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For my part, this concept actually seems pretty exciting. While I agree that this service is only a public display of what has been possible for a while in an industrial sense, upon looking at some of the work in the gallery, opening up this type of process to the public should make possible some neat ideas.

This lovely dude is listed as measuring approximately 15 cm in length. While not viable in our 25mm world, it still seems pretty neat.

There is yet another service that specialise in making 3d prints of highly detailed miniatures but I cannot find them right now. It works out at about $90 per 28mm figure but they look amazing.

One thing I have thought would be interesting would be to scan in some 28mm stuff, then use 3d software to scale them down to 15mm (or 8mm). I'd love to see a 15mm 40k as I always thought 8mm was a bit too small.

The printing idea is a good one, and a lot cheaper then GWs current moldering set up. the plastic is still the same strength the only problem is there is no good way to create bitz as all the models would come out already assembled, and any one going to say they could just make the bitz 3D should be ashamed of them selves for suggesting that the few modelers GW has should have to do five times the work they already do.

In short, its great if you can find a good company willing to make you some small parts or a custom figure you modeled, not going to help the Warhammer world much tho.

I don't see any reason a modeler couldn't lay his parts out on a sprue before printing much like GW does when designing molds.. No idea how this stuff handles cutting, though.

Here is a link to the printer I was talking about:

http://replicatorinc.com/blog/

I am pretty sure that 3d printers are not too bad a quality, but will be slightly grainy since they are printed in layers: a lot like a contour map for example.

also, I read about a 3d printer that was only about 1500 dollars about a year ago. sure quality probably takes a hit, but it can print with ANY materiel. it had some picture of a mug printed with melted chocolate!

also on another note, not only are 3d scanners amazingly expensive, but the software that goes with them IIRC is also in the $5000 range.

Figure in an accepted program like autodesk 3DS - that is another $5000

Well, this has me pretty excited! I worked as a world artist for Electronic Arts for almost seven years. Looks like an excellent place to make some terrain and in a format that is a little more forgiving (for me).

Going to see how the pricing works for models. Not quite sure how the size/complexity=cost.

my 2 cents are that it would hardly be worth my time and effort to go through designing all that and waiting for some company to send it back to me. It may or may not even be all that detailed and easy to paint. IF and when the technology is super cheap and easy to use then GW and the like will end up making money on book/rule sales mostly.

One thing that needs to be considered is that models posed in certain ways cannot be created since the process creates from the bottom up.

For example, if the model has any portions 'hanging down', like fingers, or edges of a cape, a sword hanging down off of a torso, etc. the printer would not be able to create these objects as it needs to build 'up' from something.

So it isn't just like you can choose any model and have it made this way, only specific shapes and sizes are acceptable which is why the lady in the video says that they will contact the user to let them know if their design is capable of being printed.

So things like tank turrets and many types of models would work fine, but for some of the crazier poses we're used to you would need to print the model in several pieces and then assemble them in order to get models posed like we're used to.


But still, it is exciting tech to look forward to sometime in the future.

yakface wrote:
One thing that needs to be considered is that models posed in certain ways cannot be created since the process creates from the bottom up.

For example, if the model has any portions 'hanging down', like fingers, or edges of a cape, a sword hanging down off of a torso, etc. the printer would not be able to create these objects as it needs to build 'up' from something.

So it isn't just like you can choose any model and have it made this way, only specific shapes and sizes are acceptable which is why the lady in the video says that they will contact the user to let them know if their design is capable of being printed.

So things like tank turrets and many types of models would work fine, but for some of the crazier poses we're used to you would need to print the model in several pieces and then assemble them in order to get models posed like we're used to.


But still, it is exciting tech to look forward to sometime in the future.

This is not true with the better types of 3d printer. They work by suspending the object in powder, so hanging items can indeed be printed. You refer to (b) in the below hotlinked diagram, but (a) is the most common type of 3d printer for detailed work:

And while we are at it, if you want to see the future of piracy (along with 3d printers which cost about £15K each at the moment), check out this desktop 3d scanner:
https://www.nextengine.com/indexSecure.htm

Click 'gallery' then 'spawn figurine' - first item under CGI to imagine how many awesome warhammer CGI movies can be created from your models.

So, do we have any cool concept art for Sun and Spinneret rifles?

I could always try wipping them up in Max and seeing what the cost might be

If its cheaper than actually buying a warhound I am in

It's the micro models that I'm interested in. Imagine being able to make your army just the way you like and then scale it down for Epic or up for Inquisitor.

^ Didnt think of that. Gives a lot of ideas for BIG campaigns. From planetary landing to the duel of the commanding figures!

I'm surprised noone's mentioned This guy yet. 28mm 3d-printed masters molded up right there. Can't speak for how much post-print smoothing work they've received, but proof enough that it's doable.

It's the micro models that I'm interested in. Imagine being able to make your army just the way you like and then scale it down for Epic or up for Inquisitor.

Personally, I think it would be great for larger pieces - building titans, tanks and spaceships from pieces printed out.

The RapRep (rapid prototyping self reproducing) looks very cool, however their "pixel" size is currently very large with poor resolution.

I think of those guys the same as the Altair computer guys in the late 70's - give it 20 years and they could be robust and commonplace.

Would be fantastic to be able to fax a baneblade to a friend!

;-)

@ bloodsbane: Do you have any more info about the site you posted?

Interesting.

legoburner wrote:

yakface wrote:
One thing that needs to be considered is that models posed in certain ways cannot be created since the process creates from the bottom up.

For example, if the model has any portions 'hanging down', like fingers, or edges of a cape, a sword hanging down off of a torso, etc. the printer would not be able to create these objects as it needs to build 'up' from something.

So it isn't just like you can choose any model and have it made this way, only specific shapes and sizes are acceptable which is why the lady in the video says that they will contact the user to let them know if their design is capable of being printed.

So things like tank turrets and many types of models would work fine, but for some of the crazier poses we're used to you would need to print the model in several pieces and then assemble them in order to get models posed like we're used to.


But still, it is exciting tech to look forward to sometime in the future.

This is not true with the better types of 3d printer. They work by suspending the object in powder, so hanging items can indeed be printed. You refer to (b) in the below hotlinked diagram, but (a) is the most common type of 3d printer for detailed work:

Even ones that don't use powder can still create overhangs, they make thin plastic webs below the parts called support structures, these are then just snapped off when it's done like excess plastic flashing from a bad moulding.

The price of this is already coming down, it's been in the news a bit lately, HP have launched the first machine aimed at home buisnesses, it costs £10'000 for a single colour machine or £13'000 for a machine that can print parts in up to eight colours but can still only do one colour at a time.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ga/WF05a/18972-18972-3328061-4154659-4154659-4154512.html

On the DIY front there is now Makerbot which is a fun little kit you can buy and build at home, cost is $750 for the stripped down kit for people who already dabble in diy electronics or $950 for a DX kit with all the tools. http://www.makerbot.com/

Someone has already made a set of dungeon corridors which you can print out at home with one of these diy machines, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2709

The future is coming and I'm sure it's going to scare the gak out of GW.

From the BBC News website

Just as the easy availability of powerful computers, large hard drives and fast networks has exposed the inadequacies of copyright laws designed in an age when infringement required a printing press or a CD-burning factory, 3D printing will soon come up against laws made in a world of factories and machine tools, and the battle is likely to be even more intense than that over music and films.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10089419.stm

The point of getting one would not be to make your own models one at a time. It would be to make parts or conversion bits for production through molds. Make some fething wings, clean em up, mold them and then you can put them on your minis. You can make your own minis, by modeling bits, printing a test copy out, clean it up and mold. Printing an entire model would be time consuming and costly. Resin is costly, but I doubt this plastic is less so.

Bavius wrote:The point of getting one would not be to make your own models one at a time. It would be to make parts or conversion bits for production through molds. Make some fething wings, clean em up, mold them and then you can put them on your minis. You can make your own minis, by modeling bits, printing a test copy out, clean it up and mold. Printing an entire model would be time consuming and costly. Resin is costly, but I doubt this plastic is less so.

Plastic is pretty cheap man, http://store.makerbot.com/plastic.html

I think that with the right 3d software you could model one guy, save him in as many poses as you like and print them all out as one piece models, that's once the machines reach a suitable quality level of course.

I have access to a 3D printer/rapid prototyping machine and yeh you have to sand down and clean of all the surfaces afterwards, but its not that bad, i think i saw a guy in there using a light sandblaster once then he coated the final peice with a matt varnish to prevent anything flaking of by accident. its not for small parts but you could knock out a custom nice building or two that would look great.

This is not a new technology, but the printer shown in the video is (or at least based on it). The newer printers can produce things in fairly fine detail without the grainyness, etc. But naturally the printers cost 5-6 digits, and the printing process itself ain't cheap.

As for you leman russ haters, I direct you here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/294661.page

maybe something you might like...

Link to a site that will custom "print" 3D designs:

Moddler

There is even a tool for provide rough estimates as to cost - definitely not cheap, but YMMV.

AJC

AJCarrington wrote:Link to a site that will custom "print" 3D designs:

Moddler

There is even a tool for provide rough estimates as to cost - definitely not cheap, but YMMV.

AJC

It estimated $27 for a roughly 1"x1"x!.5" tall figure, that seems pretty reasonable to me.
I was trying to get an estimate for something meganob sized but since I don't have any I used a terminator to get rough measurements.

Edit: Looking through their portfolio, the detail their machine can work in is very impressive. Can't wait to get this see this tech become more available.

Gargskull wrote:It estimated $27 for a roughly 1"x1"x!.5" tall figure, that seems pretty reasonable to me.
I was trying to get an estimate for something meganob sized but since I don't have any I used a terminator to get rough measurements.

Edit: Looking through their portfolio, the detail their machine can work in is very impressive. Can't wait to get this see this tech become more available.

Point taken. If you start to get into more involved/detailed items, such as vehicles, the prices can go up pretty quickly.

AJC

AJCarrington wrote:

Gargskull wrote:It estimated $27 for a roughly 1"x1"x!.5" tall figure, that seems pretty reasonable to me.
I was trying to get an estimate for something meganob sized but since I don't have any I used a terminator to get rough measurements.

Edit: Looking through their portfolio, the detail their machine can work in is very impressive. Can't wait to get this see this tech become more available.

Point taken. If you start to get into more involved/detailed items, such as vehicles, the prices can go up pretty quickly.

AJC

Oh yeah but if you wanted just one very special and totally unique character figure for your army this seems like it could be an option.
Their machine uses resin so it'd probably be as delicate as a forgeworld figure, which if you've got the money to get this done you'd probably be used to handling.

AJCarrington wrote:Link to a site that will custom "print" 3D designs:

Moddler

There is even a tool for provide rough estimates as to cost - definitely not cheap, but YMMV.

AJC

Bookmarked, the price is pretty reasonable. Only thing is, it appears you need a 3d design before they can begin work.

AgeOfEgos wrote:

AJCarrington wrote:Link to a site that will custom "print" 3D designs:

Moddler

There is even a tool for provide rough estimates as to cost - definitely not cheap, but YMMV.

AJC

Bookmarked, the price is pretty reasonable. Only thing is, it appears you need a 3d design before they can begin work.

Yeah, they don't do the design for you. But there are loads of unemployed and talented 3d artists on the web, it'd be pretty easy to find someone to pay to do the deisgn and then you just send the file over to those guys.

Just found this really great video that shows the kind of impressive things the machines which use abs can do;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDLOmoQj4H0

I'd prefer one of the powder based machines myself as there's no support structures to remove, just the powder. Acid baths don't strike me as being suitable for the home!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps0WEZbDjHE