect.

From the 3D printed objects I have handled, figures printed at 25 micron would be like a fig with a bad humid day primer job. Not horrible from 3 feet away, but would look like gak up close.

As for botObjects' printer. It seems awfully vague in details. Their site isn't really showing much in the way of actual objects. A lot of tech sites are openly dubious that this thing is real.

If it is real, would it kill GW? Not really. Others have laid out excellent points as to why. Also remember, just because you have a 3D printer, doesn't mean you have the 3D objects to print. You will still need people to design the figures. There will be plenty of kids doing figs and throwing them up on thingavers, but don't always expect any consistency or quality. A good example is just with this current hoopla over the 3D printed gun design. People downloading it found there are errors in the design which don't let you print it and if you don't have knowledge of 3D printing, you can't fix them. You will still need to pay a profession sculptor for those figures to print and don't expect them to charge you only $10 for a fig. Probably a lot more since you can just print off multiple copies of their one design.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Where as 3D printing I hear a lot of "this will revolutionalise" and "think of all the possibilities", but when asked "such as?" I get very few realistic responses beyond people telling me I lack vision

3D printing is already revolutionizing the way engineering prototypes are made. As an engineering student, I had the opportunity to build the same artifact thrice using different construction means. The first was basic subtractive prototyping out of a plastic block using hand tools, CNC mills, and other machine shop implements such as lathes - took us over a month. The second time, we used sheet metal - three weeks. The third, we used 3D printing and fiberglass composites - one and a half weeks, of which one week was just waiting for our parts to print.

I also have friends in architecture who are now squealing with delight at the ability to use this to print their scale model building designs, rather than spending weeks building them by hand from toothpicks, plasticard, and wood (hey, sounds like terrain-making to me... cough cough. 3D printed buildings for 40k much?)

We can already 3D print chocolate.
NASA is also funding a company to 3D print pizzas for them: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350948/nasa-funding-3d-food-printer-pizza

silent25 has also mentioned this, but we now have 3D printed guns, which can change the geopolitical landscape because you can arm a rebel militia with firearms without needing to actually "get" them.

Here are 4 real-life possibilities for you. Need more?

When you can scan a sprue in and then print a new one out. THEN you might have the death knell. I'd say people love assembling and hand painting more then just printing out the pre posed and pre painted figure.

JWhex wrote:
The question posed should be more general anyway, why not, will this kill Privateer? The question is always framed in response to GW when in fact this technology really could be a boon or bane to any particular line of miniatures manufacturer depending on how they react.

This actually got me to thinking that it may well be metal/resin producers who suffer most from cheap 3d printing. Injection molded plastic kits will likely always be superior and/or cheaper than getting your own printer and taking the time/dedication to create your own army. But scans of clunky metal figures can be cleaned up in CAD, modified to pose desired, and printed out ready to paint. You'll have a light-weight plastic model instead of a miscast metal or resin sculpt that is difficult to convert without power tools.

Yep. PP should fear 3d printing more than GW. Garage operations like Iron Wind Metals should be wetting the bed over this stuff.

 insaniak wrote:
Most 3D printers work in plastic, although there are a few different types... some use extruded plastic to build up layers, some use liquid resin and set it with lasers, some use a powder that is melted in layers.

My favorite is the one that uses living embryonic stem cells as "ink" and prints them in arrays of microbubbles suspended in a matrix of colloids.

Seriously, can you print me out a new kidney!

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Likewise people could not see a reason for having printers at home and not going to the local photocopier shop to make their copies.

Once technology has sufficiently matured people will find obvious and obscure reasons to utilize it.

We may see the obvious to us obscure to everybody else application in miniature wargaming as models and terrain, others may print toys for their kids, parts for machinery or tools, maybe covers for items like USB sticks, who knows we will find out when the technology is mature enough.

Okay, but then you're not talking about the 3DP we have now, you're talking about some hypothetical future technology (likely not far future, but still future). Copying stuff at the newsagents made sense when printers were expensive, limited and clunky, and we didn't have one at home growing up till the price came down and the utility went up to the point where owning one made sense. I'm not disputing that 3DP has got great possibilities, simply that having a home printer will be more than a gimmick for the average person, at least for the next few years.

As a general piece of advice to posters in this thread, consider the possibility that not everyone questioning the current personal utility of the technology is a progress-hating Neanderthal who no like head hurty science stuff.

Indeed I am referring to the next few years technology.

At present we have printers that can do everything we talk about, great detail, multicoloured prints at really small scale but theya re big and expensive, these will become small and ready for home use in the near future, but not now, kickstarter has a few relatively cheap 3D printers that are theoretically capable of great detail, but as far as I know none has been delivered yet to have testaments from independent sources.

The key in 3D printers is not what they can or will be able to do, but how the shoftware will support them, if there are easy and cheap software that offer good possibilities they will skyrocket.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Indeed I am referring to the next few years technology.

At present we have printers that can do everything we talk about, great detail, multicoloured prints at really small scale but theya re big and expensive, these will become small and ready for home use in the near future, but not now, kickstarter has a few relatively cheap 3D printers that are theoretically capable of great detail, but as far as I know none has been delivered yet to have testaments from independent sources.

The key in 3D printers is not what they can or will be able to do, but how the shoftware will support them, if there are easy and cheap software that offer good possibilities they will skyrocket.

"Great detail" is not used in the context of 28mm-scale wargaming. I work with industrial 3D printers and I'll again restate that they are nowhere near good enough, even when printed at the highest resolution.

A good example, however, of good software support is this Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-the-3d-printer-that-everyone-can-use?ref=home_popular

Wireless app, with in-built "make-a-shape-and-print" type of software that makes it very easy for commercial users.

Since we already have companies that print their prototypes at 28mm scale, like mantic, warzone resurrection who actually send out 3D printed models to a few people and other companies that print components to have consistency between sculptors I think the great detail clocks well with current high end printer technology for 28mm gaming and 15mm.

insaniak wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
But I'm pretty sure even in the early days of computers people were saying it would revolutionise how we deal with information and in the early days of the Internet people were talking about how it would revolutionise how we share information.

Actually, IIRC, in the early days of both of those things, general opinion was that they really had no practical use.

How early are we talking? I remember going to a science exhibit in primary school where they talked about the WWW and how it would revolutionalise the way we share data. I've always known people were skeptical about the fact computers would be needed in every day life, but my impression was that there was just as equally as much understanding that they could actually become something. Just look at the Space Odyssey series.

As 3d printers get more advanced, particularly once they are capable of dealing with multiple materials, or when someone comes up with a more comprehensibly adaptable plastic formulation, that will change. The Star Trek replicator is still a ways off, but is at least somewhat plausible...

If home 3D printers get to the point where a single printer can simultaneously handle plastic, fibre composites, steel, aluminium, copper, etc all at a range of resolutions and print speeds all in the one device in the home, then yes, that will be revolutionary. I think we're a long way off that, even in conventional machining you don't use the same machines for all things.

Enigwolf wrote:3D printing is already revolutionizing the way engineering prototypes are made. As an engineering student, I had the opportunity to build the same artifact thrice using different construction means. The first was basic subtractive prototyping out of a plastic block using hand tools, CNC mills, and other machine shop implements such as lathes - took us over a month. The second time, we used sheet metal - three weeks. The third, we used 3D printing and fiberglass composites - one and a half weeks, of which one week was just waiting for our parts to print.

I don't disagree, if you read through my posts I have already said computer controlled processing is already revolutionalising industry, I specifically stated I think it will change the products we can buy in the coming years. My skepticism comes from the idea of home use 3D printing. I have an engineering degree too, ya know And I have used 3D printing to make moulds for parts for cars as well However, that's hardly a "typical home use".

Yes, you can 3D print things, but that doesn't mean you are going to 3D print things in the home, which is the point I'm skeptical on. You can 2d print a novel, but no one does, we go out and buy it. You can 3D print a gun, but there are vastly better alternatives for gun manufacture sitting in many peoples' garages. Architects can 3D print models instead of building them, but that sounds more like having a printer at work than at home (like, I don't own a 2D printer, but I do a lot of 2D printing at work). Saying we can 3D print chocolate is a bit deceptive, if we could 3D print food, it'd solve world hunger, but that's not what we are talking about, you still have to get the chocolate and food and then the 3D printer just prints it in to a design for you.

None of this is screaming "zomg everyone is going to have a 3D printer in their home within 20 years". Call me when consumer level 3D printers can print me a smartphone or a new fan for my computer (bearings and all) or similar.

Well when DARPA (IIRC) threw money on the 3D printing concept back then it was an idea they had to print replacement parts on the field and to get outside funding they pressed the commercial idea of printing replacement parts and other items at home, it was far fetched back then as it is now because some materials need other processes, but the result is the present era 3D printers, how much forward can they go in realizing their initial concept, I do not know, I can hardly see them doing vulcanization or steel moulding, but for a failed project they have done quite well themselves and have found a niche to fill, they will get better cheaper and eventually find their place in the households but I do not think they will materialize their initial mission of constructing replacement parts for machinery.

I think that, as a few of you are saying, it is likely that 3D printing will evolve in the next decade or so into being usable for making 28mm miniatures in the home.

The price, however may be a strange factor.

Depending on the technology involved, a 3D printer could cost a good £150 (GBP) to £300, and after adding the cost of materials, it may take quite a hefty amount of printing to overall save money, and may not actually do so.

Furthermore, if companies like GW sell (or probably give you limited use) templates, that could easily jack the price up too high.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Yes, you can 3D print things, but that doesn't mean you are going to 3D print things in the home, which is the point I'm skeptical on. You can 2d print a novel, but no one does, we go out and buy it. You can 3D print a gun, but there are vastly better alternatives for gun manufacture sitting in many peoples' garages. Architects can 3D print models instead of building them, but that sounds more like having a printer at work than at home (like, I don't own a 2D printer, but I do a lot of 2D printing at work). Saying we can 3D print chocolate is a bit deceptive, if we could 3D print food, it'd solve world hunger, but that's not what we are talking about, you still have to get the chocolate and food and then the 3D printer just prints it in to a design for you.

None of this is screaming "zomg everyone is going to have a 3D printer in their home within 20 years". Call me when consumer level 3D printers can print me a smartphone or a new fan for my computer (bearings and all) or similar.

I concede and admit to your point that I don't see everyone going "zomg" about it either. Same way how everyone's been comparing whether Google Glasses will become another "funky" thing like Segways did. But then again, we don't know what we don't know, right? The most I can imagine for home use would be 3D printing groceries. My girlfriend would not be thrilled for that.

@AllSeeingSkink

I don't think you are seeing the point, the point is that 3D printing is coming into the price range for hobbyist and small companies,

it can revolutionize the way miniatures are designed, and the speed. (In designs from dream forge and new warzone, you can see that it is all cad design).

GW will send that machine a C and D letter and claim they invented the HHHobby.

The facebook account got deleted because GW has a bunch of chones in their social media department that have no idea what they are doing. Case in point is to look at every avenue they have approached on the tech.
Webpage= gak.
Forum= gak
Chonebook account= gak
social interaction on their webpage= gak
Information flow = gak

Stop rallying to their defense on every little thing. They pull gak moves on a general basis and have no idea of their product because the business hand doesn't talk to the real world.
They have issues that they don't deal with and live in a fantasy world where business= fun and it is not really the case.

On a serious note, if they were smart, they would make their own at a 30 micron level, digital plans and stamp a GW sticker on it and start selling their stuff by the million, along with GW's patented pox paste 3d gel, to get on the bus and reap something other then more customer relations gems.

 Enigwolf wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Where as 3D printing I hear a lot of "this will revolutionalise" and "think of all the possibilities", but when asked "such as?" I get very few realistic responses beyond people telling me I lack vision

3D printing is already revolutionizing the way engineering prototypes are made. As an engineering student, I had the opportunity to build the same artifact thrice using different construction means. The first was basic subtractive prototyping out of a plastic block using hand tools, CNC mills, and other machine shop implements such as lathes - took us over a month. The second time, we used sheet metal - three weeks. The third, we used 3D printing and fiberglass composites - one and a half weeks, of which one week was just waiting for our parts to print.

I also have friends in architecture who are now squealing with delight at the ability to use this to print their scale model building designs, rather than spending weeks building them by hand from toothpicks, plasticard, and wood (hey, sounds like terrain-making to me... cough cough. 3D printed buildings for 40k much?)

We can already 3D print chocolate.
NASA is also funding a company to 3D print pizzas for them: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350948/nasa-funding-3d-food-printer-pizza

silent25 has also mentioned this, but we now have 3D printed guns, which can change the geopolitical landscape because you can arm a rebel militia with firearms without needing to actually "get" them.

Here are 4 real-life possibilities for you. Need more?

3D printing has been around for decades (at least 30 years now). None of that timeline has changed. Maybe it is a bit faster and QuickParts can get things to me in a couple of days...

I'm still not sure what the avg Joe would use one for one of the arguments I always see is, "blah, blah, blah, laser printers..." Inkjets still outsell laser printers for household use and a laser is still more expensive to buy than an inkjet, but let's not nullify their argument so quickly; there is more utility for an avg house wrt paper printer than part printer.

Sure, let's wave a magic wand and say we have the ability to buy a 3D printer that makes parts as good as injection molded PEI. What do most people do with it?

Not make toy soldiers (hell, you could buy a 3D printer for around the cost of a couple of armies, and why haven't I seen that...)

Replace a broken printer cog?

Make a new phone case?

All of those things require:
1) Downloading somebody else's design (and let's hope it works well with your printer and is the exact thing you want)
OR
2) You learn some ME modeling skills (which if you could do that, why aren't you working as a designer...?)

Yeah, this is much ado about nothing.

Linux is free and works pretty well and has pretty much everything (for free) that OSX and Windows has, so why isn't this the year of the Linux desktop? Mostly, because Ubuntu is still too hard for the avg Joe to mess with. 3D printers maybe free, but they still will be too difficult for most people to mess with. There are thousands of people, tens of millions of dollars and many, many companies that are trying to take a free bit of tech and supplant for pay OSes and it hasn't happened in the past 30 years, which means, for realz, 2014 is the year of the Linux desktop.

Jehan-reznor wrote:@AllSeeingSkink

I don't think you are seeing the point, the point is that 3D printing is coming into the price range for hobbyist and small companies,

it can revolutionize the way miniatures are designed, and the speed. (In designs from dream forge and new warzone, you can see that it is all cad design).

I believe the Helldrake was a CAD model too. You can see it in the level/type of detail, the exploded parts drawing on the assembly instructions, and the way the sprues were made.

Grot 6 wrote:GW will send that machine a C and D letter and claim they invented the HHHobby.

The facebook account got deleted because GW has a bunch of chones in their social media department that have no idea what they are doing. Case in point is to look at every avenue they have approached on the tech.
Webpage= gak.
Forum= gak
Chonebook account= gak
social interaction on their webpage= gak
Information flow = gak

Stop rallying to their defense on every little thing. They pull gak moves on a general basis and have no idea of their product because the business hand doesn't talk to the real world.
They have issues that they don't deal with and live in a fantasy world where business= fun and it is not really the case.

On a serious note, if they were smart, they would make their own at a 30 micron level, digital plans and stamp a GW sticker on it and start selling their stuff by the million, along with GW's patented pox paste 3d gel, to get on the bus and reap something other then more customer relations gems.

I don't think it's fair to over-generalize GW that much. ForgeWorld is a GW subsidiary but is hugely interactive with their fanbase on Facebook, and are known to have designers themselves responding to email questions about rules. Hell, I emailed them once and they told me when the Elysian update (which turned out to be IA3E2) was coming. Quite a world of difference from the "mainstream GW".

evancich wrote:
3D printing has been around for decades (at least 30 years now). None of that timeline has changed. Maybe it is a bit faster and QuickParts can get things to me in a couple of days...

I'm still not sure what the avg Joe would use one for one of the arguments I always see is, "blah, blah, blah, laser printers..." Inkjets still outsell laser printers for household use and a laser is still more expensive to buy than an inkjet, but let's not nullify their argument so quickly; there is more utility for an avg house wrt paper printer than part printer.

Sure, let's wave a magic wand and say we have the ability to buy a 3D printer that makes parts as good as injection molded PEI. What do most people do with it?

Not make toy soldiers (hell, you could buy a 3D printer for around the cost of a couple of armies, and why haven't I seen that...)

Replace a broken printer cog?

Make a new phone case?

All of those things require:
1) Downloading somebody else's design (and let's hope it works well with your printer and is the exact thing you want)
OR
2) You learn some ME modeling skills (which if you could do that, why aren't you working as a designer...?)

Yeah, this is much ado about nothing.

Well, first of all you have to understand that 3D printing has evolved mechanically-speaking since the first iteration of it. From the outside, everyone only sees the scale and print resolution - unfortunately, it's not such as simple task. You can't just scale everything up to make it print bigger parts, the vibrations will cause inaccuracies in the printing. That's why it's taken the technology so long to advance, because 3D printing is a very mechanically complex process. We also have a LOT of different ways to 3D print now, just like how we have inkjets and laser printers (which are both still considered "printers"). Some are simple extrusions, others print a block with the plastic and a support material that you soak in base solution to dissolve.

You yourself have touched on the reason why they aren't common-place yet - technical skill. Up to now, you still need a 3D design to print something - once someone gets wiser and starts building a proper interface and consumer engagement (such as here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-the-3d-printer-that-everyone-can-use?ref=home_popular). I strongly recommend you look at this Kickstarter and watch the video - they touch a lot upon user experience, which is what's missing from virtually every other 3D printer out there. The moment you have something like Instagram, where you can easily recreate what would otherwise have taken professional skill, it will see more mass-market adoption.

 Bellicist wrote:
Look at this 3D-Printer

Tea; Earl Grey; Hot.







No? This device is useless to me.

 AustonT wrote:

 Bellicist wrote:
Look at this 3D-Printer

Tea; Earl Grey; Hot.







No? This device is useless to me.

Or this - Coffee; Black; Now.

I don't know if it's been said but I think people are looking atit the wrong way.

I don't see people making bitz and such so much as moulds of bitz and such.

Why 3d print a single sholderpad when I can make a mould of 5?

 DeffDred wrote:
I don't know if it's been said but I think people are looking atit the wrong way.

I don't see people making bitz and such so much as moulds of bitz and such.

Why 3d print a single sholderpad when I can make a mould of 5?

For the moment, the 3D printer is more useful for prototyping. You design the original in a CAD program, print it out, and use that print to make your moulds.

3D printers for actual ongoing production will require them to be much better and faster than they are now, but will likely happen eventually.

Even when 3D printers are mainstream GW can still survive.
They can just profit from the licensing or video games, movies, books, etc for the warhammer franchises.
In addition to this they can market the hobby side more. Its great to print up a whole army in full color but what about when nobody is around to play? People will still want to build and paint miniatures so they can concentrate on brushes, paint system, etc.

 insaniak wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
I don't know if it's been said but I think people are looking atit the wrong way.

I don't see people making bitz and such so much as moulds of bitz and such.

Why 3d print a single sholderpad when I can make a mould of 5?

For the moment, the 3D printer is more useful for prototyping. You design the original in a CAD program, print it out, and use that print to make your moulds.

3D printers for actual ongoing production will require them to be much better and faster than they are now, but will likely happen eventually.

So it basically creates the first step of making the thing that would make more things? I see.

Could they be used to make little one-off things like a park bench or chair? A room full of cubicles with computers and office chairs would make for some cool terrain.

 DeffDred wrote:
So it basically creates the first step of making the thing that would make more things? I see.

Pretty much, yeah. It's just an alternative to making your original by hand.

Could they be used to make little one-off things like a park bench or chair? A room full of cubicles with computers and office chairs would make for some cool terrain.

Sure. But again, the quality of those things is going to come down to the printer used for it.

One of the awesome things about digital printing (as used to great effect by Raging Heroes and Dreamforge) is the ability to use the same model in multiple scales. So, for wargaming applications, you can create a model of, say, a tank, and print it out in 5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 28mm... depending on the game you want it for. Your digital sculpt for that is sometimes going to require some tweaking at different sizes, and you're still at the mercy of the level of detail available to your printer... but it has all sorts of awesome applications down that road.

 insaniak wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
So it basically creates the first step of making the thing that would make more things? I see.

Pretty much, yeah. It's just an alternative to making your original by hand.

Could they be used to make little one-off things like a park bench or chair? A room full of cubicles with computers and office chairs would make for some cool terrain.

Sure. But again, the quality of those things is going to come down to the printer used for it.

One of the awesome things about digital printing (as used to great effect by Raging Heroes and Dreamforge) is the ability to use the same model in multiple scales. So, for wargaming applications, you can create a model of, say, a tank, and print it out in 5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 28mm... depending on the game you want it for. Your digital sculpt for that is sometimes going to require some tweaking at different sizes, and you're still at the mercy of the level of detail available to your printer... but it has all sorts of awesome applications down that road.

We could finally try 15mm WH40K...

JWhex wrote:
No, this will not kill GW. I hope every time a new 3d printer is marketed it doesnt spawn another thread.

The question posed should be more general anyway, why not, will this kill Privateer? The question is always framed in response to GW when in fact this technology really could be a boon or bane to any particular line of miniatures manufacturer depending on how they react.

I can think of many questions that are infinetly more interesting to discuss than "Will this kill/harm/nerf/destroy GW. So many people with GW obsession on this forum need to take a step back from their automatic responses.

I can think of a number of ways that 3d printing could change the industry. Not all of them would be good for traditional manufacturers but likewise not all would be bad either

I made this thread because I think this is kind of a breakthrough device. I don't know every other printer there is, but this is the first time I have seen a printer that can actually produce a full colored miniature that looks like something. At least I think it can, judgeing by the specification. They have some samples on their site but I'm not sure about the size of these. I have mailed them and supposed that they try to print a wargames miniature.
At least it is not a industry level fridge-sized device that costs 20.000$. And It is much better then everything shapeways has to offer at the moment. When it comes to color, there is only colored sandstone that has a very low level of detail.

I agree, 3D-printing is no real threat to GW or any other manufacturer, at least in the next 10 years. I just wanted to exaggerate the title a bit. And GW is pretty much the 800 pound grizzly of wargaming, that's why I referred to them. Injection molding will always be less expensive for mass production, I guess. But if you want color you need a printer.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

silent25 wrote:
As for botObjects' printer. It seems awfully vague in details. Their site isn't really showing much in the way of actual objects. A lot of tech sites are openly dubious that this thing is real.

Ok, now I've seen it too. A lot of experts calim that this printer is a hoax.
I'ts true that they don't have much to show and the samples do look a lot like renders. Well, we will see.

 DeffDred wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:
I don't know if it's been said but I think people are looking atit the wrong way.

I don't see people making bitz and such so much as moulds of bitz and such.

Why 3d print a single sholderpad when I can make a mould of 5?

For the moment, the 3D printer is more useful for prototyping. You design the original in a CAD program, print it out, and use that print to make your moulds.

3D printers for actual ongoing production will require them to be much better and faster than they are now, but will likely happen eventually.

So it basically creates the first step of making the thing that would make more things? I see.

Could they be used to make little one-off things like a park bench or chair? A room full of cubicles with computers and office chairs would make for some cool terrain.

Yes, they can. There is no mould involved with 3D printing, so the cost of one-off small things like a small badge or pin, or a small terrain crate is small, as opposed to having to tool the mould, which costs a bomb.

Why isnt this just like recasting? I made a post about recasting out of production minis and got my thread shut down. just saying printing minis seems to me to be thing just diffrent medium.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
Why isnt this just like recasting? I made a post about recasting out of production minis and got my thread shut down. just saying printing minis seems to me to be thing just diffrent medium.

It's the same thing, basically, if you use it to 3D scan and then re-print a mini. However, if you're CAD modelling say, a las-2plas turret for your Razorback, it's a whole different story because it'll make it easier to have conversions or getting parts for those options that are not supplied for out-of-the-box.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
Why isnt this just like recasting? I made a post about recasting out of production minis and got my thread shut down. just saying printing minis seems to me to be thing just diffrent medium.

Good point.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
Why isnt this just like recasting? I made a post about recasting out of production minis and got my thread shut down. just saying printing minis seems to me to be thing just diffrent medium.

It's the same thing, basically, if you use it to 3D scan and then re-print a mini. However, if you're CAD modelling say, a las-2plas turret for your Razorback, it's a whole different story because it'll make it easier to have conversions or getting parts for those options that are not supplied for out-of-the-box.

I get the difference of printing your own minis. There is just a lot of talk about this and I know I couldn’t sculpt my way out of a wet paper bag. So then we come to 3D scanners. I know some talk has been raised about those. Also some talk about "not space marines". So how is it different? Sounds like some 9th circle of hell stuff to me (this is reserved for betrayers and mutineers). As a community we need to pic a side not GW. GW is in the right for not embracing this technology. GW makes a product. If you want to play with GW stuff they sell it. This is me playing devil’s advocate here and saying clearly “We as a community have drawn a line in the sand that says recasting is bad. We as a community need to draw a line in the sand that says we will not pirate GW minis.” Any talk about if this will break GW is moot if everyone currently buying GW stuff will continue to buy it and not pirate it.

This is outside of my personal feeling about GW or recasting.


As a side not my 3d printer is on back order. I might get it in a month.

Soooo. in your logic GW should not embrace moulds because people can use them to potentially make copies of stuff, you know the same moulds they use to make their own models.....

No, the technology is there to be embraced, the fact it can be used to copy models is irrelevant to it potential for companies and customers.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Soooo. in your logic GW should not embrace moulds because people can use them to potentially make copies of stuff, you know the same moulds they use to make their own models.....

No, the technology is there to be embraced, the fact it can be used to copy models is irrelevant to it potential for companies and customers.

Exactly. 3D printing is going to happen regardless of how GW feels about it or not. That's why it's called destructive innovation.

PsychoticStorm wrote:Soooo. in your logic GW should not embrace moulds because people can use them to potentially make copies of stuff, you know the same moulds they use to make their own models.....

No, the technology is there to be embraced, the fact it can be used to copy models is irrelevant to it potential for companies and customers.

Not so much. Technology to make molds already exists. I can make you a mold in about 14 hours. The community has spoken out against this practice. I say community since that is what dakka is a community. Saying its different just because it’s a 3D printer is mincing words. If the community has said it doesn’t like pirating then saying GW will fall because of 3d is a falsity. If A equals pirating minis and B equals the community then C equals the community zero tolerance towards the act. If you change the medium used to pirate it doesn’t change the equation at all. GW will continue to operate as normal with the support of the community that embraces antipiracy. this is like saying the music industry should embrace personal cd burners.

Again this is outside my views of recasting or GW. this is just following logic to its logical conclusion.

Enigwolf wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Soooo. in your logic GW should not embrace moulds because people can use them to potentially make copies of stuff, you know the same moulds they use to make their own models.....

No, the technology is there to be embraced, the fact it can be used to copy models is irrelevant to it potential for companies and customers.

Exactly. 3D printing is going to happen regardless of how GW feels about it or not. That's why it's called destructive innovation.

It is exactly that, destructive and creats a moral gray area that some feel ok opperating in.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:

Enigwolf wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Soooo. in your logic GW should not embrace moulds because people can use them to potentially make copies of stuff, you know the same moulds they use to make their own models.....

No, the technology is there to be embraced, the fact it can be used to copy models is irrelevant to it potential for companies and customers.

Exactly. 3D printing is going to happen regardless of how GW feels about it or not. That's why it's called destructive innovation.

It is exactly that, destructive and creats a moral gray area that some feel ok opperating in.

Exactly. Recasting using 3D printing is no more moral than recasting using moulds, or robbing a bank, or taking candy from a defenseless kid. This is what will happen to you if you do:

So the question of the forum was will a cheap personal 3D printer ruin GW. NO, because the community will not pirate GW minis. If you still think yes then you’re clearly morally ok with pirating and well, good for you. Doesn’t change the fact that if you like what GW is putting out mini-wise then you will buy their stuff or copy it. This has nothing to do with GW. This is a personal choice and the community has a zero tolerance on recasting.
I have personally tried and failed to raise the question of recasting for the historical value. Some OOP sculpts are becoming so rare and hard to get that you will only ever see them on the interwebs. When I raised this question in a roundabout way I was informed of the zero tolerance policy on recasting. So recasting became akin at least in my head as a hardcore Lego collector to megablocks.

Yet again I say this logical view point is not based on my personal feelings about GW or recasting, but I do hate megabloks.

If 3D printing ever ruins GW it will be from GW's inability to adapt to a new era of technology and not from recasting GW models.

It will not be the cause, just another symptom.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
This is a personal choice and the community has a zero tolerance on recasting.

It does?

If that was remotely true, you wouldn't have the over abundance of recasters that you have today since the practice wouldn't be profitable.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
This is a personal choice and the community has a zero tolerance on recasting.

It does?

If that was remotely true, you wouldn't have the over abundance of recasters that you have today since the practice wouldn't be profitable.

That's a funny thing about context. If you take only the part that you want you can disprove anything.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
This is a personal choice and the community has a zero tolerance on recasting.

It does?

If that was remotely true, you wouldn't have the over abundance of recasters that you have today since the practice wouldn't be profitable.

Want to know the problem with recasting? You can go ahead and recast all you like (not saying that you do, but, using it as a form of speech), but if it's to a point where it drives GW out of business, who is going to sculpt all those nice models to be recasted?

Recasting is a big issue, some sectors thrive on it, some sectors are better without it, for some sectors is irrelevant.

For our tiny segment that is miniature wargames, recasting is generally a bad thing, 3D printing though will not make the recasting worsen or be more widespread, present technology is faster, cheaper and more difficult to detect than a 3D print.

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
So the question of the forum was will a cheap personal 3D printer ruin GW. NO, because the community will not pirate GW minis.

Recasters keep growing and sell their stuff on a regular basis. Furthermore, a lot of recasters now produce at a pretty good level at a MUCH lower cost. So, saying the community will not pirate GW miniatures is not really realistic given the current situation...and 3d printers will make the stuff a LOT cheaper. I don't care for GW making huge losses at that point. With their completely unjustified price increases, they are making it very easy for re-casters / printers to draw potential customers in.

What I DO care about is the smaller tabletop companies as they really need their customers and they will suffer as well. But alas, it's going to happen. It will take a few years, but affordable home 3d printing will happen anyway.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
So the question of the forum was will a cheap personal 3D printer ruin GW. NO, because the community will not pirate GW minis.

Recasters keep growing and sell their stuff on a regular basis. Furthermore, a lot of recasters now produce at a pretty good level at a MUCH lower cost. So, saying the community will not pirate GW miniatures is not really realistic given the current situation...and 3d printers will make the stuff a LOT cheaper. I don't care for GW making huge losses at that point. With their completely unjustified price increases, they are making it very easy for re-casters / printers to draw potential customers in.

What I DO care about is the smaller tabletop companies as they really need their customers and they will suffer as well. But alas, it's going to happen. It will take a few years, but affordable home 3d printing will happen anyway.

I agree that regardless of my thoughts on the “community” tolerating piracy, the use of personal 3D printers to pirate is going to happen. I wanted to play the devil’s advocate and point out that conversations about 3D printers are really a conversation about piracy and as it directly relates to mini gaming, recasting. GW will not embrace this destructive technology because that would be like the music industry embracing personal CD burners. In fact they might join the growing list of companies that are currently trying to sue the makers of 3D printers and scanners. Like the music industry tried and failed at.


I want to coin a term for recasting in the 3D scanner aspect. Any thoughts?

The thing is that recasting itself is only...well...recasting existing stuff, whereas 3d printers would allow you to individually design parts for your models, original parts you thought of and built yourself.

3d printer discussions usually become recast discussions because it's the thing most people will use it for. Including myself.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The thing is that recasting itself is only...well...recasting existing stuff, whereas 3d printers would allow you to individually design parts for your models, original parts you thought of and built yourself.

3d printer discussions usually become recast discussions because it's the thing most people will use it for. Including myself.

As I stated before I cant sculpt my way out of a wet paper bag. I can say I have cast some things. I can say I will cast some things. If these things fall under fair use law or copyright infringement I don’t know nor care. I am not selling them or passing them off as my own. I can say as an average tax paying lower middle class Joe is that, if given a 3D printer in a month (Because mine is back ordered till then) and also a 3D scanner (photon 3D scanner 443$ should be ordered soon) I will probably use them to make stuff. Just like I did when I got my cd burner. If my thoughts are like other and I am not a unique snow flake, then piracy is really what will kill GW. Kinda poetic, in a sick way.

Well this just starter circulating on the internet as an example of what people are doing in the miniature field with 3D printers. Body was printed at 150 micron and the head at 75 micron. The designer does not appear to wish to make the 3D files available to others, but appears to be willing to sell the models if he gets permission to.

Figure is 6 inches tall for referance.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/120121-6-tall-posable-atlas-picture-overload/

With arguments for what printers can be used for; was at the hardware store this weekend needing a hook for a picture frame and some nails. Imagine that entire fastener section at the store gone because we can print out the hanger and nails we need at home.

Sigvatr wrote: I don't care for GW making huge losses at that point.

So you're basically saying that... You don't care if GW goes out of business, and both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k die?

silent25 wrote:Well this just starter circulating on the internet as an example of what people are doing in the miniature field with 3D printers. Body was printed at 150 micron and the head at 75 micron. The designer does not appear to wish to make the 3D files available to others, but appears to be willing to sell the models if he gets permission to.

Figure is 6 inches tall for referance.

Spoiler:

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/120121-6-tall-posable-atlas-picture-overload/

With arguments for what printers can be used for; was at the hardware store this weekend needing a hook for a picture frame and some nails. Imagine that entire fastener section at the store gone because we can print out the hanger and nails we need at home.

That must've taken almost a week or two to print. 150 microns at high resolution? That takes a LONG time. You can clearly see the huge difference between 75 and 150 microns too. Also, bearing in mind that that's 6-inches tall, you see all the cross-hatch lines? Imagine how much worse they'll be for a 28mm miniature and trying to paint over that.

 Enigwolf wrote:

That must've taken almost a week or two to print. 150 microns at high resolution? That takes a LONG time. You can clearly see the huge difference between 75 and 150 microns too. Also, bearing in mind that that's 6-inches tall, you see all the cross-hatch lines? Imagine how much worse they'll be for a 28mm miniature and trying to paint over that.

Better shot of the head and body for comparison:

Bear in mind again that it's 6 inches tall, which is about 4.5x the size of a 28mm miniature. So scale those lines and defects up by 5 times. And that's for a 150 microns print at full resolution. I haven't seen a 3D printer less than $500 that can print at 150 microns for that size, either.

Is this though the best example one could find?

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Is this though the best example one could find?

As someone who's been following 3D printing for a while, it's the first I've seen. 150 micron printers aren't cheap.

I love how these questions are always framed against Games Workshop. Have you people not considered that this will affect Privateer Press, Wyrd Miniatures, and all your precious Kickstarters as well? It is not only GW that has the potential to suffer.

However, pointing this out does not reinforce your preferred anti- GW narrative. I swear there is a new thread every day on this site about how this, that or the other new development will bring about the downfall of the evil empire.

and furthermore, the first post claiming that these machines will print pro-painted miniatures is laughable. Then again, considering the majority of you field spam armies of grey plastic I suppose you wouldn't know much about painting anyway.

775B53 wrote:
Then again, considering the majority of you field spam armies of grey plastic I suppose you wouldn't know much about painting anyway.

Are you referring to the majority of Dakkaites here?

Edited by AgeOfEgos

 Enigwolf wrote:

Sigvatr wrote: I don't care for GW making huge losses at that point.

So you're basically saying that... You don't care if GW goes out of business, and both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k die?

The brands would immediately be bought by competitors, so I don't worry that much, plus with the stuff that GW recently released, the need in our clubs to buy GW stuff has gone down again by a long shot and all armies have some sort of proxy by now, aka models produced by other companies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

775B53 wrote:

and furthermore, the first post claiming that these machines will print pro-painted miniatures is laughable. Then again, considering the majority of you field spam armies of grey plastic I suppose you wouldn't know much about painting anyway.

Most armies are TT standard, not pro-painted, anyway.

The biggest production change I could see is this replacing GW’s plastic injection mold systems way down the line. The current most practical thing would be replacing low production kits like Finecast and mono-pose blisters. This means every kit can be plastic and solo models can be solid pieces. If each production factory had, say 100-500 3D printers and GW could get the printers to push out models fast enough, Finecast would be over with and blister packs would all be mono-piece models in full dynamic 3D. Something imposible to do with the current mold system.

However, the big modeling change I see is an influx of different models. Creating models would be as simple as creating the 3D design, something that could be done in weeks to months, and pressing print. We could see 10,000 model limited runs every few weeks. Instead of the current, seven total new kits per army every 3 years. Or better yet, each year, blister pack model poses change to a new pose. Do you want the old pose where the Lictor is crouched or the new one where he is running? Next years Lictor will be jumping! All one piece, no glue required.

If someone from GW were to learn what this "3-D Printer" is, the process would probably go like this:

Step 1: 3D Printer? Isn't 3D that stuff in the movie theaters?
Step 2: Well it seems that's not what 3D printing is, lets me get on my dialup internet.
Step 3: Now that I'm online with my AOL browser, I need to find out what 3D Printing is, let me go on AskJeeves.com
Step 4: SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY THAT'S WHAT IT IS.
Step 5: Cease and Desist letters to anything remotely affiliated with 3D printing.
Step 6: Today, Gamesworkshop has announced its intention to destroy 3D printing. This is great news.

In order to make these things viable you are going to need 3 things.

1) A couple of grand for a 3D printer.
2) An amazing Digital 3d artist. ( you cant just copy and past an image from google)
3) A controlling interest in a company that makes green stuff, so you can smooth out an entire armys worth of models.

These things sprung up years ago in the RC community. So people could manufacturer spare parts for RC cars. There are even YouTube vid's and Construction drawing to build your own 3d printers. Think it worked out about £2000 if you built your own.

The problem is Having some one good enough at 3d digital rendering and modeling to produce models of a high standard. And that Mech warrior pictured is one of the better 3d Models I have seen but still not perfect.

If it was Commercially viable or a threat to GW and FW, don't you think they would already be using them? But because of the quality issues they are not viable. I mean if someone wants to spend a month modeling and printing off a set of shoulder pads to then spend hours smoothing them over with green stuff, then so be it.

The only thing that a 3D printer would be good at is scenery making. You could print off entire wall sections, and because its a large model you will at least be able to clean it up better. Or don't and give it that Rendered look.

3D Printers are inevitably going to become simple-to-use and affordable, and I'm not talking decades from now but rather 5-6 years. Modern computer tech works that way.

 Harriticus wrote:

Step 1: 3D Printer? Isn't 3D that stuff in the movie theaters?
Step 2: Well it seems that's not what 3D printing is, lets me get on my dialup internet.
Step 3: Now that I'm online with my AOL browser, I need to find out what 3D Printing is, let me go on AskJeeves.com
Step 4: SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY THAT'S WHAT IT IS.
Step 5: Cease and Desist letters to anything remotely affiliated with 3D printing.
Step 6: Today, Gamesworkshop has announced its intention to destroy 3D printing. This is great news.

Awesome. This format works for pretty much every GW debacle:

Step 1: Space Marine in a book title?! We own that!
Step 2: It appears to be some sort of charitable project. You know what that means...
Step 3: Attempt to crush it with a Cease and Desist letter!
Step 4: Apparently people are mad about this. They are even pointing out there are books from 30s that use Space Marine in the title.
Step 5: Without our permission!? How dare they! Where are they saying this?
Step 6: On the facebooks. Don't worry though. I already destroyed the facebooks. It's all shut down now.

 Harriticus wrote:
If someone from GW were to learn what this "3-D Printer" is, the process would probably go like this:

Step 1: 3D Printer? Isn't 3D that stuff in the movie theaters?
Step 2: Well it seems that's not what 3D printing is, lets me get on my dialup internet.
Step 3: Now that I'm online with my AOL browser, I need to find out what 3D Printing is, let me go on AskJeeves.com
Step 4: SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY THAT'S WHAT IT IS.
Step 5: Cease and Desist letters to anything remotely affiliated with 3D printing.
Step 6: Today, Games Workshop has announced its intention to destroy 3D printing. This is great news.

Sounds about right

But you forgot:

Step 7: If GW fails to exterminate 3D printing, GW shall claim to own all 3D printers. This is logical and fair.

 frozenwastes wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:

Step 1: 3D Printer? Isn't 3D that stuff in the movie theaters?
Step 2: Well it seems that's not what 3D printing is, lets me get on my dialup internet.
Step 3: Now that I'm online with my AOL browser, I need to find out what 3D Printing is, let me go on AskJeeves.com
Step 4: SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY THAT'S WHAT IT IS.
Step 5: Cease and Desist letters to anything remotely affiliated with 3D printing.
Step 6: Today, Gamesworkshop has announced its intention to destroy 3D printing. This is great news.

Awesome. This format works for pretty much every GW debacle:

Step 1: Space Marine in a book title?! We own that!
Step 2: It appears to be some sort of charitable project. You know what that means...
Step 3: Attempt to crush it with a Cease and Desist letter!
Step 4: Apparently people are mad about this. They are even pointing out there are books from 30s that use Space Marine in the title.
Step 5: Without our permission!? How dare they! Where are they saying this?
Step 6: On the facebooks. Don't worry though. I already destroyed the facebooks. It's all shut down now.

This made my day.

3d printing won't put them out of business.

GW not adjusting to the new retail paradigm is what will put them out of business.

Trying to stop something once the technology exists is like stuffing troubles BACK into Pandora's box. Can't be done. The djinni is out of the bottle.

They have to adjust or go under. This is the evolution of the free market.

I agree that it is unrealistic to think that 3D printing will put GW out of business. If 3D printer would put GW out of business then GW would already be out of business due to private resin molds and forgeries. GW will be able to out produce any private 3D print operation by moth cost and time. It is all a matter of how long it take GW to embrace 3D printing and how they embrace it. Like I said earlier, if GW fully or partially embraced 3D printing then we could see low demand kits getting a new pose every year. This would drive up sales like no one has ever seen.

Partial embrace of 3D printing by GW:
1) Create the 3D model
2) Create an internal skeleton and points of actuation
3) New pose every so often so people keep buying the new model
4) Profit

Full embrace of 3D printing by GW:
1) Create the 3D model
2) Create an internal skeleton and points of actuation
3) Create an online program where people could go to the GW site and pose the model themselves, and then have a GW printer print it out
4) Get a personal, custom built, mono-piece, model in the mail and it's an official GW model
5) Even more profit than you could ever think of

But this can only be done if you can produce a 3D printed model at around the same cost as a resin mold model. The main cost in that is the mold creation and the machinery you use in the production line along with design costs. 3D printing, as I described above, would have a relatively cheap design cost, no mold cost, but a much higher production cost. The question is, can you make the production cost low enough to compete with resin mold production?

 cerbrus2 wrote:
In order to make these things viable you are going to need 3 things.

1) A couple of grand for a 3D printer.
2) An amazing Digital 3d artist. ( you cant just copy and past an image from google)
3) A controlling interest in a company that makes green stuff, so you can smooth out an entire armys worth of models.

These things sprung up years ago in the RC community. So people could manufacturer spare parts for RC cars. There are even YouTube vid's and Construction drawing to build your own 3d printers. Think it worked out about £2000 if you built your own.

The problem is Having some one good enough at 3d digital rendering and modeling to produce models of a high standard. And that Mech warrior pictured is one of the better 3d Models I have seen but still not perfect.

If it was Commercially viable or a threat to GW and FW, don't you think they would already be using them? But because of the quality issues they are not viable. I mean if someone wants to spend a month modeling and printing off a set of shoulder pads to then spend hours smoothing them over with green stuff, then so be it.

The only thing that a 3D printer would be good at is scenery making. You could print off entire wall sections, and because its a large model you will at least be able to clean it up better. Or don't and give it that Rendered look.

I don't get point three. First off, 3D printers use plastic or resin. Green stuff would not even work because it's too soft. You would have to extrude it and that seems like more of a hassle than pulling it through a hot head. Not to mention that having to manually smooth them out would defeat the purpose of having a 3D printer.

Most of your actual cons will be negated in 5 years when technology meets up with demand. Detail isn't a limiting factor. We will be seeing 3D prints on par with injection molds in 5 years. What the real limiting factor is printing time. If you heat up the hot head so it melts plastic faster then the plastic would take a longer time to cool, resulting in model warp. If you lower the hot head temperature then you have to keep the plastic on the hot head longer, resulting in a slower print time.

The way around this is a resin 3D printer that uses light to cure. However, you still can only print as fast as the cure rate or you will get warping. However, you could have multiple cure lights resulting in a faster cure time since the resin doesn’t touch the light until after it has been pushed through the head. Whereas melted plastic uses ambient temperature to harden, so if you lower the temperature in the room to make the plastic harden quicker then you would need to keep the plastic on the hot head longer to compensate for the lower base temperature of the plastic, resulting in a slower print time. You would have to devise a system to cool the post-heat head plastic while not affecting the pre-heat head plastic.

Interesting that nobody has mentioned the DAZ range of products. For the uneducated, this is a 3d model system that is free, you just buy the models to with it, as well as any clothes / props that you need. Just configure the look in DAZ, export to suitable format and job done.

 Wolfstan wrote:
Interesting that nobody has mentioned the DAZ range of products. For the uneducated, this is a 3d model system that is free, you just buy the models to with it, as well as any clothes / props that you need. Just configure the look in DAZ, export to suitable format and job done.

The cost of DAZ products actually adds up quite significantly to become quite expensive.

If someone from GW were to learn what this "3-D Printer" is, the process would probably go like this:

You know they're already using 3D printing in part of their design process right? I know you were just trying to make a joke (and I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little chuckle out of it), but seriously, this whole "GW is technologically backward" stuff is getting to be a bit much considering that, in reality, they are the MOST technologically advanced miniatures company currently in existance. Whether people want to like them or not doesn't change that fact. No one else is doing (or even CAN do) what they are accomplishing. Seriously. I always get a laugh when people say things like "3D printing? GW doesn't even use regular 3D yet". I just open up my new GW model kit and look at the pictures that were clearly shots of the 3D production models in the instructions and sigh.

To make a 3D mesh and a color skin is not that hard to do. And there will sure be many models of Not Space Marines to load from the net, once this takes of. You could customize everything and make the models and the terrain you really want. Also painting like GD-winner is a skill not given to everyone. To make a skin on the computer is something everyone can do. And of course you can use it not only for miniatures but for everything else.

The raw, unmitigated ignorance implicit in this post takes my breath away. The lack of knowledge on display here makes me scratch my head at the idea that you think something you clearly don't really understand is somehow going to put a company out of business.

Interesting that nobody has mentioned the DAZ range of products. For the uneducated, this is a 3d model system that is free, you just buy the models to with it, as well as any clothes / props that you need. Just configure the look in DAZ, export to suitable format and job done.

That's really not a solution. You're going to hit several hundred dollars by the time you're done kitting out ONE model. On top of that, the DAZ products aren't even good for their intended purpose (simple, home made animations done by beginners/hobbyists). It might *look* like a reasonable solution if you don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but you're going to get very frustrated very quickly when you get errors like "model not water tight", "incorrect edge thickness", "improperly terminating edge loops" or my personal favorite "vertex normals inverted. Terminating program" right before the the model implodes on itself and your software crashes.

First thing, how much do 'cartridges' for this thing cost, and how ofter would you need to replace them?

Second thing, making skins on the computer not something everyone can do.

Not condemning or condoning, but there are plenty of models out there on the internet, if you know where to look. It depends on what you are trying to achieve. I've exported a model from DAZ and imported it into 3D Max ok. From a quality POV then yes there are issues, but the default import was suitable for me. I wanted to mock up a plastic table top model, that was bare. The model looked just fine, it was in grey and had the clothes & extras on it. Obviously if I was looking to do amazing things with it, then yes, it's on the dire side.

Whether you can then export it in a suitable format I don't know.

Not condemning or condoning, but there are plenty of models out there on the internet, if you know where to look. It depends on what you are trying to achieve. I've exported a model from DAZ and imported it into 3D Max ok. From a quality POV then yes there are issues, but the default import was suitable for me. I wanted to mock up a plastic table top model, that was bare. The model looked just fine, it was in grey and had the clothes & extras on it. Obviously if I was looking to do amazing things with it, then yes, it's on the dire side.

Whether you can then export it in a suitable format I don't know.

That's kind of the point though. You at least sound like you know a little bit about what you're doing. That puts you in the minority. Yes, you can export a DAZ model into max and then export an .stl from there. The issue is that once you've spent money on that model, you're now going to need to do a LOT of cleanup on it before you can print to anywhere near a good standard (you mentioned you just wanted something really simple). You're going to run into things that require poses to be temporarily changed in order to fix so now you need to understand skinning and rigging on top of everything else. zBrush can mitigate that somewhat but then you have to learn displacement maps, etc. Basically, my point is, the tech is there. The people are not. If that makes sense.

Tycho wrote:
It might *look* like a reasonable solution if you don't have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but you're going to get very frustrated very quickly when you get errors like "model not water tight", "incorrect edge thickness", "improperly terminating edge loops" or my personal favorite "vertex normals inverted. Terminating program" right before the the model implodes on itself and your software crashes.

Oh god, and that's just the software errors. There are hardware errors too, like if you have two normals which overlap each other, most softwares won't detect that unless you instruct it to specifically, and the 3D printer will try to print twice in that same spot, and basically just jam there... There are also a lot more modelling restrictions which prevent a lot of the usual shortcuts...

Oh god, and that's just the software errors. There are hardware errors too, like if you have two normals which overlap each other, most softwares won't detect that unless you instruct it to specifically, and the 3D printer will try to print twice in that same spot, and basically just jam there... There are also a lot more modelling restrictions which prevent a lot of the usual shortcuts...

lol Exactly. And then most people are not going to understand what's going on there or how to fix it. That's IF the machine even jams. Some machines actually will just add a big ugly chunk of material where the points are over-lapped. Now you have a huge mess to clean up ...

At that point, was the 3 grand you spent on the printer plus the several hundred to several thousand dollars of software plus several hundred dollars of material worth it for you to "save" $50 on a professionally done ready to go box of tactical marines?

Tycho wrote:
lol Exactly. And then most people are not going to understand what's going on there or how to fix it. That's IF the machine even jams. Some machines actually will just add a big ugly chunk of material where the points are over-lapped. Now you have a huge mess to clean up ...

If that happens on cheaper 3D printers relying on rails, the extra material can effectively de-calibrate the 3D printer as a result. Hey, another mess!

Long story short: 3D printers require technical skill. A fair bit of it.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

Alot cheaper to use shapeways to make masters and then cast from them...

something else to throw into the mix is the advancements made in 3d scanning. At the last Gadget Show event at the NEC I saw a combination of a Kinect and a 3D printer being used. It was being used to scan punters heads and then print them off. Ok they weren't pretty, but the point is it could be done and the Kinect is supposed to be getting better (alongside rival products). You have these two devices meet price / quality wise and you will have a problem.

No need to learn the 3d stuff, which takes, you just point your scanner at the piece your interested in and away you go. It will be more than likely that the software that comes with either device will have no problem talking to each other. There is no need for the likes of GW to panic at the moment, but they do need to keep an eye on it, as do all such company's, because it won't take much of a break through and they will be playing catch up.

something else to throw into the mix is the advancements made in 3d scanning. At the last Gadget Show event at the NEC I saw a combination of a Kinect and a 3D printer being used. It was being used to scan punters heads and then print them off. Ok they weren't pretty, but the point is it could be done and the Kinect is supposed to be getting better (alongside rival products). You have these two devices meet price / quality wise and you will have a problem.

No need to learn the 3d stuff, which takes, you just point your scanner at the piece your interested in and away you go. It will be more than likely that the software that comes with either device will have no problem talking to each other. There is no need for the likes of GW to panic at the moment, but they do need to keep an eye on it, as do all such company's, because it won't take much of a break through and they will be playing catch up.

The 3D scanners are actually MUCH farther away from being ready then the 3D printers are. Even the more advanced professional 3D scanners (the kind that cost near a million) are still tricky and finicky to use and produce results that still need to be cleaned up somewhat. Then, you STILL have to make sure everything is water tight with correct thicknesses, etc etc. You can mitigate lack of 3D modelling knowledge to a certain extent, but you cannot (at this point in time) completely eliminate the need for it. You're definitely right to say GW should keep an eye on it, but like I said earlier, they are already using this in their own production pipeline. Basically, there is still NOTHING easier then gluing a bunch of minis to the bottom of a bucket and then dumping your mold compound of choice into said bucket. Yet that hasn't even come close to beginning to dent GW's bottom line. A more expensive, more difficult process that will produce less high-quality results in a far less efficient manner is not likely to effect GW any time soon.

Point conceded Sir!

Tycho wrote:
No one else is doing (or even CAN do) what they are accomplishing.

Clarify on what you mean by that. We know for a fact that both PP and Wyrd use 3d modelling software to produce models and plastic sets just like GW does. Hell, Ben Misenar's staff photo has him in the middle of doing it.

Clarify on what you mean by that. We know for a fact that both PP and Wyrd use 3d modelling software to produce models and plastic sets just like GW does.

Fair enough. It's not that GW is using 3D where others aren't (as you mentioned we alreadey know that others ARE using it). It's that their tooling and engineering is actually happening at a more advanced rate. Look at a plastic kit like the Mortis Engine as an example (or is it the Coven Throne - I don't know my square basing that well). There is a level of detail and complexity there that no one else is currently matching. The mastery of draught lines and the ability to cast what are, in some cases just stupidly small parts that still have a huge amount of detail is pretty impressive if you know about tool and die manufacturing. Some of the parts they are casting are so small that it wasn't that long ago you would have been laughed out of a factory for even suggesting to attempt it.

Another example is the snap fit minis from the DV box set. Specifically the Chosen models. There are pieces there that fit so insanely well with almost no noticeable lines that I'm impressed every time I put together a new set. On top of that they've managed a pretty impressive rate of turn-around from design to completion as well.

Don't get me wrong, I have no great love afair with GW, and it's not that other companies are not close to them or won't be able to get there with a little more time. It's just that I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Some posters would have you believe GW just discovered cell phones yesterday and are still running around with an abacus instead of a calculator and that's just not true.

EDIT:
The above is in reference to their plastics only. Don't even get me started on Finecast ...

EDIT ROUND 2:
Another good example are the large Riptide and Wraith Knight kits. Anyone else seen kits that pose-able at that scale in a minis game? Go ahead and look. I'll wait ...

Point conceded Sir!

Oh yeah!? Well I think you ... oh wait ... You said "point conceded"? That's it? you're just going to say you agree with me? On Dakka? Idk if I can support this without you insulting my intelligence or heritage or something first! lol/jk

I look forward to further discussions with you

Good point on the plastics point, and that comes from a huge fan of PP plastics(aside from the Argus, I've yet to deal with one that had the neck joint fit in correctly). I'd love GW to do even more of their plastic clamshell characters, those things are absolutely amazing.

I'd love GW to do even more of their plastic clamshell characters, those things are absolutely amazing.

Agreed.

Tycho wrote:

EDIT ROUND 2:
Another good example are the large Riptide and Wraith Knight kits. Anyone else seen kits that pose-able at that scale in a minis game? Go ahead and look. I'll wait ...

While I do not have it personally, people are singing the praises of the Leviathan kit from Dream Forge. It is the same size and price point as the Wraith Knight.

One thing I would like to point out with the current generation of 3D printers, given the poor quality of paint jobs (or lack there of), I think there will be a decent number of players who won't have a problem having a Makerbot spit out a stack of Mediocre Marines to throw on the table. I would turn my nose up at them, but there are plenty of people that wouldn't and would still play with them.

Tycho wrote:

something else to throw into the mix is the advancements made in 3d scanning. At the last Gadget Show event at the NEC I saw a combination of a Kinect and a 3D printer being used. It was being used to scan punters heads and then print them off. Ok they weren't pretty, but the point is it could be done and the Kinect is supposed to be getting better (alongside rival products). You have these two devices meet price / quality wise and you will have a problem.

No need to learn the 3d stuff, which takes, you just point your scanner at the piece your interested in and away you go. It will be more than likely that the software that comes with either device will have no problem talking to each other. There is no need for the likes of GW to panic at the moment, but they do need to keep an eye on it, as do all such company's, because it won't take much of a break through and they will be playing catch up.

The 3D scanners are actually MUCH farther away from being ready then the 3D printers are. Even the more advanced professional 3D scanners (the kind that cost near a million) are still tricky and finicky to use and produce results that still need to be cleaned up somewhat. Then, you STILL have to make sure everything is water tight with correct thicknesses, etc etc. You can mitigate lack of 3D modelling knowledge to a certain extent, but you cannot (at this point in time) completely eliminate the need for it. You're definitely right to say GW should keep an eye on it, but like I said earlier, they are already using this in their own production pipeline. Basically, there is still NOTHING easier then gluing a bunch of minis to the bottom of a bucket and then dumping your mold compound of choice into said bucket. Yet that hasn't even come close to beginning to dent GW's bottom line. A more expensive, more difficult process that will produce less high-quality results in a far less efficient manner is not likely to effect GW any time soon.

Tycho wrote:

Clarify on what you mean by that. We know for a fact that both PP and Wyrd use 3d modelling software to produce models and plastic sets just like GW does.

Fair enough. It's not that GW is using 3D where others aren't (as you mentioned we alreadey know that others ARE using it). It's that their tooling and engineering is actually happening at a more advanced rate. Look at a plastic kit like the Mortis Engine as an example (or is it the Coven Throne - I don't know my square basing that well). There is a level of detail and complexity there that no one else is currently matching. The mastery of draught lines and the ability to cast what are, in some cases just stupidly small parts that still have a huge amount of detail is pretty impressive if you know about tool and die manufacturing. Some of the parts they are casting are so small that it wasn't that long ago you would have been laughed out of a factory for even suggesting to attempt it.

Another example is the snap fit minis from the DV box set. Specifically the Chosen models. There are pieces there that fit so insanely well with almost no noticeable lines that I'm impressed every time I put together a new set. On top of that they've managed a pretty impressive rate of turn-around from design to completion as well.

Don't get me wrong, I have no great love afair with GW, and it's not that other companies are not close to them or won't be able to get there with a little more time. It's just that I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Some posters would have you believe GW just discovered cell phones yesterday and are still running around with an abacus instead of a calculator and that's just not true.

EDIT:
The above is in reference to their plastics only. Don't even get me started on Finecast ...

EDIT ROUND 2:
Another good example are the large Riptide and Wraith Knight kits. Anyone else seen kits that pose-able at that scale in a minis game? Go ahead and look. I'll wait ...

Point conceded Sir!

Oh yeah!? Well I think you ... oh wait ... You said "point conceded"? That's it? you're just going to say you agree with me? On Dakka? Idk if I can support this without you insulting my intelligence or heritage or something first! lol/jk

I look forward to further discussions with you

All this. Quote for truth. This guy's right, and knows what he's talking about.

All this. Quote for truth. This guy's right, and knows what he's talking about.

You too!? This is making me uncomfortable! I DEMAND that someone start a flamewar IMMEDIATELY!

In all seriousness, thanks for the level headed and calm discussion folks!

Re: that Atlas print:

 Enigwolf wrote:
Bear in mind again that it's 6 inches tall, which is about 4.5x the size of a 28mm miniature. So scale those lines and defects up by 5 times. And that's for a 150 microns print at full resolution. I haven't seen a 3D printer less than $500 that can print at 150 microns for that size, either.

Yes, it looks grainy as hell. But it also was printed with PLA (extrusion), which is a lot cheaper... but also a lot grainier. These are not the future; these are the present. I think we need to be concentrating to DLP printing to UV reactive resin; it's the simplest for end-users to use, it's fairly inexpensive as well (and getting cheaper); and the results are much, much finer.

So less like this:


and more like this:



Anyway. So far as software goes, someday I see Games Workshop pushing out an application that works just like character creator in many video games (let's say, Mass Effect). You download a free app to your PC (or, sigh, IOS) and then you pick a hero model; lets say a commisar. You start with a stock commissar, and can swap different heads, different hats, weapons, boots, etc. When done you upload it to your local GW store, just like sending digital prints to Walgreens to pick up. You go into the store, pick up your printout, maybe a box of Space Marines... and that's where they'll be. Eventually when they get fast enough print speeds, maybe this all happens at a kiosk in the store, and you pick it up after waiting, just like Lens Crafters.

Anyway. So far as software goes, someday I see Games Workshop pushing out an application that works just like character creator in many video games (let's say, Mass Effect). You download a free app to your PC (or, sigh, IOS) and then you pick a hero model; lets say a commisar. You start with a stock commissar, and can swap different heads, different hats, weapons, boots, etc. When done you upload it to your local GW store, just like sending digital prints to Walgreens to pick up. You go into the store, pick up your printout, maybe a box of Space Marines... and that's where they'll be. Eventually when they get fast enough print speeds, maybe this all happens at a kiosk in the store, and you pick it up after waiting, just like Lens Crafters.

I could see something like that as well. It would be awesome! I'd like to see something like an army builder integrated into the digital codexes. You could build your army on your iPAD (or eventually your Android device *fingers crossed*) right out of the codex entries and then upload an army file to the store. Would be sick.

GW would try and charge you for every model you printed on your printer.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
The facebook account got deleted because of trolls ruining it., similarly the GW forum.

You don't even recall the "Spots the Space Marine" thing, do you? That's why the Facebook page was taken down, as a direct result of that needless debacle.

This is a story I would love to hear, even if in another thread or via PM.

 adamsouza wrote:
This is a story I would love to hear, even if in another thread or via PM.

In brief.

When Games Workshop's Facebook pages was flooded with complaints, rather than address them or deal with them they simply shut down their public Facebook page.

 -Loki- wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

Well of course. I remember when a Sony DVD player was $700. Now everything has a DVD player built-in. There are even some printers where it's cheaper to just buy another printer than it is to replace the ink when it runs out.

The same will happen with this technology.

Of course it will in time. However, I still have yet to see a real world example of where a replicating device has killed the market it relates to.

Even digital documentation hasn't killed the print industry.

It'll definitely require GW to re-evalutate their pricing, however.

Yeah, I think we know what that means.

Have you seen how crap-ily3D printers print compared to GW models? Also, no, it will not get them out of business, because copying their models exactly is illegal, so eventually they'd get more strict on that policy. 3D printers still have ways to go before they can make decent quality models at the table top size.

The question is not if GW would fall because of massive illegal printing of their miniatures, but if a combination o their inability to adapt to new technologies (so far), the potential emergence of smaller wargaming companies that do not manufacture their models but instead sell you the right to print them and their opponents embracing the technology would be a (or the) tipping point for them.

Now lets see a raging heroes 3D print


Some 3D printers seem to have quite a nice and smooth printing it seems.

Rumours of GW demise seem to have been exaggerated, as ever.

3D printing is a revolution waiting to happen and it is impossible to tell what effects it will have to be fair.

... if a combination o their inability to adapt to new technologies (so far) ...

This again ...

Guys, GW has adopted to new technology FASTER then any other minis company out there. Who was the first minis company to look at zBrush/Solidworks/Maya? GW. The first company to take things like digital codexes seriously? GW. The first company to be able to make large fully pose-able kits loaded with detail? GW. Who is the only major company currently even capable of mass producing a model like the Coven Throne? GW.

You can rag on them all you want for odd pricing policies, bizzare marketing decisions, inept public relations, etc, etc. But if you're seriously going to sit there and act like all the other miniature companies are driving to work in their flying cars so they can sit at their Star Trek Style-esque replicator machines and crank out minis simply by naming them while GW is still somehow in the dark ages of technology ... well .... you don't know enough about anything to really have an actual, thought out opinion on this. You really don't.

owmyquach wrote:
Have you seen how crap-ily3D printers print compared to GW models? Also, no, it will not get them out of business, because copying their models exactly is illegal, so eventually they'd get more strict on that policy. 3D printers still have ways to go before they can make decent quality models at the table top size.

Fun fact, as toys GW's product is only protected for 30 years under UK law. 5 years from now 3D printers will be much better quality and much more affordable and GW trying to take someone to court over making their own Ultramarines could get very, very complicated.

Tycho wrote:

... if a combination o their inability to adapt to new technologies (so far) ...

This again ...

Guys, GW has adopted to new technology FASTER then any other minis company out there. Who was the first minis company to look at zBrush/Solidworks/Maya? GW. The first company to take things like digital codexes seriously? GW. The first company to be able to make large fully pose-able kits loaded with detail? GW. Who is the only major company currently even capable of mass producing a model like the Coven Throne? GW.

You can rag on them all you want for odd pricing policies, bizzare marketing decisions, inept public relations, etc, etc. But if you're seriously going to sit there and act like all the other miniature companies are driving to work in their flying cars so they can sit at their Star Trek Style-esque replicator machines and crank out minis simply by naming them while GW is still somehow in the dark ages of technology ... well .... you don't know enough about anything to really have an actual, thought out opinion on this. You really don't.

Lets see
GW's first "bold" attempt at 3D sculpting was a test, they produced the base for the warhammer giant, while the giant and many kits after that were done traditionally, GW's first true attempts happened the last two years with kits been digitally produced, by the point they did the warhammer giant's base many boutique one man companies already produced ranges of models at least as an experiment, from memory a company producing grey aliens in spacesuits was the first company to utilize 3D sculpting to produce models for wargaming, if we extend out of wargaming 3D sculpting was already used from bandai, other plastic model companies and of course a plethora of companies making 1/6 scale figures. GW entered the 3D arena way after wargames factory produced their first kits, in time when other companies started using or had used for a few years 3D sculpting and printing for prototyping and models casting, if nothing else wargames factory digital sprew technology seems years ahead from what GW has at the moment, it even avoids making connection points so small that glue cannot fit in automatically.

Digital publication, I don't know CB offers their entire rulebook and army lists almost a decade now, not been limited to them, digital publication is something most companies adapted to one or the other extend at least a decade before GWs attempts this year and why exactly you think GWs attempt is serious, or more serious than everybody elses?

Now as far as GW's kit go, I am from those who think choking a miniature with "details" and putting it in a default blunt pose that that things can be staked on it and look as if somebody stacked things on something instead of been part of the model, does not make a model great, yes they have the means to make bulk production, bandai has too and they make more intriguing multiposed models, but the ability to make bulk production does not make them a technology adapter.

What is worse is GW has the technology to do many things sliding mould technology was demonstrated on the baneblade and then it has not been used again, the company that sold them the technology in an interview revealed so many things GW could do with their technology and yet GW has not used most of them.

Yes, GW is not a technology adopter, they usually adopt something after virtually everybody else did and usually do so in an inadequate way, for example finecast.

GW's first "bold" attempt at 3D sculpting was a test, they produced the base for the warhammer giant, while the giant and many kits after that were done traditionally, GW's first true attempts happened the last two years with kits been digitally produced, by the point they did the warhammer giant's base many boutique one man companies already produced ranges of models at least as an experiment, from memory a company producing grey aliens in spacesuits was the first company to utilize 3D sculpting to produce models for wargaming, if we extend out of wargaming 3D sculpting was already used from bandai, other plastic model companies and of course a plethora of companies making 1/6 scale figures. GW entered the 3D arena way after wargames factory produced their first kits, in time when other companies started using or had used for a few years 3D sculpting and printing for prototyping and models casting, if nothing else wargames factory digital sprew technology seems years ahead from what GW has at the moment, it even avoids making connection points so small that glue cannot fit in automatically.

Right. So because their first digital test wasn't "ZOMG THAT'S AMAZING I MUST HAVE IT!" you're going to say they are backwards. Of COURSE the first test was simple and small. They have a crap ton of time/money/effort sunk into their manufacturing pipeline and it doesn't take much to ruin that (just ask Mongoose publishing how it worked out for them on SST and BF EVO). Also, my point was NOT that GW is "the most advanced toy/model company in the world", so bringing one man bands making garage kits and one offs that were all fairly simple isn't really the same thing, nor is Bandai an apt comparison. If we're going to go to such silly lengths to bash GW's perceived technical ineptitude then why not mention that BMW is and has been using a laser-cut process for it's sculpted masters for years now. Why isn't GW keeping up with them? I specifically said MINIS company. I made my first model on a stereolithography machine in 1999 (my first job out of college was in rapid prototyping). Does that make ME more advanced than GW? No. Because you know what I did with it? Nothing. Just like the one man boutiques you bring up. You and I will simply have to agree to disagree on Wargames factory sprues vs GW sprues.

Digital publication, I don't know CB offers their entire rulebook and army lists almost a decade now, not been limited to them, digital publication is something most companies adapted to one or the other extend at least a decade before GWs attempts this year and why exactly you think GWs attempt is serious, or more serious than everybody elses?

Because it was. CB didn't have their stuff online because of tech. They had it there because it was the only thing they could do. Do you know how long that game went before anyone in the U.S. actually saw a printed rule book? You know, a plain, simple, old school, "technologically backward" paper book? Also, what they had up was basically pdf scans. Meh. Admittedly it's been a while since I checked back with CB, but GW was the first to take advantage of things like the iPAD. Now if you want to knock them for only supporting iOS for now, that's legitimate, but really, the quality and utility of their digital codexes is top of the line right now. Auto-updates on FAQ's, pull out 360/zoom features on photos, etc, etc.

Now as far as GW's kit go, I am from those who think choking a miniature with "details" and putting it in a default blunt pose that that things can be staked on it and look as if somebody stacked things on something instead of been part of the model, does not make a model great, yes they have the means to make bulk production, bandai has too and they make more intriguing multiposed models, but the ability to make bulk production does not make them a technology adapter.

Ok, Bandai again. Yep. Totally the same thing. So even though that's a flawed comparison and demonstrates that you have a spurious understanding of this at best, I'm going to play along with you. My statement was that GWs plastics (pay attention to the italics - it will make sense later) are currently the best in the minis industry and that while other companies are close and/or might get there with a little time (there's that one Kickstarter that could catch them by tomorrow in terms of quality, but they still can't match production), GW is still leading the technological pack". So you bring in someone from outside the industry who makes products from radically different materials for dramatically different uses and demographics and use that to say GW sucks? If that's the case, then EVERY minis company now sucks and we can end this discussion.

As far as the rest of the above quote - ie "choked with details ...". You're confusing your personal artistic tastes as somehow having anything at all to do with quality manufacturing. Here's how it works - if you don't like the detail or poses, then your issue is with the design team and has nothing AT ALL to do with anything we are talking about here. No one wants a lecture on casting tolerances in thermo-set plastics so I'll save the space. Suffice it to say, that level of detail is something no one else is consistently, reliably achieving right now, and it's something that not so long ago would have been considered impossible.

What is worse is GW has the technology to do many things sliding mould technology was demonstrated on the baneblade and then it has not been used again, the company that sold them the technology in an interview revealed so many things GW could do with their technology and yet GW has not used most of them.

Because licensing on that tech is expensive. It would also have required a dramatic refit of some of their production line, AND it's not really necessary on the vast majority of their kits. In fact, they could even have done the BB without it. They made a business decision. Also, if you're going to fault them for that, then, like your point about Bandai, EVERYONE in the minis industry is weak on tech because no one else has adopted that either.

Yes, GW is not a technology adopter, they usually adopt something after virtually everybody else did and usually do so in an inadequate way, for example finecast.

You really haven't presented any solid evidence to support that supposition. Also, how on earth does finecast equate to them adopting something hi-tech AFTER everyone else. Finecast is generally considered cheap and inadequate. So you're saying GW just waited until everyone else created a market for bad resin models and jumped on the bandwagon?

Look, as far as finecast goes - outside of a somewhat brittle Skulltaker, I've had no problems. That being said I've seen MANY people who have. The brittleness of the models combined with the copious amounts of air-bubbles tells me GW deliberately picked a resin (or possibly a urethane) that would set up very very quickly. This would allow them to crank out more models at a faster rate but with the drawback that the parts are brittle and the material does not have enough time to off-gas before the reaction completes and the material hardens. So it was a business decision to do this. It had nothing to do with tech and any my point was about (remember the italics from earlier?) GW's PLASTICS. You want to bash finecast go right ahead, but at least understand that Finecast's failings have nothing to do with tech and everything to do with GW wanting to crank out a product that will cost them next to nothing to produce and not caring about it's quality issues.

Tycho wrote:

As far as the rest of the above quote - ie "choked with details ...". You're confusing your personal artistic tastes as somehow having anything at all to do with quality manufacturing. Here's how it works - if you don't like the detail or poses, then your issue is with the design team and has nothing AT ALL to do with anything we are talking about here. No one wants a lecture on casting tolerances in thermo-set plastics so I'll save the space. Suffice it to say, that level of detail is something no one else is consistently, reliably achieving right now, and it's something that not so long ago would have been considered impossible.

This. Truth. I was never that good in materials engineering, but I grasped enough of the basics to understand that cramming that amount of detail with the level of fidelity that it had was pretty amazing.

For me technology is technology, they have it, they do not use it, this shows a reluctance in using or adopting it.

Smaller industry even one man shows used 3D prototyping first, so GW is not an early adopter, they adopted it later when they were sure it has matured, when people create models and they create just a base to test it and then nothing for years, I do not see early adoption, spearheading of technology or anything I see a reluctant company been pushed to technology.

And this is in everything they do, for me I do not think they will adopt 3D printing before most other companies smaller than them do so.

And no their ipad codexes are not in my opinion anything revolutionary, or serious, decry PDF all you want they existed before are quite serious and essentially the same thing.

For me technology is technology, they have it, they do not use it, this shows a reluctance in using or adopting it.

Smaller industry even one man shows used 3D prototyping first, so GW is not an early adopter, they adopted it later when they were sure it has matured, when people create models and they create just a base to test it and then nothing for years, I do not see early adoption, spearheading of technology or anything I see a reluctant company been pushed to technology.

And this is in everything they do, for me I do not think they will adopt 3D printing before most other companies smaller than them do so.

lol So it's like I said then. According to your remarkably narrow view/understanding, not only is GW not a hi-end company, NO ONE else is either. Which means, if we follow your line of reasoning, not only will in-home 3d printers put GW out of business, they will put EVERYONE out of business.

And no their ipad codexes are not in my opinion anything revolutionary, or serious, decry PDF all you want they existed before are quite serious and essentially the same thing.

And more demonstrable lack of understanding. You really don't see the difference here? Fair enough.

3D printing is far to expensive compared the the Very fast, very easy resin cast method, model for model.

Wile the technology for 3d Printing will advance a long way in years to come. So will the basic method of Resin casting. becoming faster and cheaper.

I also have to bring up the hobby side of this. In order for 3d printing to be effective it will have to print an entire model in one piece. Separate pieces being printed on a 3d printer will raise the cost considerably, and no company will want to do this. And so it takes away the model making aspect of the hobby. Now there are plenty of people that are only in the hobby for the game, the types of people that get all there models from painting studios that convert/build and paint entire armies for them. But i will bet there are a lot more in it for the Modeling and painting aspect.

Wile it would be amazing to have a 3d printer here I could whip out a custom unit on. Or maybe some Night lords that don't look like they stole there helms off of a Brettonian knight. I still think that the Cost per model is the biggest factor in this, there is no 3d company on this earth that can produce as many models as GW does per day. or as cheaply.

And lets be honest the models GW produce are great. the plastic is always smooth, and needs little clean up. Fine cast is a totally different story, we all know that fine-cast is not great, that's why GW released liquid green stuff around the same time

I think there are a few people that are of the opinion that if GW dont take on 3D printing as there main source of manufacture then they will go out of business, in 5 years. But 3D printing wile being a "source" of manufacture is not and will not be a source of "mass" manufacture, for a very long time. And by the time it does become a source of Mass manufacture on par with Resin casting, there will be a new thread posted about "Will this Star trek replicator put GW out of Business".

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
For me technology is technology, they have it, they do not use it, this shows a reluctance in using or adopting it.

Smaller industry even one man shows used 3D prototyping first, so GW is not an early adopter, they adopted it later when they were sure it has matured, when people create models and they create just a base to test it and then nothing for years, I do not see early adoption, spearheading of technology or anything I see a reluctant company been pushed to technology.

And this is in everything they do, for me I do not think they will adopt 3D printing before most other companies smaller than them do so.

And no their ipad codexes are not in my opinion anything revolutionary, or serious, decry PDF all you want they existed before are quite serious and essentially the same thing.

I am actually very inclined to believe that some of their newer models, such as the Heldrake, were 3D printed and then casted from there. Look at the assembly instructions for it, it's clearly taken from a CAD file. No one in their right mind will use 3D printing for massed production at GW's level - economies of scale means that GW is better off doing traditional mould casting. That doesn't stop them from building models in CAD and 3D printing them as a master for the mould.

And have you even seen their digital codices yet and use them?

 Enigwolf wrote:

I am actually very inclined to believe that some of their newer models, such as the Heldrake, were 3D printed and then casted from there. Look at the assembly instructions for it, it's clearly taken from a CAD file. No one in their right mind will use 3D printing for massed production at GW's level - economies of scale means that GW is better off doing traditional mould casting. That doesn't stop them from building models in CAD and 3D printing them as a master for the mould.

I believe a lot of GW's plastic kits have been created with 3d steps for years... Not necessarily 3d printing, though. 3d models can be used to control CNC equipment to mill molds with no need to print 3d shapes (except for proofing).

 cerbrus2 wrote:
Separate pieces being printed on a 3d printer will raise the cost considerably

What kind of 3D printing are we referring to here? For the most part, this is a false statement, and is especially so for 3D printers that print both the plastic and a base material that needs to be dissolved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Balance wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

I am actually very inclined to believe that some of their newer models, such as the Heldrake, were 3D printed and then casted from there. Look at the assembly instructions for it, it's clearly taken from a CAD file. No one in their right mind will use 3D printing for massed production at GW's level - economies of scale means that GW is better off doing traditional mould casting. That doesn't stop them from building models in CAD and 3D printing them as a master for the mould.

I believe a lot of GW's plastic kits have been created with 3d steps for years... Not necessarily 3d printing, though. 3d models can be used to control CNC equipment to mill molds with no need to print 3d shapes (except for proofing).

Using a 3D model to CNC mill a mould is typically used for larger projects such as automotive parts, not 28mm miniatures. The detail fidelity of the miniature works against the logic of using the process, as well as having to clean the mill lines. I doubt it.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 cerbrus2 wrote:
Separate pieces being printed on a 3d printer will raise the cost considerably

What kind of 3D printing are we referring to here? For the most part, this is a false statement, and is especially so for 3D printers that print both the plastic and a base material that needs to be dissolved.

Well can you see a company wanting to print each individual piece of a model to be assembled? Heads, Torsos, Legs,Arms, Guns. When it WILL be cheaper and and higher production numbers to print a entire figure in 1 piece, especially when a 3d printer could print a model allready on a base. I don't see how my statement is False? I fail to see how printing every single separate piece of a model kit in separate runs will improve productivity and costing. Printing a Sprue of a model like what we get in are boxes from GW, is a possibility, but this wastes Materiel that is un needed when using 3d printers. and also begs the question of why bother with 3d printing at all when its faster to cast that Sprue. But maybe we miss understand each other.

 cerbrus2 wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

 cerbrus2 wrote:
Separate pieces being printed on a 3d printer will raise the cost considerably

What kind of 3D printing are we referring to here? For the most part, this is a false statement, and is especially so for 3D printers that print both the plastic and a base material that needs to be dissolved.

Well can you see a company wanting to print each individual piece of a model to be assembled? Heads, Torsos, Legs,Arms, Guns. When it WILL be cheaper and and higher production numbers to print a entire figure in 1 piece, especially when a 3d printer could print a model allready on a base. I don't see how my statement is False? I fail to see how printing every single separate piece of a model kit in separate runs will improve productivity and costing. Printing a Sprue of a model like what we get in are boxes from GW, is a possibility, but this wastes Materiel that is un needed when using 3d printers. and also begs the question of why bother with 3d printing at all when its faster to cast that Sprue. But maybe we miss understand each other.

If you're using standard extrusion, you use the same amount of material to print all the parts unassembled or together in one piece. If you're printing in a support material, it's cheaper to print every part separately. It comes down to basic understanding of how a 3D printer works. You have a 3-dimensional block of printable space that your printer can print (say 5"x5"x5"), and then it's up to you to place your parts within that space to print. The moment you tessellate a model in there, you have a lot of wasted space. If you break it down into parts, you can fit more parts into the otherwise wasted space.

Say you have a model that's 3"x5"x5", you can only print one at a time. If that model can break down into 3 pieces of 1"x5"x5", you can print 5 pieces (which is 1 and 2/3s of another model). This saves you print time in the former example, and both print time and support material to be printed in the latter example. Both utilizes the same amount of plastic, unless you're printing a hollow miniature.

But then again, we're talking about using 3D printing for mass production, which will likely not hit the market for a very long time.

From what I see, GW should have a program that allows to cut the 3D model(s) in parts and plan them on a sprew automatically detecting poor placement and preventing bad sprew channels to maximize parts per sprew.

many companies in plastic sprew production have such programs and I had found recently one of the china factories that make plastic toy soldiers advertise their own custom program that is supposedly better than the off the selves ones.

No I do not own apple products and do not intend to own one again, so no I have not had the pleasure paying for them, I have seen their reviews on YouTube, they look like interactive PDF, I have seen quite a few and one was a miniature gaming magazine, I would call it groundbreaking if it could at least create you an army list and print it, inventory your army even make a shopping list for it, then yes I could call it groundbreaking, as it stands its an interactive PDF, bells and whistles but nothing more.

My point is not if GW uses modern technology, its when and if they decide to adopt it, if ever and how well they will do, finecast is a nice example, many companies at that point had done resin plastic models, GW decided to do the same, produced the atrocity we know.

And no cramming a sprew with parts that have detail, does not showcase technology, want to talk to me about the separate fingers of the female vampires in the throne of whatever, sure that is a really good technological feat worth discussing, they still can do far more, but decide to go slowly and I cannot understand why, they could do such kits almost a decade ago.

Now as far as 3D printing goes especially for miniatures on demand as we were talking, I do believe we will first see it on everybody else and if proven popular GW will follow, not the other way around.

You do not like my reasoning, fine.

On 3D printing in general: I think it's one of the most exciting 'up and coming' technologies right now. Who knows what the future may hold? I can envision printers connected to the internet through a digital rights management system (so the model data are never stored client side) that prints a whole host of goods ordered online, be that GW figures or toys from Argos.
It also brings up certain issues - you can already print in stainless steel for example, could people simply print out the major parts to build their own firearms?


Back on topic I think this technology will force GW to change their business model in the long-term (although I suspect this may already be the case) but it certainly won't 'kill off' the business.
Although people can already recast models if they have the skill and equipment the advent of affordable high quality 3D printing will make the process incredibly easy and sanitized. Maybe GW genuine figures in the future will have to be chipped or something to ID them as genuine.

I can't wait until someone I know buys a 3D printer so I print a 3D printer for myself

 Daedricbob wrote:
It also brings up certain issues - you can already print in stainless steel for example, could people simply print out the major parts to build their own firearms?

I'm pretty sure some gun nuts have already printed a working pistol and put the plans up for free on the internet so people can use them to stop Obama taking their other guns.

Back on topic, I don't think these will change anything at GW. Not because 3D printers won't have an impact, but rather because GW seem very slow to change.
They'll throw around a lot of legal threats they may or may not be able to back up and they'll kick and scream about it back at head office but once these are affordable enough to be in every home and detailed enough to print models GW will still be operating as it is. That, combined with all the other things they seem to be doing wrong lately will kill them.

PsychoticStorm wrote:From what I see, GW should have a program that allows to cut the 3D model(s) in parts and plan them on a sprew automatically detecting poor placement and preventing bad sprew channels to maximize parts per sprew.

many companies in plastic sprew production have such programs and I had found recently one of the china factories that make plastic toy soldiers advertise their own custom program that is supposedly better than the off the selves ones.

No I do not own apple products and do not intend to own one again, so no I have not had the pleasure paying for them, I have seen their reviews on YouTube, they look like interactive PDF, I have seen quite a few and one was a miniature gaming magazine, I would call it groundbreaking if it could at least create you an army list and print it, inventory your army even make a shopping list for it, then yes I could call it groundbreaking, as it stands its an interactive PDF, bells and whistles but nothing more.

My point is not if GW uses modern technology, its when and if they decide to adopt it, if ever and how well they will do, finecast is a nice example, many companies at that point had done resin plastic models, GW decided to do the same, produced the atrocity we know.

And no cramming a sprew with parts that have detail, does not showcase technology, want to talk to me about the separate fingers of the female vampires in the throne of whatever, sure that is a really good technological feat worth discussing, they still can do far more, but decide to go slowly and I cannot understand why, they could do such kits almost a decade ago.

Now as far as 3D printing goes especially for miniatures on demand as we were talking, I do believe we will first see it on everybody else and if proven popular GW will follow, not the other way around.

You do not like my reasoning, fine.

I'm glad you don't own an Apple product. I respect you that much more now, but while I do agree that it's not game-changing or ground-breaking in terms of concept, their digital codices are better than other similar systems out there that are merely just the print edition's proof copies. They actually put some thought into integration and utilizing the capabilities of having an interactive device, although I do agree that more could have been done.

A lot of your points have previously been answered by Tycho, including Finecast. Tycho also previously mentioned the technology required to produce high-fidelity kits like the DV ones in high quality and quantity.

I don't disagree that GW is going to take some time to adopt the technology, but again you need to remember that GW is a giant compared to these other, smaller companies like PP. In fact, it's the only large, publicly-traded company for the 28mm miniatures hobby if I am not mistaken. Overhauling a manufacturing process and line will cost them tremendous amounts of money and time, therefore it is in their nature that their tech adoption time is slower because their scale is far larger.

Daedricbob wrote:
It also brings up certain issues - you can already print in stainless steel for example, could people simply print out the major parts to build their own firearms?

A guy printed a plastic firearm in the US a few months back and released the designs online to boot. He was forced to take the designs down by government authorities.

 Enigwolf wrote:

Daedricbob wrote:
It also brings up certain issues - you can already print in stainless steel for example, could people simply print out the major parts to build their own firearms?

A guy printed a plastic firearm in the US a few months back and released the designs online to boot. He was forced to take the designs down by government authorities.

That is an ongoing case and either way the design is already on the inter webs forever.

Enigwolf

For me Tycho has answered nothing, my statement is GW does not go in first but lets others go in and then if proving successful then they go in themselves.

For me GW is not on the spearhead of innovating technology, just a reserved late adopter who uses his bulk to catch on, the smaller companies are at the spearhead.

I can only assume of course, but with 3D printable models the same would happen, smaller companies will adopt it exploit it, find its ropes and finally when proven successful, GW will adapt it.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Enigwolf

For me Tycho has answered nothing, my statement is GW does not go in first but lets others go in and then if proving successful then they go in themselves.

For me GW is not on the spearhead of innovating technology, just a reserved late adopter who uses his bulk to catch on, the smaller companies are at the spearhead.

I can only assume of course, but with 3D printable models the same would happen, smaller companies will adopt it exploit it, find its ropes and finally when proven successful, GW will adapt it.

And this is the nature of business and tech adoption with companies. Smaller companies are the innovators that experiment and try new things, large companies either come along and gobble them up or simply throw the resources they have to do it better. A company like Privateer Press can afford to experiment with new technologies in their production and supply chain - if something breaks or if it doesn't work it, it's not too much to change it back. A company like GW can't - a massive commitment of resources to overhaul and try a new manufacturing process that flunks will cost them millions of dollars, and probably a lot of investors when their stock price drops as a result of the reporting of it. It's not an issue of "GW sucks", but the nature of GW's size working against it.

That being said, I'm quite sure that the designers, artists, and sculptors at GW (not the businessmen in the suits up top) are well aware of this technology and probably either have been keeping an eye on it or are already experimenting with it. As a consumer, at the end of the day, all we see are the products that they provide to us, but not the processes behind them or the failed ventures that have been tried. Who knows?

I have gone in with a few guys at work and we are buying a 3d printer. It should be in the office in a few weeks. I am looking forward to seeing what it is capable of. At the very least I am sure I will be able to make some terrain pieces and bases. If in can do fine enough work I can maybe make some weapon load outs.

Once I have some stuff I will post to my gallery.

What printer did you get, and is it 100 or 25 micron Capable ?

 adamsouza wrote:
What printer did you get, and is it 100 or 25 micron Capable ?

We are getting the makerbot replicator 2. It can go down to a 100 micron layer. I think it should have no problem making good looking terrain pieces and probably some bits. Maybe a combi weapon or 2.

http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html

I had considered getting a Markerbot brand printer myself. Decided to hold out for something in the 25 micron capable range.

I'm that the rest of the reader of this thread, and myself, would be interested in seeing anything you create with it

 adamsouza wrote:
I had considered getting a Markerbot brand printer myself. Decided to hold out for something in the 25 micron capable range.

I'm that the rest of the reader of this thread, and myself, would be interested in seeing anything you create with it

We got this one because we all work for Autodesk and Autodesk is a partner with Makerbot so we got a pretty healthy discount on the printer. Once you factor in the number of us "investing" the cost per person is pretty low. $100. After that it, is just material costs, which are pretty low on this particular machine.

I'm surprised the Form 1 hasn't been mentioned yet... it's supposed to be able to hit 25 microns, too, I believe. I'm waiting on one but they're behind schedule, I really hope it ships in the next 2 months.

Is 25 microns what shapeways uses for the frosted detail?

Is 25 microns good for 28mm, 1/72, or 15mm?

I have things from Shapeways. 25 microns is not good enough for miniatures without making it look as though your miniatures were made from stone.

I was under the impression that shapeways is 100 micron.

The 25 micron printed stuff I've seen was smooth

Interesting little bit of info on the BBC news website:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22984875" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22984875

Stratasys buys 3D printing firm MakerBot for $403m
MakerBot, the company that sells "affordable" 3D printers, has been acquired by industrial 3D printing giant Stratasys.
The companies said it was a stock-for-stock transaction worth about $403m (£260m).
The deal will allow Stratasys to compete in the burgeoning consumer market for 3D printing, said experts.
But it has surprised some commentators, given that MakerBot has sold just 22,000 3D printers to date.
Retail store
MakerBot was co-founded by former school teacher Bre Pettis in 2009 and quickly became synonymous with low-end 3D printing.
Its $2,200 (£1,400) Replicator 2 is its most popular machine, favoured by hobbyists and manufacturers who use the machines to build prototypes and parts.
Ford Motor Company is one of its more high-profile customers.
The firm also runs a highly-successful community site which has become a leading marketplace for 3D printable digital models.
The site has more than 90,000 files which are downloaded about a million times each month.
Recently MakerBot opened a retail printing store in New York.
Design blueprints
"The last couple of years have been incredibly inspiring and exciting for us," said Mr Pettis in a statement.
"We have an aggressive model for growth, and partnering with Stratasys will allow us to supercharge our mission to empower individuals to make things using a MakerBot, and allow us to bring 3D technology to more people."
Stratasys's cheapest 3D printer is the Mojo which costs $10,000 (£6,500).
Some analysts believe the tie-up was an admittance that it could no longer compete with MakerBot in the consumer market.
" Stratasys is planning to grow into the consumer space," said IDC analyst Arnaud Gagneux.
"Soon the issue will move to the ownership of the design blueprint, licensing the designs, very much like the copyright issues with movies and music.
"Makerbot's online service, Thingiverse.com, helps address this issue about what objects consumers want," he said.
Whether the tie-up will represent the first step towards mass adoption of 3D printers in homes, remains to be seen, he thinks.
"We see clear niches for these devices in workshops, with architects, for short run prototypes and customised products," he added.
"However, in the current economic climate there are no indicators that households would prioritise this technology above other personal IT devices or leisure activities."
MakerBot will operate as a subsidiary of Stratasys and Bre Pettis will remain in charge.

 Wolfstan wrote:
Interesting little bit of info on the BBC news website:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22984875" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22984875

Stratasys buys 3D printing firm MakerBot for $403m
MakerBot, the company that sells "affordable" 3D printers, has been acquired by industrial 3D printing giant Stratasys.
The companies said it was a stock-for-stock transaction worth about $403m (£260m).
The deal will allow Stratasys to compete in the burgeoning consumer market for 3D printing, said experts.
But it has surprised some commentators, given that MakerBot has sold just 22,000 3D printers to date.
Retail store
MakerBot was co-founded by former school teacher Bre Pettis in 2009 and quickly became synonymous with low-end 3D printing.
Its $2,200 (£1,400) Replicator 2 is its most popular machine, favoured by hobbyists and manufacturers who use the machines to build prototypes and parts.
Ford Motor Company is one of its more high-profile customers.
The firm also runs a highly-successful community site which has become a leading marketplace for 3D printable digital models.
The site has more than 90,000 files which are downloaded about a million times each month.
Recently MakerBot opened a retail printing store in New York.
Design blueprints
"The last couple of years have been incredibly inspiring and exciting for us," said Mr Pettis in a statement.
"We have an aggressive model for growth, and partnering with Stratasys will allow us to supercharge our mission to empower individuals to make things using a MakerBot, and allow us to bring 3D technology to more people."
Stratasys's cheapest 3D printer is the Mojo which costs $10,000 (£6,500).
Some analysts believe the tie-up was an admittance that it could no longer compete with MakerBot in the consumer market.
" Stratasys is planning to grow into the consumer space," said IDC analyst Arnaud Gagneux.
"Soon the issue will move to the ownership of the design blueprint, licensing the designs, very much like the copyright issues with movies and music.
"Makerbot's online service, Thingiverse.com, helps address this issue about what objects consumers want," he said.
Whether the tie-up will represent the first step towards mass adoption of 3D printers in homes, remains to be seen, he thinks.
"We see clear niches for these devices in workshops, with architects, for short run prototypes and customised products," he added.
"However, in the current economic climate there are no indicators that households would prioritise this technology above other personal IT devices or leisure activities."
MakerBot will operate as a subsidiary of Stratasys and Bre Pettis will remain in charge.

IN conjunction with this announcement Makerbot announced it has plans for a consumer level laser digitizer due out in the fall. You can then potentially put something (a model) into the digitizer, and just basically press the "copy" button and get a 3d print of the thing out of the printer. I have seen some pretty good looking stuff 3d printed from a "digitized" model made with Autodesk's 123d Catch. This allows someone to take a series of pictures of an object from a variety of angles and a 3d model is synthesized out of this. It works better on larger scale objects like monuments or buildings, but I would expect this new laser digitizer to work at a much smaller scale and produce reasonable results. Something to watch for sure.

Well the printer listed in the original post is being view pretty much now as a hoax by most tech experts, this interesting little one just showed up on KS.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pirate3d/the-buccaneer-the-3d-printer-that-everyone-can-use

Is basic filament, but clocking in at $400, is about as close to bargain hobbyist as your going to get these days. Is the equivalent of the Makerbot 2 and here are the stats for the curious.

Crap, it looks like I'm about to be out $497 for a printer and 10 cartridges

The Buccaneer seems intriguing, but I think plastic extrusion isn't where I'd invest my money.

 Enigwolf wrote:
I have things from Shapeways. 25 microns is not good enough for miniatures without making it look as though your miniatures were made from stone.

What do you mean by "made of stone"?

Fairly rough texture.

I've ordered a few test parts from Shapeways, and I think you must be talking about a different material.

Their 'Strong, White, Flexible' (cheapest material) is indeed pretty rough.

However their Frosted Ultra Detail (highest detail/most expensive 'plastic') is quite smooth, and has a resolution of 100 microns. The pieces I have blend in seamlessly with my models, but the striations are still slightly visible so won't take drybrushing super well.
They also needed a bit of cleanup, and (worst of all) the shipping to Aus makes it non-viable.

No, this will definitely not put GW out of buisiness. I mean think about it, no one is going to buy one of these unless you're a big company. Even then, getting the exact schematics for a perfect mold must be hard. But I can possibly see companies getting one of these and making illegal figs. I really think they'd get the old cease and desist very quickly from GW though. So anyway you look at it, at least right now, this isn't feasible.

Trasvi wrote:
I've ordered a few test parts from Shapeways, and I think you must be talking about a different material.

Their 'Strong, White, Flexible' (cheapest material) is indeed pretty rough.

However their Frosted Ultra Detail (highest detail/most expensive 'plastic') is quite smooth, and has a resolution of 100 microns. The pieces I have blend in seamlessly with my models, but the striations are still slightly visible so won't take drybrushing super well.
They also needed a bit of cleanup, and (worst of all) the shipping to Aus makes it non-viable.

If you look at the details of the process for it, the Frosted Ultra Detail has already been cleaned up/smoothened out as part of the support material removal process.

Honestly... I think that this machine (or, more accurately, whatever it's grandchild looks like) is more interesting for original fabrication than trying to copy GW - it would be great for terrain, but only so so for miniatures of people or critters.

The Auld Grump

Here is a picture of some 3-D printed and painted models.



All the detail you would expect in a regular miniature is there. After primer it's exactly like any other figure. There is a lot of detail not captured with the painting (it was done mid-level for commission).

To be blunt - those look terrible. Detail is mushy and very sparse compared to even some of the worst 3rd party bits makers out there.

Granted, this could be in the base model used to create these, but they're terrible as an example of showing off what these printers can do. Gat anything better?

Those look just as good as the Plastic Orlocks and Goliaths that Necromunda came with.

They do not look grainy and stone like as other posters suggested.

 adamsouza wrote:
Those look just as good as the Plastic Orlocks and Goliaths that Necromunda came with.

That's the problem. Looking like 15 -20 year old single pose plastics isn't much of an accomplishment these days.

 adamsouza wrote:
They do not look grainy and stone like as other posters suggested.

I wasn't suggesting this - merely asking for better examples of what these printers can do. If the best they can do is that, companies casting models don't have anything to worry about yet.

'Good for gaming' seems like a catch-all phrase meaning 'looks like garbage'.

 adamsouza wrote:
Those look just as good as the Plastic Orlocks and Goliaths that Necromunda came with.

Which, as has already been pointed out, is about a decade old. They lack the detail fidelity of more recent releases.

They do not look grainy and stone like as other posters suggested.

Because you can file the surfaces down or just cover it with a thick enough coat of paint. I want to see the models fresh off the printer.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

That's not even including the cost of the material needed to make all of those squads... the actual cost of printing those few dozen squads will be more than the $2800.

 McNinja wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
It will take a while before the 3D scanners and printers, programming knowledge, and materials will pay themselves off. $2800 for the printer alone? A couple hundred squads should do it...

That's not even including the cost of the material needed to make all of those squads... the actual cost of printing those few dozen squads will be more than the $2800.

ABS/PLA is relatively cheap.

 -Loki- wrote:

I wasn't suggesting this - merely asking for better examples of what these printers can do. If the best they can do is that, companies casting models don't have anything to worry about yet.

'Good for gaming' seems like a catch-all phrase meaning 'looks like garbage'.

You may not think these look so great, I actually don't think they look all that bad (glass half full or half empty). I do think this is something companies casting models need to start thinking now about now. How are these devices are going to change the way they do business? Perhaps they are already thinking about it, they would be foolish not too? I think it would be a mistake to dismiss these devices outright as a non-threat. Instead figure out how to monetize the technology for yourself. How can the business change based on this? How can we make money with this?

I may have stated before in this tread or another like it, imagine if there was something like a GW authorized "design studio" type of application where a customer could design a custom model from some predefined parts created by GW. Maybe have the ability to do some basic posing of the parts/model and perhaps some custom base options, then allow the customer to "print" the custom model. Right now the consumer grade tools might not be adequate to do this but maybe a more commercial grade 3d printer could be set up to produce acceptable models?

Maybe GW has already looked at something like this and don't think they could make money or the technology is ready YET (but in my opinion it is close). It will be ready in the not too distant future. the question is how will GW react.

Lets put it this way:

Paper printers have been around for how long now?

How soon will books become extinct?

Heck, the biggest threat to the printed press doesn't come from home printers, it comes from digital equivalents.

So it stands to reason that the biggest threat to miniature companies doesn't come from these 3D printers (and the current miniature quality that we can get out of these really is awful btw), it comes from digital games, and these have been around for over 30 years! I think that GW, PP et all don't have any reason to be shaking in their boots just yet!

How much does a single 28mm costs to print in one of these anyway? And how long does it take?

PhantomViper wrote:

How much does a single 28mm costs to print in one of these anyway? And how long does it take?

Couple of bucks, if you're just counting cost of material and not amortizing the fixed costs as part of the model. It can a few days up to a week, depending on model detail, printer, micron level, and type of printing.

Soon you might be able to 3d print stuff right at a local store. You already can if you live in San Diego.


http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4578244/ups-launches-3d-printing-san-diego-other-us-cities-soon

I recently got access to a 3d printer at work so I took the opportunity to make a computer model and 3d print of an aegis defense line. The computer model turned out pretty good.



Today I ran the 3d print run. I printed out one long section (seen in the background of the photo) and one shorter segment. It looks a bit strange in the photo because clear plastic was loaded n the printer and there is some weird colored LED lights in the printer. I think it came out decent. I will try painting it up this weekend and post up some pics of it painted.



With an Orc behind for scale

Oh look, more unpaid for advertisement in the guise of (look what i found!) just what the Internet doctor ordered

Strayan wrote:
Oh look, more unpaid for advertisement in the guise of (look what i found!) just what the Internet doctor ordered

I actually find both the news story about UPS offering 3d printing in their franchise stores and the examples of the terrain piece to be very interesting and topical to the thread. I saw no links to a commercial site where I could buy something. What's being advertised? If there's anything, you should report it by using the appropriate button on the post and let a moderator know the thread is being spammed.

Loborocket wrote:
I recently got access to a 3d printer at work so I took the opportunity to make a computer model and 3d print of an aegis defense line. The computer model turned out pretty good.

I'm actually surprised at how such a simple design turned out to work pretty well.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I'm actually surprised at how such a simple design turned out to work pretty well.

The simple designs usually turn out fine. It's the complex/detailed ones that aren't quite doable yet. Once that hurdle has been... hurdled? we can grab the torches and pitchforks and storm the bastille. Well, as soon as someone begins designing figures for free, that is.

Strayan wrote:
Oh look, more unpaid for advertisement in the guise of (look what i found!) just what the Internet doctor ordered

I am not advertising anything. I am sorry if I offended you. I happen to work for a software company and am exposed/have access to this stuff and thought people were interested, so I have posted some information and the results of my experiments in a thread that is about the topic of 3d printing.

Mods, please feel free to remove my posts if they are in violation of any board policies.

If you were violating board policies, I imagine some action would have been taking in the previous 10 weeks this thread has been going. I think you should maybe just ignore that guy.

I saw a dreadnought at the store I sometimes go to and though- hey, those are weird arm attachments- where did I see them before- BAMM SHAPEWAYS FLASHBACK. The detail on them was very good, but there were a small amount of rough areas- nothing sandpaper couldn't fix.

Looks pretty good.

On anoter note, I got an email form Makerbot saying their 3D scanner is going on sale next week.

For someone like me who scratch builds instead of designs with 3D software, a 3D scanner and printer combo would be awesome. I could scratch build something once, scan it, and make as many as I need.

I have seen some stuff on the scanner. Looks like it could be something to investigate. I like doing te 3d computer models. That is just as fun to me as doing the "real life" models. I am investigating building some dynamic content which could follow some basic rules and change geometry each time it is printed. Imagine an " orky" structure that changes the basic arrangement (rotation, cut pattern, etc) of the panels each time. Or a wall of a ruined building that colapses in a unique way each time. Basically a "custom" model that is built once, but is never exactly the same twice.

I'd like to do 3D computer models, but I don't have the drive to teach myself with online tutorials. It's something I would have to take a class with an actual instructor for.

Any chance you could do that Aegis line in a solid coloured material, and give us some closeups?

It looks okay, but I'm seeing what look like stepping lines through the angled areas - which has been the big problem with doing this sort of stuff. It requires a lot of post printing work to get them looking comparable to regularly cast models.

Clear material and photos taken from that distance hide these well enough. Printed in a solid colour plus some actual closeups would be nice to see the actual detail level.

Yeah I actually am an instructor for 3d modeling applications, and author the official help files.

This model was done in clear because that was what was in the machine at the time. I can do other colors. I am in the process of painting this clear one right now and will post pics when I am done. I would not say the detail level is high, but it is passable for something like this.

Or (only if you're ready) hit the 3d print with some white or grey primer. That'd give people a good idea of how it turned out.

Gamers will love 3D printing. Modellers, painters and collectors won't get on board with it and GW have always said they target collectors.

They've seen off video games, I'm sure a lot of people thought CoD et al. would destroy them.

3d printing could open the hobby up to new factions and more personalized versions of existing ones. GW could even sell a template or even run its own 3d printing service which would be using top of the line printers rather than what the average user would have at home.
The user uses proprietory software to design some minis then pays GW to print them off for them. The software would include standarized parts like weapons so that the minis blend in with the regular game pieces.
Who knows, they could even run competitions for designing new models with the winner being chosen as a production model - of course they could do that now...at least they could if they restricted it to 3d designs rather than physical models.
There are a lot of options for a company like GW to take assuming they want to stay in the tabletop gaming business in the future.

cadbren wrote:
3d printing could open the hobby up to new factions and more personalized versions of existing ones. GW could even sell a template or even run its own 3d printing service which would be using top of the line printers rather than what the average user would have at home.
The user uses proprietory software to design some minis then pays GW to print them off for them. The software would include standarized parts like weapons so that the minis blend in with the regular game pieces.
Who knows, they could even run competitions for designing new models with the winner being chosen as a production model - of course they could do that now...at least they could if they restricted it to 3d designs rather than physical models.
There are a lot of options for a company like GW to take assuming they want to stay in the tabletop gaming business in the future.

I think this is a pretty god take on what the possibilities could be. I am just about done painting up the ADL models I pictured above so I do have some additional thoughts as I have just about taken a sample model through the process of design, fabrication, painting, & play. Once I am done with it I will post pics of the painted model and my additional thoughts.

Stay tuned.

Eager to see that defense wall painted. It looks good right now 3 ft away and with clear resin. Want to see how it looks painted because that is the real test.

Reading some of the "Enter the Citadel" event reports from a few months ago. 3D Printers were brought up at the design panel. Jes Goodwin stated GW sees the technology not reaching an acceptable level for lower end units for another ~5 years. He personally saw at that point, GW would set up units in their stores and people could order prints and pick them up. He still believed it would be another 10 years before they reached a printer in every home.

Here are a few images of the 3d prints all painted up. I included some of my other completed model for reference of my painting skills etc...







I think they came out reasonable. They are a bit long because I was working from bad dimensions. I have a better set of dimensions for my revised attempts (yes I will continue making these).

Here are some details about the process.

I designed these with Autodesk 3d software. I work for Autodesk so have access to basically every piece of software we make. Specifically I used Revit and 3ds Max to design the model. It took about 2.5 hours to model everything up.

The 3d models were printed on the Makerbot Replicator 2 basically the first "consumer" grade 3d printer. The printer costs around $1800. I used clear PLA plastic and printed at "standard" resolution. Total printing time was about 2.5 hours but there was some other stuff on the printer bed at the same time I ran this. Cost of the material used in this print is a total of $1.25.

I painted the models with rustolum spray primer and then used Americana craft paint to paint the model finishing with a. Layer of quick shade varnish.

Overall I think the 3d printing has promise when making something with relatively low detail. Higher level detail is possible but because of the material and process it is difficult to paint the details because the edge tends to be a bit "fuzzy" and there is not much you can do to solve that. Stuff without a huge amount of detail will look fine on the table at 3'away but drops off when you get closer.

I think this process would be great for making terrain type pieces like the ADL, sky shield, or bastions. One nice thing about this is you can very easily customize the models. For example I am working on an ADL for orks rut now and it is basically a bunch of panels leaning on a structure of poles. The panels could fairly easily be created in the 3 d model in such a way that the shapes and
Pattern of the could be "randomized" along the wall making each ork ADL a "custom" design. This same idea could be applied to something like a ruined walls so a phisic engine is applied breaking a wall(s) up differently each time making custom ruins. This concept is exciting to me.

I could easily see a gaming club buying something like this as a club resource and using it to make things like this for games building up a terrain library or printing custom terrain for specific scenarios. I bought in to this particular 3d printer in a club started at work. So I have acces to the printer a $100 share. $100 would only buy a couple pieces of terrain so I think I will get back my investment pretty easy.

I think the 3d printer can also be used to print some bits for particular uses where a lower resolution part is ok and looks fine mixed with other models. I think for my next experiment I a going to print out a mount for a razorback turret weapon. I have a rhino model and a razorback model but without an extra weapon mount I can use the lascanon gun that comes with the razorback sprue. That is a part that is really unnoticeable on the model and will work fine to give me a 2nd razorback. I am also thinking of using defcoptas from AoBR to make some ork war bikers and will probably print some parts for that project.

So to answer the question posed on this thread, "Will this thing put GW out of business?" I don't think so, at least not in the immediate future. In a few years, possibly. I think GW would be fools to not begin experiments with this technology now so they will be ready before the competition. This is one of those things you probably want to get to market sooner with some drawbacks rather than attempting or waiting for everything to be perfect with the technology. If you wait that long it is possible your competition will have already passed you.

I know when other companies get 3d printed masters, they sand and polish them to remove the horizontal printing lines before they make molds of them.

Those prints turned out great!

I have to smile at the earlier poster who suggested that everyone could create 3d designs as it was easy. I recently played around with sculptris and that's supposedly an entry level program.

The average person doesn't have the time to become cognizant in every new technology that exists now, let alone what will come.

There will always be a need for specialists, at least until there isn't. An STC that can produce pretty much anything may not be that far off.

They look decent from a distance, which is fair enough for terrain. As soon as you zoom in, you can see stepping lines across the edges and striations through the surface of the material.

Really not up to par for doing actual models, though for bashing out some quick terrain it certainly did the job.

Deleted due to duplicate entry elsewhere.