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Its a topic that comes up time and time again. So, instead of talking about the legality. I think I'll talk about what I see as the future in GW stuff down the road AFTER home 3d printing becomes common.

The first thing I do upon getting into the hobby is buy Games-Workshop Forge. After years of piracy, GW decided it was time to adapt or die. Their models have gone to "print on demand ordering" for those without 3d home printers, and the GW Forge for those with.

The Forge is an empty shell of a program, it costs around $50-$75, But doesn't come with any thing in it. For that, you need to buy unit packs.

A unit/terrain pack is a collection of files specific to the Forge used for building and customizing your own 3d models within the Forge Software. Think of them as a digital version of your Sprue. However, as there is no longer a mold limitation, your unit pack has many more options available to it than your sprue does. You have the option of having the model print Color or Colorless for those who prefer to paint their own models.

For me, it works an awful lot like the old city of heroes and Champions online super hero creator.




I'm playing orks, so I have my "Ork Boyz" unit pack loaded. I look at the different torso options I have. These aren't 'ard boyz, so I load up som bandoliers, leather jackets and some other fun stuff.

I load up the head, choose its teef layout, pick a helmet. Then I choose the arms/weapons load out on the guy.

I save the figure as is. I load it up into the virtual painter. This is an optional step. I may decide to print it without color and paint it up myself, it'll generally look better, but for now I want easier. I color his skin green, jacket black, etc.

Then, I save it again and add it to my virtual tray. My virtual try has 5 other figures on it, other ork boy's I've been working on. I hit print, and Forge sends the printing file to the printer. 3 Hours later, my 6 boys have printed, all colored and ready for the table top.

This is my little peak into the future of 3d printing and its relationship with Games-Workshop.

Do you think it will turn out anything like this?


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Bump for Discussion

While it sounds good in concept you'd find it quickly become a 'dl this torrent for the unit pack' as less savory people rip the coding out or even just scan up the product into their own 3d print pack. Pre-painted prinitng would help the time/skill challenged though. Or give a boost to painted armies by those with the photoshop skills.

I suppose it's possible, or GW might take up 3D printing as opposed to casting and dare I say discount it's prices?

They don't discount prices because they see themselves as a premium brand. That's why they don't do sales anymore to shift unwanted stock, it undermines their brand image and the perceived value of their stuff. Problem is, they are selling toys not sports cars, but don't ever hope for a price decrease because they have found a means to cut costs their end, that's demonstrably not going to happen.

Howard A Treesong wrote:They don't discount prices because they see themselves as a premium brand. That's why they don't do sales anymore to shift unwanted stock, it undermines their brand image and the perceived value of their stuff. Problem is, they are selling toys not sports cars, but don't ever hope for a price decrease because they have found a means to cut costs their end, that's demonstrably not going to happen.

I know, at least me lie to myself a little? please? I want to believe in GW not being pure evil.

3D printing and piracy may well be a danger to the gaming industry in general, even without using GW's copyright you can make yourself "conversion designs" or have a friend who's got a little 3D design know how (or less then that, apparently these things are wicked simple to use) to make up a "counts as" valkyrie, baneblade or titan that looks great and even comes prepainted. It's not happening now because 3D printers are expensive, but as time rolls on the "replicator" is only going to get cheaper and more available and then there's gonna be problems. Because really... what's to stop any one from going the next step and printing off Leman Russ kits? Couple hours of graphic design and scanning work, day or two of printing and your Imperial Armored company is ready to deploy for a soothing round of Apocalypse.

On a side note, apparently some university has a 3D printer that can do food now. Ladies and Gentlemen keep on the look out for people with pointed ears and a drunk old guy named Zephram Cochrane

::puts on nerdy glasses:: um excuse me, the Vulkans didn't make first contact until the civilization made warp capable star ships. Not replicators.

Ow that hurt. Anyhoo even if Gee Dub did 3d 'kits' they would of course be the premium digital package and would have more value than the 'pre-printed' kits. Thusly they would charge more for the increased value much like the i-dex.

I'm sure there are ways one could prevent piracy with this.

Perhaps having to buy unique single use keys for the print application or something along those lines. I don't know the exact answer, but I'm sure GW could hire someone to make it work.

More interesting than that, is the idea of character creators that allow you to customize a model and then order a print of it, possibly in pieces if needed. That I would buy into. Imagine how many skulls my characters wouldn't have plastered all over them!

GW puts money into molds and design for all these monopose plastic characters, which look cool, but are quite limited in pose and options. Allowing customers to design their own, and print them without the need for a mold would save GW in overhead. And I can easily see every single player doing that at least a few times as no one likes cookie cutter characters.

Also, print ordering would allow them to reinstate the bits service to a degree. Need 5 combi-meltas? BAM, print out a sprue of 5 for $X. That system would be low on manpower as you'd only need someone to input orders to the printer and then package them up. They wouldn't have to maintain inventory which was a major reason for Bitz being discontinued.

mrwhoop wrote:::puts on nerdy glasses:: um excuse me, the Vulkans didn't make first contact until the civilization made warp capable star ships. Not replicators.

Ow that hurt. Anyhoo even if Gee Dub did 3d 'kits' they would of course be the premium digital package and would have more value than the 'pre-printed' kits. Thusly they would charge more for the increased value much like the i-dex.

Thus the reference to the inventor of the Warp drive

Piracy really does seem like a hard think to block when the whole purpose of the device is to generate real 3D objects based on imputed user design, you don't need to hack GW's stuff, just plug the information in to your home program and away you go.

When 3D printing becomes strong, we will have a period where the technology exists but people won't have it at home.

GW will become like 'build-a-bear' workshop. If you don't know what that is... it is a store that has a ton of space in malls... little kids go in, pick a teddy bear skin, stuff him with stuffing, wishes, little sound things that say 'I Wuv U!' and then they sew him up. The kids then get to go dress the bear in loads of outfits. When done, the kid is happy and the parent shells out about 9 times the cost of a teddy bear at walmart for the experience of making the bear.

GW will have the printer 'in store'. You will sit down at a kiosk and some redshirt will help you design a unit. It will have a 3d model and you will then be able to design the pose, weapon options and so on. It will then print them in-store for you to take home.

The online store will probably have the same KIOSK except you make the models, save them to your account and then you can print them and have them shipped to your house.

Hell they may even have colored 3d Prints so your models are pre-colored.

Just because home printing may happen, a large majority of customers won't have them. Why? Who the *HELL* needs a 3D printer? It is not something needed in common folk's homes like a paper printer. Only a few hobbyist will have them and even not all of them will have them... so it really boils down to there is not going to be a market for GW to print at home for a long while if ever. And I already suspect someone dropping a grand on a home 3d printer is not going to be the sort to pay for his 3d models he prints from. He will either be making his own or pirating illegal infringing models.

3D printing (just like every other thread) will never mean free models for cheap angry internet people.

nkelsch wrote:Just because home printing may happen, a large majority of customers won't have them. Why? Who the *HELL* needs a 3D printer? It is not something needed in common folk's homes like a paper printer. Only a few hobbyist will have them and even not all of them will have them... so it really boils down to there is not going to be a market for GW to print at home for a long while if ever. And I already suspect someone dropping a grand on a home 3d printer is not going to be the sort to pay for his 3d models he prints from. He will either be making his own or pirating illegal infringing models.

As 3D printing becomes cheaper, more people will have access to it and more uses will be found for it. After all, look at how many CAD and so on cutters there are around now compared to 20 years ago.

After all, who needs a computer other than large governments, universities and companies?

SilverMK2 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Just because home printing may happen, a large majority of customers won't have them. Why? Who the *HELL* needs a 3D printer? It is not something needed in common folk's homes like a paper printer. Only a few hobbyist will have them and even not all of them will have them... so it really boils down to there is not going to be a market for GW to print at home for a long while if ever. And I already suspect someone dropping a grand on a home 3d printer is not going to be the sort to pay for his 3d models he prints from. He will either be making his own or pirating illegal infringing models.

As 3D printing becomes cheaper, more people will have access to it and more uses will be found for it. After all, look at how many CAD and so on cutters there are around now compared to 20 years ago.

After all, who needs a computer other than large governments, universities and companies?

And how many regular users pay the hundreds of dollars for the good CAD programs and how many people actually own large plotter-sized printers for home use? Still amazingly few.

Being around doesn't mean being in every home to the point where selling models or software to home users to print their own models is going to be a real business plan. Especially when people who would make the effort to get the stuff at home won't pay for it anyways. This is the same reason people don't like making stuff for Android because Android customers don't buy apps. So what if 3d printing becomes obtainable at home... it doesn't make it a valid market or business model.

3D printers serve a very limited function and while a very small number of hobbyists may have them, it doesn't mean the entire market will change to that model.

People just want unlimited Free GW models, and that is not going to happen.

Of course not, CAD machines are still reasonably rare because they are specialised bits of kit that still require some relatively expensive outlays, combined with the uses for CAD machines are not as extensive as the prospective uses for 3D printing, nor are they (prospectively) as easy to use.

Again, I'm not saying that 3D printing will be the sales method of choice, simply that I believe 3D printing will be far more common in the future than you are suggesting. A modest sized desktop unit could provide anything up to maybe 50cm on a side, from bowls, ornaments, etc, all the way up to more complex things like electronic components (obviously still in the future here, I don't think they have developed anything like that far yet).

KalashnikovMarine wrote:I suppose it's possible, or GW might take up 3D printing as opposed to casting and dare I say discount it's prices?

Not sure how 3D printing would be cheaper for a large corporation. That doesn't seem to make sense to me.


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KalashnikovMarine wrote:3D printing and piracy may well be a danger to the gaming industry in general, even without using GW's copyright you can make yourself "conversion designs" or have a friend who's got a little 3D design know how (or less then that, apparently these things are wicked simple to use) to make up a "counts as" valkyrie, baneblade or titan that looks great and even comes prepainted. It's not happening now because 3D printers are expensive, but as time rolls on the "replicator" is only going to get cheaper and more available and then there's gonna be problems. Because really... what's to stop any one from going the next step and printing off Leman Russ kits? Couple hours of graphic design and scanning work, day or two of printing and your Imperial Armored company is ready to deploy for a soothing round of Apocalypse.

On a side note, apparently some university has a 3D printer that can do food now. Ladies and Gentlemen keep on the look out for people with pointed ears and a drunk old guy named Zephram Cochrane

Essentially you are correct. Once 3D scanners become cheaply and readily available any company making small enough items to be scanned could face serious problems from piracy. At that point you could buy a baneblade, put it together, scan it, and print out as many more as you want. Nothing can stop you from doing that.


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Aerethan wrote:I'm sure there are ways one could prevent piracy with this.

Perhaps having to buy unique single use keys for the print application or something along those lines. I don't know the exact answer, but I'm sure GW could hire someone to make it work.

The problem isn't protecting from piracy in that manner. The problem will really come with 3D scanners. No way to stop a person from scanning something they already own. So you would have people pay for a one time key and then scan an item allowing them to make as many copies as possible.

nkelsch wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:Just because home printing may happen, a large majority of customers won't have them. Why? Who the *HELL* needs a 3D printer? It is not something needed in common folk's homes like a paper printer. Only a few hobbyist will have them and even not all of them will have them... so it really boils down to there is not going to be a market for GW to print at home for a long while if ever. And I already suspect someone dropping a grand on a home 3d printer is not going to be the sort to pay for his 3d models he prints from. He will either be making his own or pirating illegal infringing models.

As 3D printing becomes cheaper, more people will have access to it and more uses will be found for it. After all, look at how many CAD and so on cutters there are around now compared to 20 years ago.

After all, who needs a computer other than large governments, universities and companies?

And how many regular users pay the hundreds of dollars for the good CAD programs and how many people actually own large plotter-sized printers for home use? Still amazingly few.

Being around doesn't mean being in every home to the point where selling models or software to home users to print their own models is going to be a real business plan. Especially when people who would make the effort to get the stuff at home won't pay for it anyways. This is the same reason people don't like making stuff for Android because Android customers don't buy apps. So what if 3d printing becomes obtainable at home... it doesn't make it a valid market or business model.

3D printers serve a very limited function and while a very small number of hobbyists may have them, it doesn't mean the entire market will change to that model.

People just want unlimited Free GW models, and that is not going to happen.

I agree. I don't think 3D printers will ever be home viable to be honest. I don't think the market is large enough. I may be wrong, but I think they will be something that dies a death in the home market through lack of sales. You can point to PCs and home printers, but I point to flying cars and the speech recognition replacing typing to show things that have failed. Not every technology is "just a matter of time".

But then I'm still not convinced that E-Books will ever really work. I think they will go the way of the encarta CD, more so after I dropped my Kindle this morning and my first thought was "If its broken I'm going back to paperbacks. Much cheaper to drop". Fortunately it was not broken, but the case did open a little, and it was only a short drop.

Steve steveson wrote:
I agree. I don't think 3D printers will ever be home viable to be honest. I don't think the market is large enough. I may be wrong, but I think they will be something that dies a death in the home market through lack of sales. You can point to PCs and home printers, but I point to flying cars and the speech recognition replacing typing to show things that have failed. Not every technology is "just a matter of time".

But then I'm still not convinced that E-Books will ever really work. I think they will go the way of the encarta CD, more so after I dropped my Kindle this morning and my first thought was "If its broken I'm going back to paperbacks. Much cheaper to drop". Fortunately it was not broken, but the case did open a little, and it was only a short drop.

E-books are without a doubt the wave of the future (unfortunately in my opinion). E-books were 6 percent of the market in 2010 and jumped to 15 percent in 2011. If you look specifically at adult fiction e-books accounted for 30 percent of sales. So they are certainly working and highly succesful.

Will home printing ever do this? I doubt it but I could certainly be wrong. There will come a time in the future where we all have these kinds of things but my feelin is that is a long way off. The problem is you need to buy the printer, you need to buy the material, and you need to either buy or create the file to print. I don't see artists just willy nilly releasing these files to the internet for free.

Just to clarify, i don't think ebooks are going away, I just think they will remain a small market and I think they have reached near saturation. The reason for that is that you have to buy a large number of books to make it worthwhile. Unfortunatly what drives the publishing industry is not big readers. Look at the top ten books, its all trash and cookbooks purchased as gifts and people who buy 1-2 books a year. What I don't think will happen is the total conversion to digital like the music market. I don't think books will go the way of the CD, whos years are numberd.

Eventually we'll just have replicators like in Star Trek go up and say...

Ultramarine assault terminators, number 10 5 with lightning claws, 5 without...

A few seconds lather they will appear full painted, and ready to go. lol

Steve steveson wrote:Just to clarify, i don't think ebooks are going away, I just think they will remain a small market and I think they have reached near saturation. The reason for that is that you have to buy a large number of books to make it worthwhile. Unfortunatly what drives the publishing industry is not big readers. Look at the top ten books, its all trash and cookbooks purchased as gifts and people who buy 1-2 books a year. What I don't think will happen is the total conversion to digital like the music market. I don't think books will go the way of the CD, whos years are numberd.

Ebook sales are only slowing down because they cost as much as a regular book plus the cost of the reader itself, yet there are restrictions on 'loaning' to anyone else and can be lost if the reader is lost. The value simply isn't there for the majority of the populate who can buy a paperback for $6 or an ebook for $12 only if they have a reader already that has a licensing deal with the publisher.

For 3d printing, the ridiculous IP enforcement will hinder culture because someone who creates their own models in the style of 40k and makes the model available would be punished even though someone drawing a picture of a 40k scene can post that 2d image on the internet and there isn't a problem. I do oppose infringement for monetary gain (the true purpose of copyright), but that protection only applies to ill gotten gain and not some fan making their own contribution to culture because it is 'too close' to something else or someone would rather use that than pay for GW's product. Limited duration is important as well,

The main problem in front of 3d printing is that is will be newly popular when culture is being strangled by counterproductive IP laws.

So you actually think that it would be in GW's best interests to give the entire hobby community essentially free access to as many models as they want, which would somehow magically maintain the same fidelity of sculpt quality of models yet be completely customizable without costing GW millions in 3d sculpting fees? You sound like a guy that knows a lot about business to me!

ph34r wrote:So you actually think that it would be in GW's best interests to give the entire hobby community essentially free access to as many models as they want, which would somehow magically maintain the same fidelity of sculpt quality of models yet be completely customizable without costing GW millions in 3d sculpting fees? You sound like a guy that knows a lot about business to me!

Why would it be free? Just because anyone can afford to buy a home printer doesn't mean it will be cheaper or if it is cheaper that it is worth printing photos at home instead of having them printed in bulk at a store. Heck, printing a 300 page book is far more expensive on a home printer than buying a paperback, isn't bound, and can't be resold.

I can buy a second hand Econo car, throw some spray paint on it and drive it around for under $1000 (essentially free for a car). I can also spend $15,000 for a well built, quality model that will be reliable down the road, easy to maintain, and I can sell for money when I am done with it. If GW puts out a quality product, and there is a reduced cost home version that isn't as good and isn't that much cheaper to make at home, I would still pay for the quality.

I can build my own shelves. I still buy shelves. 3d printing will never be 'free' and the quality of professionally crafted sculpts should be higher than someone in their spare time, and after a couple of decades GW's old sculpts should be in the public domain for anyone to copy if they want to because copyright is there for them to make money for a while by discouraging competitors from profiting from their work to encourage them to make NEW sculpts over time, not milk the same ones for ever. 3d printing isn't any different than making my own greenstuff sculpt except for the level of skill needed to do so, but if I sold it then I would be wrong whether it was from a 3d printer or my own hands.

I agree. I don't think 3D printers will ever be home viable to be honest. I don't think the market is large enough. I may be wrong, but I think they will be something that dies a death in the home market through lack of sales. You can point to PCs and home printers, but I point to flying cars and the speech recognition replacing typing to show things that have failed. Not every technology is "just a matter of time".

3D printing is SOOO viable, you just haven't seen the power of it yet. The current 3D printer that is available to home users is just plastic printing but in the future there could be metal, food printing etc...
Plus 3D printing will for sure come with a 3D scanner, and having the ability to replicate stuff is not a bad thing.
Besides, it's getting cheaper and cheaper now as lots of companies are competing for this market.
Look at Solidoodle it's as cheap as $500 which is affordable, not really great quality yet but high enough to print some simple stuff.

But then I'm still not convinced that E-Books will ever really work. I think they will go the way of the encarta CD, more so after I dropped my Kindle this morning and my first thought was "If its broken I'm going back to paperbacks. Much cheaper to drop". Fortunately it was not broken, but the case did open a little, and it was only a short drop.

Why would it be free? Just because anyone can afford to buy a home printer doesn't mean it will be cheaper or if it is cheaper that it is worth printing photos at home instead of having them printed in bulk at a store. Heck, printing a 300 page book is far more expensive on a home printer than buying a paperback, isn't bound, and can't be resold.

I can buy a second hand Econo car, throw some spray paint on it and drive it around for under $1000 (essentially free for a car). I can also spend $15,000 for a well built, quality model that will be reliable down the road, easy to maintain, and I can sell for money when I am done with it. If GW puts out a quality product, and there is a reduced cost home version that isn't as good and isn't that much cheaper to make at home, I would still pay for the quality.

I can build my own shelves. I still buy shelves. 3d printing will never be 'free' and the quality of professionally crafted sculpts should be higher than someone in their spare time, and after a couple of decades GW's old sculpts should be in the public domain for anyone to copy if they want to because copyright is there for them to make money for a while to encourage them to make NEW sculpts over time, not milk the same ones for ever.

I agree that it would not be free, but it would definitely be cheaper than buying from GW in the long term, IF they don't change their prices.

The thing is 3D printing is pretty reliable given time, unlike cars which have wear and tear much more easily than models would a piece of plastic is pretty hard to degenerate say 10 years?

Building your own shelf is hard and requires skill, the level of going online to download a model and click print is much easier than hammer nails into wood.

Also, I think you underestimate the power of the crowd/community or whatever you want to call it. The professionals exists everywhere good example would be devian art look at all the stuff on their that you could potentially use if they were 3D models instead of drawings. Go to Google Models and there's already a bank of 3D models that are pretty high quality (varies).

Steve steveson wrote:...

I agree. I don't think 3D printers will ever be home viable to be honest. I don't think the market is large enough. I may be wrong, but I think they will be something that dies a death in the home market through lack of sales. You can point to PCs and home printers, but I point to flying cars and the speech recognition replacing typing to show things that have failed. Not every technology is "just a matter of time".

But then I'm still not convinced that E-Books will ever really work. I think they will go the way of the encarta CD, more so after I dropped my Kindle this morning and my first thought was "If its broken I'm going back to paperbacks. Much cheaper to drop". Fortunately it was not broken, but the case did open a little, and it was only a short drop.

While it's clear that 3D printers are still very much a novelty for enthusiasts, take a look at this review of the MakerBot Replicator. While it's clearly still a very rough gadget, it's also edging ever closer to being something a hobbyist might consider owning. Certainly it's in the range of things that might be owned by a person that would consider casting in their garage, but hesitant to play with the powerful stuff.



We also need to ask ourselves "what does viable mean in this context?" The vast majority of people don't own things like drill presses, Dremel multi-tools or air compressors for painting, but we would certainly never question the viability of those products. If 3d printing takes off, it won't be for table top miniatures. The marketplace is simply too small as a whole, and it makes little sense for a kid that is spending $200-$500 to buy a $2000 piece of kit to print these things. But, the people that would buy an air compressor, or multiple large resin cast items? For them, an item as cool as a functional 3d fabricator starts looking like a much more interesting investment.

That's the thing: miniature consumers will be the beneficiaries of this technology, not the drivers. Various companies invented the VCR, the DVD player, and who made them household items? The porn industry. But once the sales volume was high enough, a VHS player, a DVD player, whatever, became cheap enough that anyone could own one. That's what's going to happen here: what the "porn" of 3d printing will be, I dunno (I'm doubting it will be porn, but you never know...).

One possibility I have heard offhand is that such machines can be used for the first step in making custom firearms parts. Now, firearms enthusiasts (especially in the US), are folks willing to put down some serious cash in pursuit of their hobby (seriously).

Will that be the driver? Will it be model trains? Historicals? Automotive parts? Who knows.

The key is that it's about getting the printers good and getting them cheap. Because once they are, the files will be spread at digital speed. Not just copies of existing things, but (I hope) lesser artists putting out new ideas. Just look at deviantArt or the Zbrush forums or whatnot: there are loads of talented people out there doing amazing things in their spare time.