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If GW knew what 3D printers were they might be worried. I imagine the execs are simply saying "printers? Ha! Nobody will want paper minis! We might be able to make a good profit from the 3D glasses though! Why didn't we think of that!".

Then one day some GW exec, realizing that something seems off here, will get on the internet. That thing that's for the gross nerds that still try to buy their mini's. Then they will get on their HP Pavilion a705w, dial-up their AOL browser, get on ask jeeves, and find out what 3D printing is. Then they'll get worried.

 Harriticus wrote:
If GW knew what 3D printers were they might be worried. I imagine the execs are simply saying "printers? Ha! Nobody will want paper minis! We might be able to make a good profit from the 3D glasses though! Why didn't we think of that!".

Then one day some GW exec, realizing that something seems off here, will get on the internet. That thing that's for the gross nerds that still try to buy their mini's. Then they will get on their HP Pavilion a705w, dial-up their AOL browser, get on ask jeeves, and find out what 3D printing is. Then they'll get worried.

I know its hip and cool to pick on GW, but come on.

They are a multimillion dollar company, and the major player in miniature wargaming. Saying they don't know exactly what 3D printing is and the threat it could pose to them in the future is just silly.

 Harriticus wrote:
If GW knew what 3D printers were they might be worried. I imagine the execs are simply saying "printers? Ha! Nobody will want paper minis! We might be able to make a good profit from the 3D glasses though! Why didn't we think of that!".

Then one day some GW exec, realizing that something seems off here, will get on the internet. That thing that's for the gross nerds that still try to buy their mini's. Then they will get on their HP Pavilion a705w, dial-up their AOL browser, get on ask jeeves, and find out what 3D printing is. Then they'll get worried.

Envisotec ( a manufacturer for resin 3D printers) lists GW as a customer.

And as far as I remember The first "live" 3D printed object I ever saw was at the GW studio in the UK, back in 2005 or 2006.

So they do know about the technology.

When it evolves, yes

More than likely, they USE 3d printing in their design process to some extent.


Now, when it becomes affordable for the average person to own (or at least make use of someone else's) one... then they might get worried.

Something to keep in mind would also be, there is a certain section of people that only buys models for painting/ games with friends. I don't see why anyone would waste the extra 20-40 on a GW model when it'll never be scrutinized by some tournament judge. in ~20 years a low end 3d printer+ some commonly circulated basic designs and boom, you've got something I'm about to pay $400 for.

I received an investment brochure in the mail today. It was touting a unique opportunity to invest in Maksim 3D printing and get in on the ground floor before it was too late. It was from a guy named Andy Chambers.

No, not that one. Some other one. Unless he moved to North Carolina and became an options trader.

Poly Ranger wrote:
In a decade or so's time, when the majority of homes have a 3D printer, I imagine GW going the way of HMV and Virgin megastores. These stores went into gradual decline due to the public being able to spend 20p on a CD of music you have chosen rather than on a £10/£15 chart CD. So when it costs £30 in ten years time for a tactical squad from GW, or less than £10 on a home 3D printer, then many people (who don't care about copyright law), will surely go the way of homebrew. Now I'm not advocating this illegal practice, but it must be taken into account when considering the future of GW. Nobody thought laser drives on home pcs would have the effect on the music industry that it did, so lets not underestimate the impact 3D printers may have. The templates will be all over the net. (And GW won't be the only ones)
What do you think?

Not at all. For several reasons.

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work. It will likely be decades before they do, and then it will be high end industrial printers that have price tags in the 6 digits that will. Printers for your home will just be making things like containers or very simply plastic parts like cell phone cases.

And even once it is possible to do that sort of thing with a printer, it will still be more economical to use molds. This is because a printer can only make one thing at a time and it takes a while to make that one thing. With a mold you can make a dozen+ things in only a few minutes. Its the only way to mass produce things like this.

3-D printing will not do to miniature companies what DVDs did to VHS tapes. I'm not going to spend a week printing out a tactical squad on my 3-D printer, I'm going to shell out the $30 to GW and use my printer to make a bowl shaped like a penguin.

People predicted that the internet would make newspapers extinct. Yet they're still around and doing fine.

 Melissia wrote:



Now, when it becomes affordable for the average person to own (or at least make use of someone else's) one... then they might get worried.

Yeah and at that point its not just GW that needs to worry. The entire industry will likely find itself forced to adopt a new business model to adapt to the change. Even before it happens I expect that to start changing. We'll probably see a shift to a model made up of core rules and models where the models can be made to order in the store itself, which would save massive amounts of money in distribution and warehousing as well as never having product that isn't selling.

Hobby shops will probably pick up on this as soon as someone in the industry realizes it and the technology has made it practical. Not to mention it'll save money when you redesign your models cause you can just modify the current sprue. EDIT: Not sure why people see GW or anyone else as just printing an entire model. They can just print the sprue.

Actually I was referring to the design aspect. A lot of companies use 3d printing in their design process, that's what it was originally developed for.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We have this thread every week. No. Not now, not until we have actual replicators and post-scarcity socialism and stuff.

Point of contention, post-scarcity societies need not be socialist.

Grey Templar wrote:

Not at all. For several reasons.

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work. It will likely be decades before they do, and then it will be high end industrial printers that have price tags in the 6 digits that will. Printers for your home will just be making things like containers or very simply plastic parts like cell phone cases.

And even once it is possible to do that sort of thing with a printer, it will still be more economical to use molds. This is because a printer can only make one thing at a time and it takes a while to make that one thing. With a mold you can make a dozen+ things in only a few minutes. Its the only way to mass produce things like this.

3-D printing will not do to miniature companies what DVDs did to VHS tapes. I'm not going to spend a week printing out a tactical squad on my 3-D printer, I'm going to shell out the $30 to GW and use my printer to make a bowl shaped like a penguin.

People predicted that the internet would make newspapers extinct. Yet they're still around and doing fine.

Uh, no. They should be worried.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heroforge/customizable-3d-printed-tabletop-miniatures?ref=discovery

If we're getting this in 2014, will the next three years look like? This technology, and leveraging it for financial success, is coming. Just the thought of a mini never going "out of print" is amazing. The thought of building the rules for your custom Chapter Master and then actually getting it printed to your selected wargear visually is awesome.

And newspapers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

Kain wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We have this thread every week. No. Not now, not until we have actual replicators and post-scarcity socialism and stuff.

Point of contention, post-scarcity societies need not be socialist.

Correct, just go start looking up information about the economics of Star Trek and that should put you on a good rabbit hole of post scarcity discussions.

 TheKbob wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

Not at all. For several reasons.

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work. It will likely be decades before they do, and then it will be high end industrial printers that have price tags in the 6 digits that will. Printers for your home will just be making things like containers or very simply plastic parts like cell phone cases.

And even once it is possible to do that sort of thing with a printer, it will still be more economical to use molds. This is because a printer can only make one thing at a time and it takes a while to make that one thing. With a mold you can make a dozen+ things in only a few minutes. Its the only way to mass produce things like this.

3-D printing will not do to miniature companies what DVDs did to VHS tapes. I'm not going to spend a week printing out a tactical squad on my 3-D printer, I'm going to shell out the $30 to GW and use my printer to make a bowl shaped like a penguin.

People predicted that the internet would make newspapers extinct. Yet they're still around and doing fine.

Uh, no. They should be worried.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heroforge/customizable-3d-printed-tabletop-miniatures?ref=discovery

If we're getting this in 2014, will the next three years look like? This technology, and leveraging it for financial success, is coming. Just the thought of a mini never going "out of print" is amazing. The thought of building the rules for your custom Chapter Master and then actually getting it printed to your selected wargear visually is awesome.

And newspapers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

Kain wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We have this thread every week. No. Not now, not until we have actual replicators and post-scarcity socialism and stuff.

Point of contention, post-scarcity societies need not be socialist.

Correct, just go start looking up information about the economics of Star Trek and that should put you on a good rabbit hole of post scarcity discussions.

The Culture makes Star Trek look like cavemen banging rocks together and would be able to not only militarily defeat all of 40k fairly trivially, but then ungrimdark the entire setting without losing a single ship. The story of course, would be in how the Culture would be utterly appalled by the state of 40k and their debate on how to deal with what to them, are a bunch of heinously evil savages.

It's also a society where an orgy is a common form of greeting.

 Grey Templar wrote:

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work. It will likely be decades before they do, and then it will be high end industrial printers that have price tags in the 6 digits that will. Printers for your home will just be making things like containers or very simply plastic parts like cell phone cases.

I'll just leave this here. It was part of a demo of the Form 1 resin printer. It currently costs around $3k.

How long does it take to make that?

Is it cost effective to product in quantity?

I'm betting its not cost effective at all.

I'm surprised people are looking at this so negatively for GW. They obviously know the technology is coming and they are probably already planning how they can leverage it.

Do people still hire photographers even though they can buy a nice camera and download a ripped off copy of Photoshop? When they print their photos, do they do it at home? How about nice stationary, cards, or signs?


I think GW would like a world where they can put a 3D printer right in their store. No need to ship models to stores, or stock models that might not sell... no need to print nice glossy boxes - just print generic boxes to hold all the different orders, etc, etc ,etc...

Oh sure, your buddy might have a 3D printer at home you could borrow. But...

What if you want the monster wielding two axes and you can only find a 3D file with the one with a giant mace? What if the pose is really stupid and you want a different one? What if the file doesn't work with brand X of printer and you need to find someone with brand Y? What if your buddy doesn't take care of the printer and there are always bubbles or clumps in the models? What if you can't find the 3D file for the new awesome defibrulator-pattern dreadnought on pirate bay and you just gotta have it? Etc etc etc...

Ah screw all that... just pick the model and customize the pose on the GW website and pick it up in their store tomorrow. You can pick up some paint while you're there.

@Gravitywell:

Don't even bother. You make good points but most of the people posting at this point haven't even read the thread. For example, the Kickstarter referenced by both Baronleagh and Thekbob has already been addressed in pretty good detail in the previous pages and on top of that, most of the people saying things like:

If we're getting this in 2014, will the next three years look like?

and

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work

are clearly arguing from points of fairly profound ignorance (again, for reasons that have already been covered. In detail.).

TL;DR:

No. GW should be on top of it, but not really worried. This tech may be new to some but it is in fact not really "new" at all. It has been around for quite some time and the higher-end "not available" for home use models can produce incredible quality. The tech to get the "detail" down is the absolute least of the concerns and there are a wide array of other factors standing in the way of this becoming something that "puts GW out of business". For anyone wanting deatils on why I say that ... please read the entire thread.

Ok, that's my rant for the day. lol

 Grey Templar wrote:
How long does it take to make that?

Is it cost effective to product in quantity?

I'm betting its not cost effective at all.

It took (side from the CG modeling) about 10 min. In theory you could produce as many of them as will fit in the tray at once, however. At $150 a bottle, you're looking at about $50 a box of 5 MEQs, assuming you don't have an agreement with them to buy in bulk for a discount.


I also looked at your thoughts on Daz. Daz has shortcomings, don't get me wrong. But with a platinum sub with them, you're looking at the cost of the sub and then maybe $100 if you stick to Victoria 4.2 stuff. Export the entire finished fig as a single wavefront obj, since most 3d progs can read it.

Some Only War character art for my Catachan jungle fighter done in Daz

Loborocket wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Do you have a pic of the print? In any case, while there are a handfull of models available online (leman russ, dreadnought, rhino iirc), its not enough to build an army from, and they arent exact copies of the original, that Russ for example is missing all the rivets and tiny little fiddly bits found on the actual leman russ (although in some respects I do think it actually looks better).

Here are a couple of shots of this 3d printed L. Russ. I am not using the turret and turning it into a looted wagon. I think it works fine for this purpose.





I will just add as a footnote here I have been approached both in person and from folks online to buy the 3d files and the printed models themselves. So there is SOME kind of demand for 3d printed 40k stuff. I would expect to see this increase over time as printer get better and more 3d models are made available.

I have pretty much finished up painting the looted wagon. Turned out good enough for me to put on the table.

I wonder how feasible it would be to 3d print mould forms?

I don't think GW needs to be worried about the 3D printer nearly as much as a 3D Scanner.

milo wrote:
I don't think GW needs to be worried about the 3D printer nearly as much as a 3D Scanner.

I think makerbot has something like that.

I think they should put some kind of uncopyable mark on them so that they can tell for competitions excetera which ones are legal.

@Loborocket, I’m fascinated by your works, man. How did you paint those cool looted wagons? I usually spray paint my wargamer models; just so perfect with plastic PLA filament. I would also like to try if acrylic paints can do wonders with my 3d2print’s nylon filament.

Too slow, too expensive, too bad quality without spending a fortune on a printer.

You will spend >3000$ on a printer and then some more on the material to print an army that isn't of as good quality as 40k's plastic kits and needs much, much more sanding to remove imperfections and make larger areas smooth. On one block/bottle/whatever of the material you won't be able to print a big part of an army, and even if you print 3 armies, you still will be at a loss, because regular big 40k armies cost less than 1000$, and material costs add up too the more you want to print. Not to mention time and power consumed by the process.

The 3D printers will be an 'issue' at some point in future, but by the time people can make printing armies cheaper than buying them, they will have a plan developed to work around it.

Is this by the same GW planners that planned ahead to leverage the strength of the internet? ; p

 Kain wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

Not at all. For several reasons.

3-D printers do not, nor will they in the foreseeable future, have great detail work. It will likely be decades before they do, and then it will be high end industrial printers that have price tags in the 6 digits that will. Printers for your home will just be making things like containers or very simply plastic parts like cell phone cases.

And even once it is possible to do that sort of thing with a printer, it will still be more economical to use molds. This is because a printer can only make one thing at a time and it takes a while to make that one thing. With a mold you can make a dozen+ things in only a few minutes. Its the only way to mass produce things like this.

3-D printing will not do to miniature companies what DVDs did to VHS tapes. I'm not going to spend a week printing out a tactical squad on my 3-D printer, I'm going to shell out the $30 to GW and use my printer to make a bowl shaped like a penguin.

People predicted that the internet would make newspapers extinct. Yet they're still around and doing fine.

Uh, no. They should be worried.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heroforge/customizable-3d-printed-tabletop-miniatures?ref=discovery

If we're getting this in 2014, will the next three years look like? This technology, and leveraging it for financial success, is coming. Just the thought of a mini never going "out of print" is amazing. The thought of building the rules for your custom Chapter Master and then actually getting it printed to your selected wargear visually is awesome.

And newspapers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers

Kain wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
We have this thread every week. No. Not now, not until we have actual replicators and post-scarcity socialism and stuff.

Point of contention, post-scarcity societies need not be socialist.

Correct, just go start looking up information about the economics of Star Trek and that should put you on a good rabbit hole of post scarcity discussions.

The Culture makes Star Trek look like cavemen banging rocks together and would be able to not only militarily defeat all of 40k fairly trivially, but then ungrimdark the entire setting without losing a single ship. The story of course, would be in how the Culture would be utterly appalled by the state of 40k and their debate on how to deal with what to them, are a bunch of heinously evil savages.

It's also a society where an orgy is a common form of greeting.

1. The Culture is not a real society.

2. I've only read one Culture book (and hated it on several levels), but the society described in that book was clearly socialist.

 Melissia wrote:
More than likely, they USE 3d printing in their design process to some extent.


Now, when it becomes affordable for the average person to own (or at least make use of someone else's) one... then they might get worried.

Welll yeah.. you hardly think that they sculpt with greenstuff then pantograph it into a mould? They are going to get the prototypes high-rez 3d printed before hand.