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Read this article on the BBC news website the other day:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16503443

To sum up - companies are beginning to market 3D printers for use in the home - the idea being that kids can design their own toys and 'print' them using similar technology to that already widely used in prototyping. The interesting idea is that if you can design something or buy existing designs- kids may never have to buy toys again - they just download the design and the printer makes it.

Could this be the future for wargaming minis? Could it be that in ten years time GW don't actually sell any models at all but simply the designs which you download and make yourself? We're obviously a little way off this yet - but maybe in the future?

It depends on several factors.

1. Low cost of printers and media.
2. Ability actually to print the kind of models people want (fineness of detail, undercuts, etc.)
3. Durability of the printed material.
4. Origination costs.

The printers themselves are being marketed at over £1000 - but of course as with all things prices will drop eventually. As for quality - from what little I've seen of 3D printing the material is a bit rough in terms of it's finish but it is quite robust.

I had read about this somewhere else, and I had a similar thought. There are several problems with it at the moment, First is that they cannot produce the level of detail that most gamers would find acceptable, Second is the legal grey area that exists around such a thing ( the chapter house suit could have a major impact on this).

In a few years this technology may be used to a great extent, legal issues aside, it really would depend on the cost of implementation and access (paid or unpaid) to the blueprints.

It could be, but not for quite some time. The advances in 3D printing have come along very quickly though.

I am guessing that within the next 5-7 years the prices of desktop 3D printers will be affordable for moderate income families AND have the quality to produce items of respectable quality. Maybe not quality enough for our needs in actual man size minis, but vehicle models will be totally feasible.

Brother SRM wrote:It could be, but not for quite some time. The advances in 3D printing have come along very quickly though.

I've been tracking this stuff for years.
http://bioartificialorgans.net/

If they can make certain organs with a printer, they can make a printer right now and in high quality for models.

It is a supply/demand, R&D costs, return on their initial investment and profit margin that keeps this from hitting the masses right now.

But in the near future it will happen.

I've thought about this ever since Figureprints hit the market for world of warcraft a few years ago. I got one about 4 years ago and while it looks great, it's not suitable for wargaming.

The idea of creating miniatures in 3d and printing them in full color is fascinating. The tech already exists, it's a matter of expense. Many companies are already using 3d printing to design and make their mold masters from. I imagine as costs come down and familiarity with the medium goes up it will be much more popular, but I don't see it happening for quite a few years and even then I doubt it will be terribly common. It will still require some skill to produce the 3d models. There's already a lot of miniatures around on shapeways, I'd imagine something similar where you upload your own designs and then print them out yourself at home becoming popular.

I can't imagine them being used in the home (they said that about home computers though) as most people don't have a use for them.

But what you will have, and there are a few appearing already, are sites where people will upload a cad design and others can pay for a company to print them off and post them to you. The designer will probably get paid a tiny amount and the company get the rest.

Might by a nice earner for people who create something popular and upload it. Expect everyone to by churning out custom parts.

But I would say a few years before it gets really popular, then Dakka will probably have to open a new section on this forum just for people to discuss and share their 3D designs.

2D printers have been around for ages but when you want a book you don't print the pdf off, you buy it.

I can see that continuing in 3D.

rob-or-ross wrote:2D printers have been around for ages but when you want a book you don't print the pdf off, you buy it.

I can see that continuing in 3D.

Thats a good point .

3D printing of models may be a Niche market perhaps , depends much on the quality and definition possible but who knows ?

Wont we already need the matter?
What if they use laser to sculpt out with home priinters?
that would be cool.

Many of the 3rd party resin companies are already using this technology to design and print master models to be cast. It is still cost prohibitive to print for resale, but it is already cheaper and faster to render a 3D sculpt on the computer and print it vs paying a Greenstuff sculptor.

This is the future, lads! We're on our way to transporting physical mater across the internet! You'll be able to have a cheeseburger pop out of a box in your office, and guns delivered to your living room in a matter of seconds!

Very cool. I want to make dinosaurs

You can print models now for reasonable cost, but the printer costs are still very high. The 3d printer that GW have (or one of them) is a photosensitive resin printer (solidifies resin with light), has amazing resolution, but the photosensitive resin is about €300/kg which means an average model costs between €5-25, not counting machine costs, etc.

It is only going to get cheaper though, and I'd be surprised if it was not possible within 5 years to do it at home for similar costs to new finecast models. A lot of resins give off nasty stuff when solidifying though, so getting around that problem will add a few more years before it is a truly sound option for home printing. Either way, it is something that needs to be in the business plan of all high end model companies as it will sting when it takes off.

Remember, while everyone supposedly can print at home, these models still rely on artists which most people are not.

Artists currently sculpt awesome Wargaming models because they can have copyrights and get paid. Since right now it is a physical medium, apart from illegal recasting most times mini companies can produce a good sculpt, make products and earn money.

When this goes all electronic, if people don't respect copyrights, sure we will all be able to print stuff, but no one will be making anything worth printing due to theft. Unless we all play marines where a 3d model of a robotic suit can be a passable miniature, it is going to take skilled artists to make 3d renders of living organisms that look good enough to print. And I doubt 3d scanners will be able to capture sculpts detail well enough.

I think people are excited about 3d printing for the wrong reasons, mainly theft, free 3d models and cheap armies, all of which may not be reality. Artists should be paid for their work regardless if it is physical models or virtual models. I would love to print out a virtual ork I built then paint it, but not at the expense of the artists who created the 3d models I use to do it.

nkelsch wrote:Remember, while everyone supposedly can print at home, these models still rely on artists which most people are not.

Artists currently sculpt awesome Wargaming models because they can have copyrights and get paid. Since right now it is a physical medium, apart from illegal recasting most times mini companies can produce a good sculpt, make products and earn money.

When this goes all electronic, if people don't respect copyrights, sure we will all be able to print stuff, but no one will be making anything worth printing due to theft. Unless we all play marines where a 3d model of a robotic suit can be a passable miniature, it is going to take skilled artists to make 3d renders of living organisms that look good enough to print. And I doubt 3d scanners will be able to capture sculpts detail well enough.

I think people are excited about 3d printing for the wrong reasons, mainly theft, free 3d models and cheap armies, all of which may not be reality. Artists should be paid for their work regardless if it is physical models or virtual models. I would love to print out a virtual ork I built then paint it, but not at the expense of the artists who created the 3d models I use to do it.

3d scanning can already capture standard models in full detail, but it is about £10K for the scanner and more for the software. I keep an interest due to trying to stay on the cutting edge of all game changing technologies, and once the cat is out of the bag, there will really need to be a lot of adaptation from the big model makers. Following the music model of legal purchasable licences of sculpts is probably going to be the best way to go long term, coupled with the general good nature of the 70% or so of veteran wargamers who dont pirate heavily (based on an old dakka poll). The finecast model as it is today will not survive in a perfect 3D printing world without significant reductions in price, increases in quality and a much bigger perception of value/better purchasing experience.

You can already get desktop scanners for a similar sort of price. Ok they can only scan things about the size of a mug, but that's more than enough. I think this tech will have the same effect as the internet had. It will allow people to turn their ideas in reality.

There are plenty of free 3d models out there and you can get cheap enough Poser / Daz models as well. All it needs is for the 3d format used by the printers to be supported, or a plugin made and off you go. Create and modify your model in Poser / Daz, export it, email it to your local 3d printer guy, job done. You'll be able to create characters for your RPG or skirmish game, in 28mm or 52mm. On top of this you can buy props and scenery for Poser / Daz as well, so that's something else to print off.

Yes I agree it's not cost effective yet, but it will be.

nkelsch wrote:Remember, while everyone supposedly can print at home, these models still rely on artists which most people are not.

This is a valid point, but if anybody has used CAD then they'll know that once you can do the basics, to create something in 3D on the screen would be relatively straight forward - you wouldn't therefore necessarily need to be a talented artist - you'd just need the idea to start with. A few people have mentioned one thing that would be a real minefield and that is the legality and copyright issues. Unlike blatently recasting a mini which isn't legal, if you redesigned, for instance, a space marine with slightly different armour, in a unique pose - where do you then stand?

I have opened the can - let the worms crawl forth!

Looks like someone is already planning ahead: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2012/01/16/54082/

Yes, it looks like they're already getting the ball rolling. It just remains to be seen how this takes off, and if it will be for better or for worse.

rob-or-ross wrote:2D printers have been around for ages but when you want a book you don't print the pdf off, you buy it.

I can see that continuing in 3D.

Disagree.

The reason you don't see many home-printed books is because you can't really print a PDF and have a book. You print the PDF and you have a large conglomeration of paper that is unbound and loose. You have a number of different options at this point:

-Hole Punch and 3-ring binder (bad idea, as 3-hole punch pages are at best temporary, and will eventually fall apart with even mild use.
-Use Page protectors. (A lot of work, given you have to individually slide each page into the protector. Plus Protectors aren't cheap)
-Take it to be bound at Fedex/Kinkos.

Also, by the time you've printed, and managed to bind a book, you've invested a good amount of time, and effort into it, and unless you have access to cheap printing, you have probably found yourself at close to the price of the physical book.

With 3d printing, this isn't really an issue for figures. Right now (liable to change) most printing material plastics are fairly cheap ($30/lb for one systems plastic). For comparison, the assault on black reach box weighs in at 2.4 pounds, including the box, the excess sprue plastic, and other things. Black reach is already considered a good model/$$ deal, it would be @ $30/lb even cheaper. Also, unlike a printed pdf, a printed model is just as, if not more complete than a bought in the box model. You MAY still have to paint it (debatable, given that there are some 3d printers that can print in multi-color). As such, for an arguably cheaper cost, you could print the models and have them table ready nearly straight from the printer.

monkeyh wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Remember, while everyone supposedly can print at home, these models still rely on artists which most people are not.

This is a valid point, but if anybody has used CAD then they'll know that once you can do the basics, to create something in 3D on the screen would be relatively straight forward - you wouldn't therefore necessarily need to be a talented artist - you'd just need the idea to start with. !

That is really not true. You still need to be a pretty good artist to sculpt something in 3D. It isn't very straight forward at all and most people do not have the talent for it (and even more importantly most people will not dedicate the time to get it done). The future will be in artists selling a license to print a certain amount of a miniature. Of course many people will just scan in stuff and print for free so that will prove to be a challenge to the industry.


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Itybih2ku wrote:

rob-or-ross wrote:2D printers have been around for ages but when you want a book you don't print the pdf off, you buy it.

I can see that continuing in 3D.

Disagree.

The reason you don't see many home-printed books is because you can't really print a PDF and have a book. You print the PDF and you have a large conglomeration of paper that is unbound and loose. You have a number of different options at this point:

-Hole Punch and 3-ring binder (bad idea, as 3-hole punch pages are at best temporary, and will eventually fall apart with even mild use.
-Use Page protectors. (A lot of work, given you have to individually slide each page into the protector. Plus Protectors aren't cheap)
-Take it to be bound at Fedex/Kinkos.

Also, by the time you've printed, and managed to bind a book, you've invested a good amount of time, and effort into it, and unless you have access to cheap printing, you have probably found yourself at close to the price of the physical book.

With 3d printing, this isn't really an issue for figures. Right now (liable to change) most printing material plastics are fairly cheap ($30/lb for one systems plastic). For comparison, the assault on black reach box weighs in at 2.4 pounds, including the box, the excess sprue plastic, and other things. Black reach is already considered a good model/$$ deal, it would be @ $30/lb even cheaper. Also, unlike a printed pdf, a printed model is just as, if not more complete than a bought in the box model. You MAY still have to paint it (debatable, given that there are some 3d printers that can print in multi-color). As such, for an arguably cheaper cost, you could print the models and have them table ready nearly straight from the printer.

Another point in support of your argument is that it often isn't much cheaper to print out the book when you consider the cost of the ink and paper. With miniatures it is starting to look like it will be cheaper to scan and print out a miniature (especially GW ones). The problem for this technology is that it may not be cheaper to print out historical miniatures which, especially in plastic, are relatively cheap.

Keep in mind. We are thinking in terms of "traditional" modeling techniques as well.

Once we are in the realm of 3d printing, we can open up a whole slew of options. Look at how 3d models are done in games. They don't create 500 different sculpts of an individual character, they create 1 character, articulate him, and create other things to be put onto him.

A Miniature game could do the same thing. Instead of selling models, sell a program, then sell the updates for the models. The model comes with your base model (say an orc boy). Articulate him so that he can be posed any number of different ways.(arms folded across chest, raised in an I surrender pose, etc.) Give him multiple heads to choose from, then different outfits, weapons, and even base decorations like rocks. The sort of thing you can do in MMO character creation to some extent. At this point players could have much more control over the look of their models, and at the same time, there would still be a high level of IP control.

When that is all done, create an "export to CAD file" option, viola! Unique models

Itybih2ku wrote:
Once we are in the realm of 3d printing, we can open up a whole slew of options. Look at how 3d models are done in games. They don't create 500 different sculpts of an individual character, they create 1 character, articulate him, and create other things to be put onto him.

A Miniature game could do the same thing. Instead of selling models, sell a program, then sell the updates for the models. The model comes with your base model (say an orc boy). Articulate him so that he can be posed any number of different ways.(arms folded across chest, raised in an I surrender pose, etc.) Give him multiple heads to choose from, then different outfits, weapons, and even base decorations like rocks. The sort of thing you can do in MMO character creation to some extent. At this point players could have much more control over the look of their models, and at the same time, there would still be a high level of IP control.

When that is all done, create an "export to CAD file" option, viola! Unique models

This post leads me to believe you have no idea what you're talking about. Rigging a model for articulation is difficult, posing the model properly after rigging is only slightly easier. Being able to swap out parts will involve heavy resculpting, as you will not otherwise be able to create a printable solid. FInally, there is no such thing as an 'export to CAD file' button. Its a process that requires a fair amount of engineering know-how to get things to work properly.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Itybih2ku wrote:
Once we are in the realm of 3d printing, we can open up a whole slew of options. Look at how 3d models are done in games. They don't create 500 different sculpts of an individual character, they create 1 character, articulate him, and create other things to be put onto him.

A Miniature game could do the same thing. Instead of selling models, sell a program, then sell the updates for the models. The model comes with your base model (say an orc boy). Articulate him so that he can be posed any number of different ways.(arms folded across chest, raised in an I surrender pose, etc.) Give him multiple heads to choose from, then different outfits, weapons, and even base decorations like rocks. The sort of thing you can do in MMO character creation to some extent. At this point players could have much more control over the look of their models, and at the same time, there would still be a high level of IP control.

When that is all done, create an "export to CAD file" option, viola! Unique models

This post leads me to believe you have no idea what you're talking about. Rigging a model for articulation is difficult, posing the model properly after rigging is only slightly easier. Being able to swap out parts will involve heavy resculpting, as you will not otherwise be able to create a printable solid. FInally, there is no such thing as an 'export to CAD file' button. Its a process that requires a fair amount of engineering know-how to get things to work properly.

I think you are missing the point. I didn't say it would be easy, or that I could whip it up over the weekend. I said THEY (GW) could create such a program. Are you telling me that its impossible to create such a program?

The programming required to create something like that would cost more than GW could afford. We're talking about a multi-million dollar piece of software that would probably revolutionize the entire 3d modeling industry.

I've used 3D printers and modelling software a lot in the past, they are WAY too expensive for it to be more effective than injection molding is, the production rates suck, you could whip out prototypes but you are limited to one model at a time and the quality you get is less detailed than injection molding (save seamlines)


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chaos0xomega wrote:The programming required to create something like that would cost more than GW could afford. We're talking about a multi-million dollar piece of software that would probably revolutionize the entire 3d modeling industry.

The software is pretty cheap, Autodesk makes some nice stuff, it's the hardware that costs big bucks

Itybih2ku wrote:I think you are missing the point. I didn't say it would be easy, or that I could whip it up over the weekend. I said THEY (GW) could create such a program. Are you telling me that its impossible to create such a program?

I hate to agree with chaos0xomega even slightly, but it does sound like you don't know what you are talking about.

There is absolutely no reason why GW would ever make this program. Here are the major reasons why this will never happen:

1. Pirating. If GW released a program that would enable you to 3d print any GW unit, with full potability, GW would never sell a single model for the rest of their short remainder of existence.
2. Price and expertise. GW is not invested in making advanced computer programs. They could never do it, and if they did it would require millions of dollars and an outside company to get made. Think of how many models go into the game Space Marine by THQ. Now imagine if you had to make hundreds times as many models, with full ranges of wargear. Do you think that is affordable to make?
3. Ease of use. I have extensive experience in 3d modeling. Give your average user a fully complete model with proper geometry, skin mesh that follows the skeleton, and they will still not be able to make it into a cool pose. As it turns out just because you have a fully articulated model, does not mean you have the skills to make it into a natural looking pose. And to have every pose built in? Madness. Even more cost.
4. Money. If GW made this program, they would go out of business within a year. Period.


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Squidmanlolz wrote:The software is pretty cheap, Autodesk makes some nice stuff, it's the hardware that costs big bucks

First off, 3ds or ProE isn't exactly cheap. Assuming you can take existing 3d software and easily make an easy to use interface for posing 3d warhammer models is not feasible. Why would Autodesk sell this special, high-development-cost 3d modeling software extension at anything less than an exorbitant price? 3ds costs thousands of dollars for one copy of the professional license.


EDIT: and finally, 3d printing techniques that have high enough resolution for printing detailed models are prohibitively expensive and will remain so for some time. Also, the materials usable are not the same as those usable by conventional injection mold casting.

Squidmanlolz wrote:

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chaos0xomega wrote:The programming required to create something like that would cost more than GW could afford. We're talking about a multi-million dollar piece of software that would probably revolutionize the entire 3d modeling industry.

The software is pretty cheap, Autodesk makes some nice stuff, it's the hardware that costs big bucks

Unless you're talking about student licenses, a lot of this software costs 500+ dollars for a license, more often than not its 1k+, but thats not what I'm talking about. I was referring to a very specific piece of software with a specific feature set that does not currently exist (being able to heavily modify a pre-rigged 3d model and have it able to print a valid solid without any special design training or engineering knowledge, etc.)