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If you're not familiar with 3-D printing, it's basically magic (q.v. Clarke, Arthur C). You put a bag of dust in a machine and it turns it into a 3-D object, even with moving parts. Search youtube and be amazed.

Anyhoo, these machines cost thousands of pounds right now, but we all know things like that get cheaper, and fast, not to mention much, much better. (Remember how much your first inkjet printer cost? Now they're actually cheaper than the ink, ye gods!).

The day when 3D printing hits the home-user is coming, probably within 5-10 years. And every single one of us has at least the incentive to use it... And the temptation to abuse it.

Imagine the day when pirate bay has torrents not just of army books, but every model. It'll come, believe me.

Could Citadel and others even survive? Particularly if 3-D prints are good enough that, once painted, they are indistinguishable from the original?

Assuming the big manufacturers do survive (and I think they will, even if they take a beating from piracy) how will it affect them, and us?

Will we be able to purchase legal schematics online? (Would they stop selling models entirely and ONLY sell schematics?)

Will it be a golden age for converters, or will it end the golden age as anyone with a printer and a copy of MS paint starts whipping up whatever they fancy?

Will you 3-D scan your face and put it on all your models?

Do a search this topic has been discussed at length.

I don't think it will affect things for a very long time. As I understand it, 3D printing can only produce materials made of resin. And the current technology at least only produces pieces that have a distinct striped appearance because of the layers of printing. And you need special, soft resin to get any kind of detail out of the process. So you may be able to get a model out of the process, but it may not be a model that is suitable for the table top.

I don't think the technology will improve and fall in price as fast as inkjet technology because the market for 3D printing is way smaller. Everyone needs things on paper. Not everyone needs or even wants a bunch of plastic doo-dads.

I think for the forseeable future, it's far more cost-effective to use a 3D printer for prototype model bits (what they were essentially designed for: rapid prototyping) and then make molds of those bits to mass produce them the old-fashioned way. I see more smaller model companies getting a foothold in this market, and possibly some piracy may increase but it won't undermine the market. 3D modelling is still a somewhat rare skill, and I expect for the next several decades at least the people who can whip out a decent looking 3D computer model to make a 3D print of will be a fairly rare subset of the population.

As for putting my face on my models, I play beastmen, so it's kinda already been done for me.

It won't. You have to know how to use the software, etc. to design objects for printing. Thats something that won't get any easier. At best, that skill will be limited to a select few. 3d scanning technology(the tech required to put your own face on every model) is still a long ways away, farther out than 'desktop' 3d printing, and has associated health risks and costs.

Clthomps wrote:Do a search this topic has been discussed at length.

So let's not ever discuss it again.

Azezel wrote:If you're not familiar with 3-D printing, it's basically magic (q.v. Clarke, Arthur C). You put a bag of dust in a machine and it turns it into a 3-D object, even with moving parts. Search youtube and be amazed.

Anyhoo, these machines cost thousands of pounds right now, but we all know things like that get cheaper, and fast, not to mention much, much better. (Remember how much your first inkjet printer cost? Now they're actually cheaper than the ink, ye gods!).

The day when 3D printing hits the home-user is coming, probably within 5-10 years. And every single one of us has at least the incentive to use it... And the temptation to abuse it.

Imagine the day when pirate bay has torrents not just of army books, but every model. It'll come, believe me.

Could Citadel and others even survive? Particularly if 3-D prints are good enough that, once painted, they are indistinguishable from the original?

Assuming the big manufacturers do survive (and I think they will, even if they take a beating from piracy) how will it affect them, and us?

Will we be able to purchase legal schematics online? (Would they stop selling models entirely and ONLY sell schematics?)

Will it be a golden age for converters, or will it end the golden age as anyone with a printer and a copy of MS paint starts whipping up whatever they fancy?

Will you 3-D scan your face and put it on all your models?

As soon as I can figure out how, I'm going to make a life size 3d model of Bettie Page.

As for the wargaming aspect, its already being used, so what do you want to start with?

I see a step away from having to depend on a game company to pay a sculpter, a painter, and a designer, more or less putting three or five people out of a job to work on 1 computer program, that when finished will be able to crank out figures for an army without having to buy kits. After all, why build a model when you can just go buy the program, go get yourself a couple of bags of gak, fill them in the machine, and presto, instant painted army of whatever you want.

No more need for paint, no more need for glue, no more need for packaging, no more need for....

90% of the background workers for a gaming company.

That would then mean more choices, more companies, more games, OR one or two choices with the games while they run around playing whack a mole on mom and pop shops cranking out thier own games.

If you haven't figured it out yet, this sort of modeling is the future.

Now where do I sign up? Bettie and me have a date!

Chapterhouse as well as a number of other small companies have started utilizing such 3D-printing to produce kits and bits. I've made a number of bits with 3D printing for myself and commission.

@chaosoxomega: The 3D scanning you're thinking of is a bit different than what any miniature company would ever use. Right now there are three common commercially available methods of scanning. The first is a whole booth that laser scans the individual and can be accurate to .0001". Next is 360 degree photographic method, where a video camera circles 360 degrees around a subject and a calibrated computer extrapolates through its software the the individuals geometry. Finally there is a more simplified version of that which uses 8 still photographs at specific offset angles to the individual to construct the model, this being less accurate than the previous. None are health risks.

HP is releasing a $10,000 3D printer, this will be the cheapest mass market 3D printer and the first desktop model to be produced by one of the major electronics companies. There are also a number of DIY kits and amateur setups that cost less than $3000. Just four years ago, the smallest 3D printer was $30,000 and the closest thing to an amateur setup was $7000. The expanding market for these are engineering firms. The company I work at spends probably $30,000-$40,000 a year to have another company produce printed prototypes; thats the emergent market.

Even still anything short of a company using it to produce masters is almost always going to be too expensive to justify the cost.

The quality of 3D printers isn't as high as the quality of most miniatures manufacturers. Until the quality is the same and they're cost effective, I don't see much of an issue. I do however, see the possibility for more "garage" companies like Max Mini and Chapterhouse to come out of these.

chaos0xomega wrote:It won't. You have to know how to use the software, etc. to design objects for printing. Thats something that won't get any easier. At best, that skill will be limited to a select few. 3d scanning technology(the tech required to put your own face on every model) is still a long ways away, farther out than 'desktop' 3d printing, and has associated health risks and costs.

I could teach someone that isn't functionally slowed how to make a space marine out of primitive objects in less than an hour.

In an hour? It wouldnt look any good and they wouldnt be able to do something else, say an eldar fire dragon without some serious practice.

I happen to be one of those startups thats attempting to break into the industry through digital production techniques. trust me when I say that the industry has a very long way to go before its accessible to everyone on a desktop. The 3d printer mythos is talking about is virtually useless for miniature production, its 'resolution' isn't anywhere near good enough to make the details a 28mm mini manufacturer needs. In fact, theres only a handful of printers out there that CAN get that level of detail, and they aren't cheap by any means.

3d scanning is relatively easy and cheap nowadays.

3d printing is still quite a long way off from miniature level quality in the home. Although top end 3d printers are getting there now, the cost far exceeds plastic moulding. It would be far more cost efficient to scan a sprue or model, clean it up and then get some chinese company to spit out some plastic moulds if you were going to pirate things.

To get to the casual level of copyright infringement we have with PDFs and music nowadays for models, I am thinking at least 10-15 years.

I used to think around 5 years but the last dakka discussion had a fair bit of input from people in the actual field which caused me to adjust my estimates.

chaos0xomega wrote:In an hour? It wouldnt look any good and they wouldnt be able to do something else, say an eldar fire dragon without some serious practice.

practice has nothing to do with it, imagination maybe, but warhammer models are very simple.

of course it would take alot of tuning to make it look "right' but my statement stands

Brother SRM wrote:The quality of 3D printers isn't as high as the quality of most miniatures manufacturers. Until the quality is the same and they're cost effective, I don't see much of an issue. I do however, see the possibility for more "garage" companies like Max Mini and Chapterhouse to come out of these.

I think price is much more of an issue, quality has already been sorted out...see pic below. Not my model and very impressive.

I like the sugar printer I read about:

http://boingboing.net/2009/05/28/candyfab-6000-latest.html

The loser's army gets eaten!

Brother SRM wrote:The quality of 3D printers isn't as high as the quality of most miniatures manufacturers. Until the quality is the same and they're cost effective, I don't see much of an issue. I do however, see the possibility for more "garage" companies like Max Mini and Chapterhouse to come out of these.

Chaptehouse already uses 3D printers. I produced a number of shoulder pads and bits that they had 3D printed to use as blanks for green sculpting. They also have a number of Rhino conversion kits that had components produced on a 3D printer.

If... and it's a BIG 'if'... 3D printing of good quality becomes affordable, not even necessarily released to consumers, it may have a more positive aspect than some may think.

I envision miniatures companies cropping up everywhere. It's easier and cheaper to master 3D software and click 'print' than learning and subsequently refining sculpting and casting.

This would most likely put pressure on GW to lower prices and/or give you more for what is already being paid. It would drive competition to also have the best or most sought after model compared to what else may be out there. It may force GW in a new direction, for example; focusing more on rules and their books as well as game expansions.

One thing to take into consideration is IP. GW isn't going to allow models that look like their's (iconic ones like the Space Marines) to be sold en mass so I don't really see it being out of control.

I don't think we'll ever get to a point where printing replaces casting. The time is the big issue. 3D printing of a standard mini would take 30 minutes to an hour... in the same time a resin caster could produce many more injection molding a copy every minute. 3D printing as it is now isn't intended as a production method, just as a means of helping production.

I've said my piece on this in a couple of other threads but I'm going to add another thought. One of the highest resolution methods of doing this now involves polymer through an inkjet head like a printer uses. Even if machines like these drop below thousands of dollars to own while simultaneously allowing you to achieve enough detail to be useful for miniatures (I have strong doubts on both these issues), how much do you think you'll have to pay per fig if you are using the equivalent of an ink cartridge per printed figure? A complicated method like this is never going to compete on a economic basis with a simpler method like molding.


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to put it a different way, almost everyone has a printer in their house, how do publishing companies stay in business? Why isn't everyone printing and binding their own books?

Staples and Office Max will probibly start plopping these 3D printers in thier stores when the time is right.

I can already get a book printed there and binded.

When more then just a couple of people start using these 3D methods, the technology will continue to improve.


I remember a thing called a computer when they first started out/

The nasty little bugger grew from a room sized pile of tubes and transisters to something the size of a telephone in the space of a couple of decades.

Toy companies already use this method for thier 3 ups, as well as currently seeing chapterhouse already pushing the envelope with thier products.

I can see an emerging market for this sort of thing in the near future.

Fact 1. The technology is at the beginning stages, and the current methods are just an evolution of the past.

Fact 2. Companies are already spearheading this effort

Fact 3. Add in a couple of High Quality 3D programs, I/E Pixal to Tangible in cases such as we see in the other thread



A couple of examples of 3D programed models.

http://www.myvirtuallady.com/

http://www.turbosquid.com/

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/3DS-MAX/Modeling/1

http://www.webreference.com/3d/

Not to mention this little tidbit from a well known game that I know and love....

http://www.pddnet.com/news-three-dimensional-printing-making-your-band-102109/

Oh, if you haven't figured it out yet, it is closer then 10 years.

If anyone is seriously interested in 3d printing then checkout fab@home and RepRap.

These are open source projects to build cheap 3d printers. The really clever bit about reprap is that all of the structural parts can be produced on one of the printers so if you build one (or find someone who's built one) it's easy to make a load more.

The quality is really not sufficient for minis (although reprap is getting really close) but it would be an interesting way to produce scenery pieces.

Some people are using fab@home for cooking - you could make a cheese chaos star or put a frosted aquilla on a cake!

As far as materials for models go, fab@home produces a soft resin that's not great but you could insteas lay down the silicon mould and then use normal casting resin to make multiple pieces. That's a more sensible way of using it. RepRap produces ABS which is very strong.

taken from the BBC today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10089419.stm
Talks about RepRap

Isnt it a fairly easy process to make bootleg copies of GW sprues anyway?

Not really.

If you go and look on sup/tg/ or on Ultrawerke's blog they both have pretty good guides to mold making and casting.

You need to make a lot before it's actually made you a saving and it's more difficult to do well than it looks.


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asmith wrote:I've said my piece on this in a couple of other threads but I'm going to add another thought. One of the highest resolution methods of doing this now involves polymer through an inkjet head like a printer uses. Even if machines like these drop below thousands of dollars to own while simultaneously allowing you to achieve enough detail to be useful for miniatures (I have strong doubts on both these issues), how much do you think you'll have to pay per fig if you are using the equivalent of an ink cartridge per printed figure? A complicated method like this is never going to compete on a economic basis with a simpler method like molding.

There are people building machines like this now with a cost that's well under $1K.

The biggest problem (and biggest industry secret) is the nature of the powder and the solvent. (for those that don't know, these printers lay down a layer of powder then use an inkjet type head to put tiny drops of solvent onto the powder making it solid. Then another layer of powder and keep repeating.) The manufacturers want these to be secret as it justifies the enormously inflated price.

They're having good success with dental casting powder and vodka at the moment, both of which are very cheap. The reprap uses 3mm abs wire which is also very cheap. While it cannot produce the same level of detail it makes things which are extremely strong.

That said, it is never going to be cheaper than casting except on a very small scale. So useful for small producers and very useful for converters - make a custom helmet and shoulderpad then crank out enough for the whole army...

Scott-S6 wrote:

There are people building machines like this now with a cost that's well under $1K.

This is true but I would imagine it is still more then the average purchase of a GW army spends in their entire lifetime on miniatures. Plus that doesn't add in the cost of materials. It seems unlikely that it would make economic sense for individuals to use this method to cast miniatures anytime soon. And of course to actually have anything worth casting you will have to have the data file (which you will need to purchase anyway or you will have to buy a 3d scanner which just costs more money)

Most people are also too lazy to even try doing this so you have that problem too.

Scott-S6 wrote:


That said, it is never going to be cheaper than casting except on a very small scale. So useful for small producers and very useful for converters - make a custom helmet and shoulderpad then crank out enough for the whole army...

And right now I can do this with resin and some silicone mold rubber for a fraction of the cost it would take me to get a 3d printer. Shoulder pads are one of the easiest things to cast with helmets being a little bit trickier.

The reprap looks awesome... I hadn't really thought of this becoming so commonplace, like the personal computer or printers... interesting idea!

I don't know if it will ever be cheaper than injection molding and the like, though? That doesn't seem possible...

brettz123 wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:

There are people building machines like this now with a cost that's well under $1K.

This is true but I would imagine it is still more then the average purchase of a GW army spends in their entire lifetime on miniatures.

This is utterly untrue. Two 2K armies will typically cost more than that. My current 2K guard army cost more than that on it's own.

Personally, I've spent around four times that in the last 18 months and I don't consider myself a big purchaser compared to lots of people on here. (I paint an army before I buy the next one for a start) If you plan on building one army per edition of the game then your lifetime spend will be a hell of a lot more than that!



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brettz123 wrote:
And right now I can do this with resin and some silicone mold rubber for a fraction of the cost it would take me to get a 3d printer. Shoulder pads are one of the easiest things to cast with helmets being a little bit trickier.

Quite so. However, we can expect to see cheap domestic machines in the very near future. The key patents are currently expiring at which point we will start to see cheap copies. The technology is not inherently expensive at all, it's been maintained at it's current inflated price point while the manufacturers have their patents.

At that point it starts to become viable. Resin casting is messy and smelly and more difficult than it appears.

Not to mention that designing a part in CAD requires very different skills to sculpting one. Personally, I can't sculpt to save my life but I have no problem with 3D CAD.

Heh, looking at videos of 3d printing products, I was not impressed with the quality and didnt think our 28mm detail was achievable... until I saw this bad boy that someone made with a 3d printer for his legion of everblight army... wow... http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?t=13570

Bah, I was just about to post that link.

Grundz wrote: I could teach someone that isn't functionally slowed how to make a space marine out of primitive objects in less than an hour.

Good.

Give those retards working on the Ultramarines movie a call and get them to fix their crap...

Call me old fashioned but I take the time to paint all my figures with care because I like the hobby. I like the satisfaction of a job well done. A job that was done with my own two hands.

3d printing maybe the wave of the future, but it will not ever replace the feeling of accomplishment by doing it yourself. Computers take that away from people.

Will I use 3d printing? Maybe a little. However, mostly for terrain, trees, buildings, ruins, etc. etc. If I do break down and print out some figurines, I am still going to paint them by hand. They would not be figureheads in my armies, but extra filler. Say for example: if I break something on accident, I get a back up figure in a few hours. Alternatively, if I am a few Termagants short of a full squad. But not mass production. Think of the workers it would be putting out of business.

And after you got your new 3d printed army, I bet you will still look back on your old hand painted figurines with fond memories and use them the most in tournaments. I do not think a 3d print would win the Golden Daemon Award ever.