Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I love the idea of the local hobby or craft store having a high resolution 3D printer and i go with my 3D file to print out my own designs of Tank doors and/or helmets.

The crux of the matter is the 3D software also needs to be Idiot proof, i mean easy to use by the masses

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
It will remain a relative specialty device - at least till it can print food that tastes good...

However, don't overlook specialty devices that really serve no purpose as not becoming relatively mainstream. You can go to almost any Walmart in the US and buy a Cricut. What does it do? Cuts shapes out of paper - isn't even terribly customizable. Head a few aisles over, and you can find Brother computerized sewing machines - capable of embroidering fabric... Also a very specialized machine, which really doesn't have any real purpose. Now, you have to embroider a lot of doilies to make up the cost of buying the machine to do it for you...but they still sell the machines. I would be willing to be that someone in your neighborhood has one - probably right next to their Cricut.

As a result of those cheap machines though - you can also get a rotary engraver (Cricut on steroids) that will mark aluminum and brass or cut plastic up to 1/4" thick for less than $1000 (as opposed to them being $10K+ not to many years ago). 10 Needle commercial level embroidery machines have dropped from $15K to under $3K as well because of machines like the one Brother.

Companies will see the market for advanced home users who might have bought the commercial machine last year start to weigh the option of a really cheap home version. By making a midrange model (little smaller area, little slower...) home version for the advanced user - they don't loose those sales to the Dremel machine.

Expect Martha Stewart and her kind to be the primary driving factor for the home market though. Carved Easter eggs, Christmas Ornaments and napkin rings will provide many more sales than miniatures will...but we will see the benefits from those crafty types as it creates a market for people who want something more.

As a paper modeller, I can attest that there is a niche for the Cricut. My old Craft Robo is dying... but it went through about a couple of thousand sheets of 100# index.

The Auld Grump, and my fingers really appreciate it....

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Expect Martha Stewart and her kind to be the primary driving factor for the home market though. Carved Easter eggs, Christmas Ornaments and napkin rings will provide many more sales than miniatures will...but we will see the benefits from those crafty types as it creates a market for people who want something more.

I think this is the most likely scenario. I don't think folks realize just how many expensive (but not that expensive) computer controlled machines are already being bought by crafters for sewing, quiliting, cutting, etc. Think about the paper cutter. Not really designed with wargamers in mind, but now most better quality printable paper wargames models are compatible with cutting machines.

3d printing is going to be big for crafters and wargamers will reap the rewards.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I really don't think quality 3D printers will ever get cheaper than just buying an army which has been cast by a large scale manufacturer, at least not for most people. You do hit a bottom of price with the minimum cost of manufacture and I don't think that bottom will be less than several hundred dollars for something that will print miniatures to a quality wargamers will be happy using.

You're here in Australia. Price out a Skaven, Dark Elf, Imperial Guard, Ork, Tyranid army...

Though maybe our horrible education system will convince parents they need to give their kids 3D printers so they can create pointless knick knacks and that will drive it.

This doesn't even make sense in context.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The crux of the matter is the 3D software also needs to be Idiot proof, i mean easy to use by the masses

^- This.

Every discussion about 3D printers reminds me of my dad.

He calls himself a geek, just because he's got an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod and an iBook Pro. Doesn't know how to install software on his iDevices, thinks WMA and WAV are the same thing, doesn't know how to switch between landscape and portrait in Word... but still calls himself a (computer) geek. Wants a 3D printer, doesn't know anything about 3D modelling (and doesn't want to learn).

The people on Dakka are highly creative. Really, guys. You are painters, you are modellers, you know how to youse your hands to create things instead of just buying them. You're miles ahead of the Average Joe.

Still...
Every dakkanaut who actually understand what I mean when I talk about the necessity to find relevant models, and not some crap made of non-manifold, non watertight meshes with inverted normals... please raise your hand.

Men, there are hundreds of 40k usable paper models available for free all over the internet.

Give it a couple of years and I will be printing models for 40k I got the files for for free off of the internet.

Litcheur wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The crux of the matter is the 3D software also needs to be Idiot proof, i mean easy to use by the masses

^- This.

Every discussion about 3D printers reminds me of my dad.

He calls himself a geek, just because he's got an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod and an iBook Pro. Doesn't know how to install software on his iDevices, thinks WMA and WAV are the same thing, doesn't know how to switch between landscape and portrait in Word... but still calls himself a (computer) geek. Wants a 3D printer, doesn't know anything about 3D modelling (and doesn't want to learn).

The people on Dakka are highly creative. Really, guys. You are painters, you are modellers, you know how to youse your hands to create things instead of just buying them. You're miles ahead of the Average Joe.

Still...
Every dakkanaut who actually understand what I mean when I talk about the necessity to find relevant models, and not some crap made of non-manifold, non watertight meshes with inverted normals... please raise your hand.

You can't see it right now, but just pretend I am raising my hand.

Litcheur wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
The crux of the matter is the 3D software also needs to be Idiot proof, i mean easy to use by the masses

^- This.

Every discussion about 3D printers reminds me of my dad.

He calls himself a geek, just because he's got an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod and an iBook Pro. Doesn't know how to install software on his iDevices, thinks WMA and WAV are the same thing, doesn't know how to switch between landscape and portrait in Word... but still calls himself a (computer) geek. Wants a 3D printer, doesn't know anything about 3D modelling (and doesn't want to learn).

The people on Dakka are highly creative. Really, guys. You are painters, you are modellers, you know how to youse your hands to create things instead of just buying them. You're miles ahead of the Average Joe.

Still...
Every dakkanaut who actually understand what I mean when I talk about the necessity to find relevant models, and not some crap made of non-manifold, non watertight meshes with inverted normals... please raise your hand.

One of the first things that will pop on the market (and already has from several companies) is the ability to "emboss" 3D shapes onto other objects. Flexible to a degree - it uses things like true type fonts and grey scale images to act almost like a bump map. Almost anyone can use it by simply turning dials for the strength of the projection and the level of detail in the mesh.

You still have to get a primitive of your desired object in there - most have disks, squares, teacups, spheres, rings... built in to them, and some have the ability to import objects from regular 3D software. Things like SM shoulder pads, Rhino/Land Raider doors are simple to make - even for a novice modeler. They can then use their black and white chapter logo picture to emboss the part.

Following that though - it was far easier for me to learn to model in 3D than it was to learn to push putty - putty doesn't have an undo. I even learned most of it back in the day before ZBrush even existed and everything was done one polygon at a time (even things like MeshSmooth were new features in Max when I started). The software now is much easier to use, and you can model very detailed, very quickly once you get a handle on it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 adamsouza wrote:
Men, there are hundreds of 40k usable paper models available for free all over the internet.

Give it a couple of years and I will be printing models for 40k I got the files for for free off of the internet.

Yep - and it will become more so, once it is more so.

Sort of a chicken/egg conundrum. There are not many freely available, printable, 3D models...because there are not many cheaply available 3D printers. Once the printers become available, the models will show up in short order.

Once the tools become more readily available, it will give cause for people to release the models (or learn how to push vertices as opposed to putty).

3D scanners coming down in price will help as well

Makerbots Digitizer 3D Scanner has already goen from $949 to $799

When 3D Printers, and Scanners, get down to around $500 there will be an expolsion of 3D printing.

There are already a ton for Free models on Thingverse

Scanners are even further behind printers though.

The accuracy of "cheap" scanners like that one...its a bit like working with the big Dupliblocks.

Even rather high end systems are still very rough. The big benefit comes when you want to take something really big and make it small (scanning a tank, or a person to make a model).

Ones like NextEngine are getting to be pretty good - though it is still limited to 400 samples per inch (ends up being a resolution of around 125 microns). As a result, the printed output is even rougher than a 3D model done "by hand". It really doesn't do any good to have a printer that can print at 10 microns when your model is based off from a chunky scan.

 adamsouza wrote:
3D scanners coming down in price will help as well

Scanners work just like, well... scanners.

Why would you use a 2D scanner and then a printer?
1) Because you have the software and knowledge to make modifications on the scanned document
2) Because you don't have a photocopier.

Point 1 brings us back to the main problem: you must have some 3D modelling knowledge. Why? Because it's just like a vectorized 2D scan: it will probably need to be cleaned. And even if you want to perform very simple tasks like rescaling, things are not that easy because of some limitations of the 3D printer (minimum wall thickness for example). You need some knowledge, and while the scanner may be an efficient tool, that kind of knowledge would probably allow you to design things without having to spend hundreds in a scanner...
Hey, that money could be used to buy a better printer.

Point 2, well... 3D photocopiers already exist. It's called a RTV mold. It allows you to duplicate your own creations with resin or pewter, right here, right now, and it will cost you something 100$. You don't have to wait for ten years, and it'll be ten times cheaper.

There are legal implications, of course, but casting or scanning+printing is pretty much the same thing, you're duplicating something.

Most countries of continental Europe allow the duplication of any sculpture (or work of art) for personnal use. If I'm not mistaken, if minis are toys, you cannot duplicate the patented designs, but would be able to cast and sell most minis of the Red Period (anywhere in the world) because the patents have expired, and probably some more recent discontinued minis whose patents haven't been renewed...

and

3) Because you want it in a different size.

I scan a print to make stuff bigger/smaller with some frequency...especially when I am working on models. You can scan something like a pistol and make a miniature of that pistol.

4) Because you want it in a different medium.

Another thing I do fairly often (and my wife does more so) is to move it from one medium to another. For example, from a book on paper to transfer film or decal sheets. The corollary there would be if you have a sculptor make a master of a figure as a 3-Up sized figure using traditional methods. You can than scan and print in wax at a reduced scale. The wax can than be used to create a lost wax master (bronze or sliver quite often) of that original model for creating production molds for traditional casting.


There are definitely legitimate uses for scanning/printing of 3D objects, and I often wish that I could go ahead and scan in a model or other item in order to avoid damaging it when I need to do something else to it (I can destroy/modify the digital file thousands of times with no impact on the original).

I also do scale shifting for different things - and right now that entails two different sets of masters, two different sets of molds... It would be very handy to me to be able to sculpt a figure in something like 1/18 scale (very easy to work on - especially as I get older), scan it in and print it for 1/48 scale and again at 1/72 and 1/144 for use in skirmish, company and army level games.

If I get a call from a friend who still hasn't been converted to scale gaming and wants it sized for something like 28mm - I can easily load the file up again and reprint in that size.

I've spent years casting in white metal, resin, and plaster. They are all toxic to work with and impossible to share digitally with others.

I also imagined 3D scanners would get better and cheaper, like most electronics do.

 Vulcan wrote:
There's a lot of gamers out there who would love to print their own minis. Not to mention plastic model collectors who might want to sculpt parts to convert, say, a P-38E to a P-38J (with the bent tail forks) or a B-17G into a B-38 (with in-line liquid cooled engines replacing the radial air-cooled engines).
Will 3D printers ever get as cheap as a paper printer? Unlikely. But cheap enough for dedicated hobbyists to use? Certainly. Within the price range of a top-of-the-line airbrush, or a Dremel with full accessory kit anyway.
Might take a decade or so, but it'll get there.

People said the same thing about CNC mills and whilst they are terrific most people are unwilling to learn how to operate and maintain them, quite apart from learning how to produce designs.

Anyone who makes scenery would benefit immensely from a CNC laser and they're ~$1000 but how many do?

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Anyone who makes scenery would benefit immensely from a CNC laser and they're ~$1000 but how many do?

I looked into getting a Laser Engraver/Cutter earlier this year. A good CNC laser setup runs more like $5,000. In my experience anything close to $1000 invovles a bare minimum of features and you building it with kits from China.

CNC lasers are not even as widely available or inexepensive as 3D printers surrently are. Staples has a 3D printer for $999

Also more to the point, $1000+ is still above the hobbyist range of affordable gadgetry.

Airbrushes are popular becuase they are in the few hundred dollar range. I bought first crappy airbrush for $25, and a nice setup for under $400.
Card cutters for paper modellers are in the $200 to $300 range.
You can get into Casting miniatures for under $100

People will develop the know how when they can afford to lose the initial investment.

 Azazelx wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I really don't think quality 3D printers will ever get cheaper than just buying an army which has been cast by a large scale manufacturer, at least not for most people. You do hit a bottom of price with the minimum cost of manufacture and I don't think that bottom will be less than several hundred dollars for something that will print miniatures to a quality wargamers will be happy using.

You're here in Australia. Price out a Skaven, Dark Elf, Imperial Guard, Ork, Tyranid army...

Still less for a typical sized army than I think high quality 3D printers will come down to being.

Unless you're talking about an infantry heavy DKOK army

But hey, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I underestimate how much penetration a niche product will get

I do know, even as much penetration as 2D printers have gotten in to homes, it's still more economical for most people to get photos printed somewhere else. The few people I do know who print their photos are professional or enthusiast photographers who need a fast turn around. I expect 3D printers to go the same way, though with even less home penetration.

Though maybe our horrible education system will convince parents they need to give their kids 3D printers so they can create pointless knick knacks and that will drive it.

This doesn't even make sense in context.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Anyone who makes scenery would benefit immensely from a CNC laser and they're ~$1000 but how many do?

I looked into getting a Laser Engraver/Cutter earlier this year. A good CNC laser setup runs more like $5,000. In my experience anything close to $1000 invovles a bare minimum of features and you building it with kits from China.

I have one that was ~$1600 four years ago. No kits, not bought from China. I don't have autofocus but when all you do is cut/engrave sheet material you don't need it. People get hung up on power but if you're working with acrylic and HDF then the lowest power ones are totally fine.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Still less for a typical sized army than I think high quality 3D printers will come down to being.

Unless you're talking about an infantry heavy DKOK army

One army? Probably. Even with GW prices - you can pick up most of an army for less than $1000.

Two armies? They already lost the price battle to Australia there.

Three armies? Canada becomes cheaper to print and so do most armies in the US.

Four armies? There goes the rest of the world.

That is based on something like the LittleRP linked to by RiTides getting just a little bit finer in detailing. If an actual manufacturer of DLP projectors were to get involved so that they could actually build a purpose built light source (or another company with the capital needed) that would be simple, simple.

For that price - including materials used, the equivalent of 256 infantry would run $4.36 per figure. Something like a terminator would be about 1.5 infantry. Cavalry and bikes might be 3 infantry. Vehicles - will depend a bit more, but most of those would end up being between 10 and 20 infantry (of material used to print).

Since it is pretty common for people to have more than one army - just having a small game club go in (or at the very least pay a small print fee to a member) on a printer. Get 8 people together who need the equivalent of 256 infantry each and the price drops down to 88 cents per figure (that includes materials and one new light bulb...which shouldn't need to be replaced yet, but just in case).

Add to that the ability to print whatever accessory items you need for regular castings (need extra flamers, plasma guns or other items - no need to stalk eBay) or special conversion parts (matching doors for all your Rhinos and Land Raiders...). Or unique items (Eldar, Tau and Tyranid terrain...). Or other game systems (Historicals are ripe for the picking as they use large numbers of figures which are free from most the IP related thuggery connected to GW).

And yes - it may still end up being cheaper to have the items printed somewhere else (CVS or Kinkos 3D print kiosks - though there...they would need to speed up the printing more than improve the resolution). If you look at the LittleRP kickstarter, one of the supporters is Ponoko. They are a bit like Shapeways. They want to get affordable, high quality printers so that they don't have 6 Objets printing when they fill the build tray - but 60 LittleRPs printing all the time. When the price gets low enough, you will see companies spring up to provide that service for you as well - and as opposed to having to get 8 people who need armies printed to get to 88 cents per figure - you will be able to take a flash drive to OfficeMax and have them print 10 figures at a dollar each.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Anyone who makes scenery would benefit immensely from a CNC laser and they're ~$1000 but how many do?

I looked into getting a Laser Engraver/Cutter earlier this year. A good CNC laser setup runs more like $5,000. In my experience anything close to $1000 invovles a bare minimum of features and you building it with kits from China.

I have one that was ~$1600 four years ago. No kits, not bought from China. I don't have autofocus but when all you do is cut/engrave sheet material you don't need it. People get hung up on power but if you're working with acrylic and HDF then the lowest power ones are totally fine.

Sounds a bit like bare minimum features still.

A descent laser engraver, with a good software package and autofocus (which is very important for engraving...less so for cutting), even relatively low powered ends up running about $5K in the US. I looked at several different companies and in the end went with one that started at $7K (with the added features I got it ended up being about $8500).

One of the big differences though between a laser engraver and a 3D printer is that everyone who plays with miniatures can benefit from a 3D printer. My experience with terrain though is that normally it is somewhere down below 25% of any given group actually makes/buys terrain. Probably half of that actually does purpose built terrain, where they have more than one set of hills/trees/ruins. Of those, a large portion are working with budgets of $50 or less - and would love a laser engraver, but can't even scrape together enough spare change for a hotwire cutter.

The ones who can afford one...well, they generally end up selling stuff too (as a result there is no shortage of laser cut MDF terrain companies).

Sold me Sean. Now who is going to make all these great files for use to use so we can print our own minis?

Hell lets go one step further. Who is going to make these great files that aren't copies so they become legal?

After all if someone is making minis, but they are not exact copies and there is no profit in it, is it illegal then to distribute these files then?

It's not a movie. It's not music or TV show or concert. So what if someone made their own Marine that is in Space or a Space Elf and freely distributes it, is it legal?

Or if it is a blatant copy of a GW mini, is it legal to freely distribute the file since no money is being made?

That is where things get...complicated.

One of the first 3D based sets I did was based on this figure here (several years ago now):

http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=434

Most of us have seen it - the female space marine figure. Clearly not a GW figure. Couldn't be a GW figure based on their current fluff. The rigid armor makes posing easy (my animation skills had become rusty from years of disuse - so it was a nice baby-steps project). Did different weapons, different armor versions, different helmets. Posed in 3D, printed and then cleaned up by hand - detailed with putty.

There is definitely enough there that GW could very well get uppity regarding infringement and what not. They do tend to get that way quite easily after all.

In terms of who will make them - probably the same people who make these files:

http://www.moddb.com/

or these files:

http://zealot.com/

or the files you can find here:

http://www.therpf.com/

Legality ranges from 100% legal, to 100% illegal. A lot depends on what it is, and where you live (rules relating to copies like this are quite different from straight recasting issues - and even straight recasting issues vary significantly depending on where you live).

The sites that host the files would end up being targeted by companies like GW. No doubt there will be lawsuits and many DMCA takedown requests. Eventually GW will release there own 3D printer that costs twice as much as the Dremel linked to above that prints at half the resolution using a proprietary filament spool that costs three times as much (Kirby said so himself...though I am guessing regarding price and features).

For a bit - people will end up becoming familiar with grey sites like 4Chan, 4Shared and Torrents to get their 3D files. The market will mature though, and you will have sites like Amazon where you can buy your files from just like people do with MP3s.

Awesome. Now where do I get those AR15 receiver and 30rd mag files at?

I love Dremel tools. This is pretty cool. Hopefully like flat screen TVs, the price will start to drop considerably.

What does the material cost to feed one of these things and how far does it go?

I await cheaper 3D printers not for minis gaming, but for my other hobbies. Being able to print my own parts for figure customization means finally getting those characters that Hasbro/Takara/TFCC won't do because of obscurity levels and will open up other possibilities to the fandom, such as people being able to make their original characters and actually have them look how they want rather than having to settle on re-painting someone else or Frankenstein creations.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
A descent laser engraver, with a good software package and autofocus (which is very important for engraving...less so for cutting), even relatively low powered ends up running about $5K in the US. I looked at several different companies and in the end went with one that started at $7K (with the added features I got it ended up being about $8500).

Must be a US thing because they're extremely cheap here.

Once there is a workable smartphone app for 3d scanning, it'll take off bigtime. I'm no programmer, but surely the resolution and capabilities of smartphones are good enough to patch some photos into a 3d image.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
A descent laser engraver, with a good software package and autofocus (which is very important for engraving...less so for cutting), even relatively low powered ends up running about $5K in the US. I looked at several different companies and in the end went with one that started at $7K (with the added features I got it ended up being about $8500).

Must be a US thing because they're extremely cheap here.

Which one did you go with, Sean, and with what addons? 8.5K sounds quite good actually, assuming it's one with a decent powered laser that can actually cut through things.

Epilog Mini with all the options (rotary table, 3 lenses, pin table...). I actually managed to get a good deal on that.

When I was looking - for my purposes - it came down to either an Epilog or a Full Spectrum. I could have gotten more machine for less with Full Spectrum (about half as much for comparable equipment) - but the Epilog has a longer history...and I didn't want to run into any issues with the first go around on that. I will likely get a larger floor model Full Spectrum in the next year or so - something with a 36x24 or 36x48 table, but I have to wait till we finish building the shop for that. Space is at a premium right now - and I am running out of room for toys.

Which brings up this...

http://fslaser.com/products/3d-printers/pegasus-touch-laser-3d-printer-by-fsl3d

Laser based 3D printer. Limit is really how tight they can focus the beam. It should be even smoother than comparable projector based printers because the laser is guided in an analog manner (X-Y) - whereas projectors relying on pixelated images. The Z axis is able to move in 5 micron increments...

...anyone in the market for a slightly used B9? I am thinking it is time to upgrade...

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
...anyone in the market for a slightly used B9? I am thinking it is time to upgrade...

Actually yes... unfortunately we are probably a good 6 months out before finalizing plans and securing funds.

I'm not sure the laser cutter comparison is entirely apt.

Laser cutters require a bit of specialized knowledge and I think just the fact that they involve lasers is a bit of a hurdle for some folks. Also, they are fairly limited in what they can do. They cut and engrave, and that's about it. They aren't suitable for producing most 3d sculptures, prototypes, etc, all the things that make 3d printers so appealing.

That means that they aren't going to have the same combination of crafters, small bussinesses, educatiors, etc buying them and driving down costs as will 3d printers.