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I was just on the prowl looking for some cool new fantasy buildings, and I came across this Kickstarter. Looks like just what I need

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printablescenery/winterdale-medieval-fantasy-citadel-collection-for

I would have to order the prints from Shapeways though since I don’t have my own printer. They also have some kits already available so I might order one to try now.. but $50 for the top pledge seems like a great deal to me.. as long as they don’t cost like $500 to print

Yeah, that's the kicker - how much would it cost to get these things 3D-printed?

Quite a bit! Your best bet is probably Shapeways "strong & flexible" material (possibly polished)... but even then, it's going to be really pricey for that large of terrain.

I think it is more aimed at people who would print these themselves at home (on a FDM style machine, like most MakerBots / home printer kits). But even then, something this large doesn't seem like the best fit for printing, to me...

A mate of mine has made this. We play this full set almost weekly.

If you can get this I highly recommend it!

We found it great for DnD, KOW and well any game really.

 Swastakowey wrote:
A mate of mine has made this. We play this full set almost weekly.

If you can get this I highly recommend it!

We found it great for DnD, KOW and well any game really.

Pics please or, well, you know...

I’ll give it a shot and see. I don’t really need ultra detail like a figure, and I’m sure I’ll have some grain to sand off when I get it. I’ll pick up the building kit they already have and see what the prices are like tonight. Hopefully my post on Dakka will count as a sharing the link and I’ll get some free walls too

 Alpharius wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
A mate of mine has made this. We play this full set almost weekly.

If you can get this I highly recommend it!

We found it great for DnD, KOW and well any game really.

Pics please or, well, you know...

Yea he lives around the corner from me, I might go round and take some pic of what can be done for you guys.

He also has a whole cave system too which is awesome but I dont think its on the kick starter.

I have played with the terrain on that kick starter so many times now. But its incredibly modular so it never feels the same.

here is a snippet (all I can find) from our latest KOW tournament the other weekend. You can see a tower with a wall section. The hills here are also his just like in the kickstarter for assurance they are the same. Also you can see some of his walls here too. Will find more. Its really great stuff.




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More from a friends game a fair few months ago now. Not the full set up again. But still very nice stuff.




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This is my personal favourite of his.

http://www.printablescenery.com/walls/114-tribalstockade-regular-v01.html

A Maori Fort. It all looks amazing in person.

in the US, check with your local library. Many of them have 3D printers & will print files at cost. I've printed a number of files at mine.

Looks well designed, very interested, but I have no idea what the cost would be to print any of this stuff. Are there any US companies that do this that anyone has used?

hmm, I have a feeling this might be best if you have a 3D printer of your own. I got the free walls.. they look great, nice detail. I uploaded 1 of the files to Shapeways, it's 7" long and about .75" high, and Shapeways wants $21 for just that one piece in their cheapest "white" material.

I thought maybe if it's just because it's 1 print and they need to charge a minimum no matter what, like if I combined all of the parts into 1 big file it might be cheaper? So I opened up Blender, imported all the parts and then make an all new OBJ file with all 6 pieces included.. worked great, but now Shapeways wants $100 :( At this rate it would be cheaper to send them to my 3D printer guy and get ultra high res for $75 per print... that could probably fit all of these wall bits, but if I wanted to print a house it would be $75 for each floor and the roof piece and everything.

So I think it's gonna be too expensive for me. I'm bummed :( I think it looks really great, but at that rate it's even too much if I did 1 print and made resin casts for myself from them

Anyone know of any other worthwhile 3D printing companies that would do it cheaper?

Unfortunately this seems likes its only worthwhile if you own a 3d Printer or know someone who'd let you use theirs at the cost of materials.

 Necros wrote:
I was just on the prowl looking for some cool new fantasy buildings, and I came across this Kickstarter. Looks like just what I need

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/printablescenery/winterdale-medieval-fantasy-citadel-collection-for

I would have to order the prints from Shapeways though since I don’t have my own printer. They also have some kits already available so I might order one to try now.. but $50 for the top pledge seems like a great deal to me.. as long as they don’t cost like $500 to print

Just a matter of perspective... I printed a Contemptor dreadnought sized model in Shapeway's cheap yet strong material... that was $100. Better quality detail will give you a model the size of a regular dreadnought for $100.

And....

most cheap printers have only 5x5x5cm or 10x10x10 print-area, which wil cause quite some problems.

And don´t get me started about the cleaning up of cheap printers.

If they are supplying it as an STL you can make a CAD cutting file from that for use on a 3 or 5 axis cutting machine... if you have access to one

Sadly the one we have at work only has a single large cutting blade size otherwise I might have been tempted

I'm still gonna keep my pledge anyway. I think it's a cool project at $15 is worth saying "keep up the good work".. I'll get the house model out of it, and have it in case I get a printer of my own some day. If funds allow some day I want to get one to print my own masters for my games.

They did say something about creating separate files that break the models up into smaller pieces for smaller printers, so there's that.

If you could get them cut into smaller bits printing once then casting in resin might be the way to go for things you need a bunch of.

It is a cool idea for a project, and really is kind of what I expect the mini/scenery market to look like in 10 years. Maybe just not now?

Yeah this isn't "there" yet for the consumer.

If you own a MakerBot-style printer yourself you can keep the costs down to at least acceptable levels, but even just making stuff at-cost the price of the files means you would have to print a lot of stuff to make it more attractive than MDF terrain, particularly given the low level of detail and amount of prep-work required for things these dinky home printers output.

Putting the files through Shapeways or a proper 3D printing service with a machine that outputs high quality final product is pushing you into expensive resin terrain territory, and they still wouldn't look as nice.

It's a cool idea, but yeah, not for me I think.

A printer only costs a grand (999 NZD currently) and can print this stuff for a few bucks a piece from memory. At the amount of terrain you start printing when you own one of these it more than saves you money on terrain in the long run.

Of course you have to want to fork the 999 NZD up front before hand.

The detail is pretty decent too. We have a FOW city, a cave system, once had a 40k city and currently have the fantasy castle and buildings in the kick starter all 3d printed and it works pretty well as modular unique boards.

But yes most of you are correct, without a printer this is pretty useless.

A printer like this will apparently do it fine:

https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/XYZ-Printing-da-Vinci-10-USB-3D-Printer/23001372

Necros - Definitely keep your pledge, it's a good deal for the files! Was just noting that it would be a lot to print, but it's still very cool.

A printer only costs a grand (999 NZD currently) and can print this stuff for a few bucks a piece from memory. At the amount of terrain you start printing when you own one of these it more than saves you money on terrain in the long run.

Of course you have to want to fork the 999 NZD up front before hand.

The detail is pretty decent too. We have a FOW city, a cave system, once had a 40k city and currently have the fantasy castle and buildings in the kick starter all 3d printed and it works pretty well as modular unique boards.

But yes most of you are correct, without a printer this is pretty useless.

A printer like this will apparently do it fine:

Nope!

In every way.

Printing only one of those buildings will probably eat up one or more spools, which will set you back at least 30-40 bucks per spool. And the cheap printers produce huge ridges that you need to clean up, in addition to the supporting structure, which you also need to clean up. Those buildings would be cheaper in resin and even cheaper in good 3D-cut MDF. The cheap printers also need constant replacements (if you can get any) for the the moving parts since they are not of high quality.

Call me when people start printing carbon fiber models.

I would do it myself, but the printer is like $5,000.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:

A printer only costs a grand (999 NZD currently) and can print this stuff for a few bucks a piece from memory. At the amount of terrain you start printing when you own one of these it more than saves you money on terrain in the long run.

Of course you have to want to fork the 999 NZD up front before hand.

The detail is pretty decent too. We have a FOW city, a cave system, once had a 40k city and currently have the fantasy castle and buildings in the kick starter all 3d printed and it works pretty well as modular unique boards.

But yes most of you are correct, without a printer this is pretty useless.

A printer like this will apparently do it fine:

Nope!

In every way.

Printing only one of those buildings will probably eat up one or more spools, which will set you back at least 30-40 bucks per spool. And the cheap printers produce huge ridges that you need to clean up, in addition to the supporting structure, which you also need to clean up. Those buildings would be cheaper in resin and even cheaper in good 3D-cut MDF. The cheap printers also need constant replacements (if you can get any) for the the moving parts since they are not of high quality.

I don't know, this guys job involves 3d printing so I trust his word.

"The printing cost per unit works out at a few dollars per unit" - For example according his forum printing a fence works out at a few dollars a piece. Paying for someone else to do the printing is very expensive in comparison.

"You can see for yourself the actual raw prints on our home page slider. www.printablescenery.com, these have overhangs that are within the tolerances and do not need supports."

Yes as someone who has received 3d things from him, some pieces will need some clean up but it is hardly much. You can see the sort of clean up required on this.



See comment here in regards to pricing on the medium fencing of the Moari Fort:



Im not an expert, im simply looking at his comments on the kcikstarter and website.


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Also for fast cleanup, here is a video of him showing how to sooth off 3d printed stuff with acetone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMssizopgk0

A fence for a few dollars is what I get from resin or laser-cutters too.

The pictures you attached show that quite a lot of sanding and filling in of the gaps is necessary. Normally I don´t include prep-work in my calculations, but this is so much time that has too be invested to get usable results that it really needs to be added to the cost necessary to get this stuff in a usable way. In the pictures I can see many parts that need support structure and also where the support structure has been removed.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
A fence for a few dollars is what I get from resin or laser-cutters too.

The pictures you attached show that quite a lot of sanding and filling in of the gaps is necessary. Normally I don´t include prep-work in my calculations, but this is so much time that has too be invested to get usable results that it really needs to be added to the cost necessary to get this stuff in a usable way. In the pictures I can see many parts that need support structure and also where the support structure has been removed.

Also yes you can get MDF fencing for a few dollars each, however the buildings (decent ones anyway) tend to go up in price really fast. Talking about 40-150 dollars per building.

I should have mentioned that the pictures I showed are various tests and stuff mentioned in the video from over the year.

According to his kick starter page the pieces do not need supports etc.

All printers need support structures. Anyone telling you anything different does not know how printers work.

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:
All printers need support structures. Anyone telling you anything different does not know how printers work.

Not all designs need them apparently.

I have seen ones that need support structures, and they usually have overhangs or arms etc. A simple wall does not need them. Therefore if a building is made up of walls, you should not have support bits to chop off.

Supports are normally found on these sorts of print outs:



Not on simply walls and boxes. It's very clear why certain objects need supports due to the way 3d printers work, not all designs need supports.

Now look at the buildings on the kickstarter, read how they are printed and put together and you can easily see why the creators have said "these have overhangs that are within the tolerances and do not need supports" and it's pretty clear.

I dont want to sound rude, but if you disagree please contact the creators and tell them their designs must have supports and see what they say. They may be able to explain it to you.

"Once you have the printer it's cheap" is like saying building a 40K army is cheap because "once you have the models, the paint costs almost nothing"

£500. That's roughly how much you'll have to spend on a reasonable home 3D printer(ie, one in which the amount of prep work required to make the finished product look passable would "cost" you less than simply going to work for that many hours and buying resin/MDF models instead). Not only is that a hefty initial outlay for most people, realistically speaking most folk will also only be building one table's worth of terrain with any particular "theme", and even looking at a 6'x4' table with the terrain density of a game like Mordheim the amount you'd have to spend on the printer plus the cost of the 3d files and the prints isn't much(if at all) cheaper than just buying a table's worth of MDF/resin buildings.

If you were willing to spend the time you would have been waiting for the prints building stuff yourself instead, you could buy enough insulation foam and balsa to make a dozen tables.

It doesn't save you money, it doesn't save you much time, and the quality isn't better than existing "budget" options. In five-to-ten years, when you can buy a sub-£300 printer that can achieve reasonably high detail in a material with some level of durability, and when companies like this are offering multiple different "themes" so buying a printer gives you the ability to print off multiple tables cheaply, this will be something Joe Gamer should be throwing crowdfunding money at. I'm genuinely not trying to gak on these guys, but the fact is if you don't already own a 3d printer for other things, the value proposition simply isn't there.

Well a 1000 dollars (roughly 500 pounds) 3d printer is about the cost of 10 small 4ground mdf buildings that require assembly.

So yes, while the initial investment is a lot, if you are one to print a lot of terrain (and chances are you will once you have the printer) then long term a 3d printer is better off long term.

Especially if the designs you get are well designed.

Ultimately, it's more like saying buying a house is cheaper in the long run than renting for life, it just requires a higher front up cost. Although both have pros and cons.

It depends on the amount of scenery, I know for a fact that the printed scenery we use would cost ALOT of money (effectively 3 boards of printed scenery at least) if we had purchased them. Does it save time? Well the stuff he printed largely required some acetone to wash away the grain layers and then gluing and painting.

I mean duh, unless you are able to buy or use a 3d printer then these files for 3d printing are a waste of time. It just seems like a few people are saying its a waste of time with a 3d printer? I mean it is common sense you need access to a 3d printer to make use of files...

Really like the idea of this, and being able to print out new terrain whenever I want.

After a look at the practical side though, the price/quality on 3d printers just isn't there yet, too much of a money investment, and too much of a time investment to get the parts cleaned up (lots and lots of filing off print lines).

Guys you don't need to OWN a 3dprinter, nor use the services of a 3dprinting company, you can just use the machines in your local fablab/library/cityhall.

I live in a 150 000 habitants city and my fablab ( well, the closest ) has 5 asimov (low quality ) and 1 ultimaker 2 ( high quality )
The university also has a stereolithography machine ( super high quality ) they are ok with anyone using it because nobody uses it anyway. you just have to pay for the plastic you use.

To have access to all machines of my fablab I must pay 15€/ year, that includes 3dprinter, laser cutter, thermoforming, cnc, etc...

Which is all good....if you have those facilities which my town doesn't and I'm willing to bet most do not either...