3d Printing for the Tabletop: The Future is Now

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > 3d Printing for the Tabletop: The Future is Now

w00tmonger: Mar 9, 2011; F-F-FRIDAY NIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS

Class Warcraft posted:

RE: printing terrain on a resin machine -The build plate of a resin printer is still smaller, so even though each individual print is faster than FDM, you'll need to do many more prints in order to complete the same project. Also, most terrain is cut to fit FDM print beds, not resin, so you'd have to cut it up yourself in a program and then assemble it once printed, which can cause problems if things didn't cut/print perfectly.

Also printing in resin is like, 20x more expensive.

There's a reason almost no one uses resin printers for terrain except for very small scatter pieces.

Especially given how abusive most terrain painting techniques are.

Lots of sponging, stippling and using cheap paint which will all obscure detail vs what your doing on a mini

# ? Aug 11, 2021 06:27

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 07:40

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

Resin is great for terrain elements, like signposts, gargoyles, vents, air conditioning units, doors or windows. Filament is good for larger things, like weird looking trees or old statues and stone buildings. Honestly, if you like process of actually making terrain, get a resin printer and print out the things that are a pain in the rear end to make by hand, like the aforementioned windows and greeblies and just stick to building the structures out of foamcore. If you just want something to make the buildings for you, get an fdm printer.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 06:55

Eediot Jedi: Dec 25, 2007; This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

Yep. There was some mad lad on youtube combining fdm/resin to print very big tanks for table top. They'd use fdm for the main bits, cut and angle the print cleverly so the final surface of a piece shown to the viewer would be flat when assembled, and used resin for small bits, details and some plates to go over the rough fdm parts.

Insanely cool but at that point I'm like motherfucker just buy them from ebay, god drat that's so much work.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 07:23

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Class Warcraft posted:

RE: printing terrain on a resin machine -The build plate of a resin printer is still smaller, so even though each individual print is faster than FDM, you'll need to do many more prints in order to complete the same project. Also, most terrain is cut to fit FDM print beds, not resin, so you'd have to cut it up yourself in a program and then assemble it once printed, which can cause problems if things didn't cut/print perfectly.

Also printing in resin is like, 20x more expensive.

There's a reason almost no one uses resin printers for terrain except for very small scatter pieces.

This might have been true 2 years ago, but it is absolutely not true now.

There are companies that make terrain specifically for resin printing, and the quality they offer put FDM printing to shame. If you're not worried about quality (or visible layer lines) then sure, go with FDM.

A huge part of my sales is resin terrain pieces because they are just so much better than FDM prints.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 15:30

Bucnasti: Aug 14, 2012; I'll Fetch My Sarcasm Robes

Eediot Jedi posted:

Having just gotten a Mars 2 semi recently, I kinda wish I'd gone bigger. It's nice to have faster small prints, but I'd rather print more at once so I'm not quite so slaved to the machine getting prints off every ~hour. That said I don't regret going smaller because it saved resin from growing pains and if I didn't like printing it's a much smaller price tag to walk from.

Really wanting a future Saturn pro/Saturn 2 or equiv though.

This echoes my thoughts exactly, I got a Mars 2 a couple months ago to see get started with 3d printing. I'm really enjoying it and now I wish I had a bigger print bed as there are a few things (vehicle models mostly) that are a little too big for me to print as one piece. I'm hoping the do an update to the Saturn by the time I'm ready to buy a second printer.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 16:49

Sydney Bottocks: Oct 15, 2004

InternetJunky posted:

This might have been true 2 years ago, but it is absolutely not true now.

There are companies that make terrain specifically for resin printing, and the quality they offer put FDM printing to shame. If you're not worried about quality (or visible layer lines) then sure, go with FDM.

A huge part of my sales is resin terrain pieces because they are just so much better than FDM prints.

Also resin is pretty comparable to filament in terms of pricing, though granted there is an added cost in terms of materials/items needed during the post-print process of washing and curing. And resin can fluctuate in price a little more wildly than filament, but I wouldn't say it was prohibitively more expensive than filament printing at this point. And there's less risk of setting your house on fire :v:

(I mostly kid about the last part, speaking as someone who has a couple of Ender 5s in their house)

# ? Aug 11, 2021 17:25

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Also resin is pretty comparable to filament in terms of pricing, though granted there is an added cost in terms of materials/items needed during the post-print process of washing and curing. And resin can fluctuate in price a little more wildly than filament, but I wouldn't say it was prohibitively more expensive than filament printing at this point. And there's less risk of setting your house on fire

(I mostly kid about the last part, speaking as someone who has a couple of Ender 5s in their house)

I almost burned my house down with my CR-10 so it's not much of an exaggeration.

Now that there's massive resin printers on the market I think resin printing terrain is going to overtake FDM as the preferred choice.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 17:38

Class Warcraft: Apr 27, 2006

InternetJunky posted:

This might have been true 2 years ago, but it is absolutely not true now.

There are companies that make terrain specifically for resin printing, and the quality they offer put FDM printing to shame. If you're not worried about quality (or visible layer lines) then sure, go with FDM.

A huge part of my sales is resin terrain pieces because they are just so much better than FDM prints.

We must be thinking of very differently sized terrain items because almost everything I have is cut into ~200mm blocks to fit Ender 3's. I consider a standard wargaming piece of terrain to be something large enough to fit ten 28mm miniatures - anything smaller I would call scatter terrain.

Let me provide an example of what I'm talking about :

This is my most recent print.

It consists of 9 components, cut using Luban so they fit together easily using holes and pegs. Each component is about 180mm in width and using 200 grams of material each. I use $8 rolls of filament so total printing cost is about $16.

To print on my Photon Mono I'd need to cut each component 2-3 times to fit my build plate, and I'd lose the advantage of the peg system because I'd have to cut up the floors. Not even factoring in supports it would take 18-27 total prints and cost $50+ to print in resin.

Final result:

(the large visible lines are where the layers peg together - they are unglued at the moment and just resting on top of each other)

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Also resin is pretty comparable to filament in terms of pricing, though granted there is an added cost in terms of materials/items needed during the post-print process of washing and curing. And resin can fluctuate in price a little more wildly than filament, but I wouldn't say it was prohibitively more expensive than filament printing at this point. And there's less risk of setting your house on fire

(I mostly kid about the last part, speaking as someone who has a couple of Ender 5s in their house)

Where are you getting your resin? I get my filament for $8 a roll and haven't found any resin below around $25 a bottle.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 17:43

Sydney Bottocks: Oct 15, 2004

Class Warcraft posted:

Where are you getting your resin? I get my filament for $8 a roll and haven't found any resin below around $25 a bottle.

Hell with that, where are you getting your filament for $8 a roll? :stare:

I usually get resin off of Amazon, same as my filament, and IIRC the cheapest I've gotten filament for is like $15 or $20 for a 1kg roll. Resin is usually a bit pricier, around $25-30 for a 1kg bottle of Siraya Tech Simple. Both of course are subject to the usual fluctuations in availability, etc.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 18:30

Class Warcraft: Apr 27, 2006

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Hell with that, where are you getting your filament for $8 a roll?

I usually get resin off of Amazon, same as my filament, and IIRC the cheapest I've gotten filament for is like $15 or $20 for a 1kg roll. Resin is usually a bit pricier, around $25-30 for a 1kg bottle of Siraya Tech Simple. Both of course are subject to the usual fluctuations in availability, etc.

https://gst3d.com/

It's PLA+ made in Argentina. $8/roll during promotions if you buy 10 rolls.

It's decent, not great, but I mostly print large pieces that are going to be painted anyway so it doesn't matter too much.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 18:33

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Class Warcraft posted:

We must be thinking of very differently sized terrain items because almost everything I have is cut into ~200mm blocks to fit Ender 3's. I consider a standard wargaming piece of terrain to be something large enough to fit ten 28mm miniatures - anything smaller I would call scatter terrain.
Let me provide an example of what I'm talking about :

This is my most recent print.

It consists of 9 components, cut using Luban so they fit together easily using holes and pegs. Each component is about 180mm in width and using 200 grams of material each. I use $8 rolls of filament so total printing cost is about $16.

To print on my Photon Mono I'd need to cut each component 2-3 times to fit my build plate, and I'd lose the advantage of the peg system because I'd have to cut up the floors. Not even factoring in supports it would take 18-27 total prints and cost $50+ to print in resin.

You can't compare a terrain piece that was designed for FDM printing and then say "look how expensive and impractical it is to print it in resin".

As I said, there are a whole bunch of designers that are now making terrain for resin printing specifically. Just as an example (since it's a close match to your model) check out the merchant store that I'm attaching to this post. On a Mono X this takes 3 print runs at about 10 hours each (for a 30 micron layer height) to print all the parts. The parts are hollowed, supported, and keyed for easy assembly. Total cost in resin is about $30 if you are paying $50/Litre (which is on the high end).

With one of the larger printers coming on the market you could probably print the whole thing in one shot in 10 hours. That's why I'm saying that resin will soon overtake FDM as the preferred option for terrain printing.

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# ? Aug 11, 2021 18:37

Class Warcraft: Apr 27, 2006

InternetJunky posted:

You can't compare a terrain piece that was designed for FDM printing and then say "look how expensive and impractical it is to print it in resin".

As I said, there are a whole bunch of designers that are now making terrain for resin printing specifically. Just as an example (since it's a close match to your model) check out the merchant store that I'm attaching to this post. On a Mono X this takes 3 print runs at about 10 hours each (for a 30 micron layer height) to print all the parts. The parts are hollowed, supported, and keyed for easy assembly. Total cost in resin is about $30 if you are paying $50/Litre (which is on the high end).

With one of the larger printers coming on the market you could probably print the whole thing in one shot in 10 hours. That's why I'm saying that resin will soon overtake FDM as the preferred option for terrain printing.

well yeah, I didn't provide any resin examples because I don't know of any.

Got a link to this file so I can check it out?

# ? Aug 11, 2021 18:57

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Class Warcraft posted:

well yeah, I didn't provide any resin examples because I don't know of any.

Got a link to this file so I can check it out?

This is a Cobramode file from their set last month, but if you really want to get a sense of resin terrain printing check out Asgard Rising. Their terrain pieces are incredible and everything is designed specifically for resin printing.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 19:08

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

Although I don't doubt resin printed, gorgeous terrain pieces will continue to become more of a thing, especially as volumes continue to go up, I don't see it overtaking FDM simply because of cost. 30$ is still a lot for a terrain piece when you are trying to fill a table, especially considering you could print it in FDM at a fraction of the cost. Especially considering that FDM quality is absolutely plenty good for terrain.

For stuff like making gorgeous display boards, absolutely, but for gaming terrain resin seems overkill.

# ? Aug 11, 2021 19:34

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

Or you could build it for $1 worth of foamcore and like 2 bucks worth of resin for the details

# ? Aug 11, 2021 19:54

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

To get away from the terrain discussion a bit, I wanted to post this 32mm scale fisherman that just came off one of my printers. I love seeing stuff that keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible with 3D printing.

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# ? Aug 11, 2021 22:51

w00tmonger: Mar 9, 2011; F-F-FRIDAY NIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS

InternetJunky posted:

To get away from the terrain discussion a bit, I wanted to post this 32mm scale fisherman that just came off one of my printers. I love seeing stuff that keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible with 3D printing.

Stuff like this always wows me and makes me wonder if model trains will ever have a big resurgence because of it

# ? Aug 11, 2021 23:40

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

Oh buddy, there's probably more model railroad stuff on thingiverse than every other category combined

# ? Aug 12, 2021 00:29

Eej: Jun 17, 2007; HEAVYARMS

I get all my hobby materials from a local model train store and there's always someone in it buying stuff so I feel like it never went away.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 00:33

The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

I ran across a kickstarter for a dungeon tile system (I know, pretty saturated market) but there is something I admire in the design direction of choosing to go for large modular set pieces, low walls (for faster print times, easier storage, etc) and flippable double-sided tiles.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 04:58

BlackIronHeart: Aug 2, 2004; PROCEED

For real, my tabletop group has used 'full railroad' to mean going intensely extra on details in terrain and model pieces. Those guys are nuts.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 07:16

Eediot Jedi: Dec 25, 2007; This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

Really don't want to be at the intersection of 3d printing horny and railroad horny.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 07:22

Class Warcraft: Apr 27, 2006

my 1950's soviet locomotive waifu

# ? Aug 12, 2021 08:14

jesus WEP: Oct 17, 2004

Eediot Jedi posted:

Really don't want to be at the intersection of 3d printing horny and railroad horny.

Bonk! Go to hornby jail

# ? Aug 12, 2021 08:18

MeinPanzer: Dec 20, 2004; anyone who reads Cinema Discusso for anything more than slackjawed trolling will see the shittiness in my posts

If you want to see what you can achieve in terrain building using 3D printing alongside regular modeling techniques, look at Luke Towan's videos on Youtube.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 11:17

Springfield Fatts: May 24, 2010; Pillbug

It's impressive yeah but that guys uses hundreds of dollars of equipment every video and at this point must be 100% sponsored by Model Scenics. I kind of lost interest in that channel when it seemed every every video was "I just used my home laser cutter to easily" or "chemical bathed my own brass etched details."

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:01

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

I won't lie, I kind of hate those kind of "hobbiest" videos, where they make it seem like if you want to get into a fun hobby, you need to somehow fit a fully-furnished machine shop into your garage or basement. Yes, it DOES look professional-quality when you have access to professional tools, but how do I make something that looks pretty good when I don't have access to all those fun toys?

I don't know if it's been said elsewhere, but we need more Bob Ross' for various hobbies, someone who makes it seem like anyone can do it with basic tools and a little practice, and not "So then I mount this to the industrial lathe then after carving it down, I take it to the laser cutter and...".

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:36

Springfield Fatts: May 24, 2010; Pillbug

They're definitely out there. Mel the Terrain Tutor has been doing that for like a decade at this point. LukeAPS started that way, but a trend with these guys is to get some following then pivot to the hustle of selling their own poo poo. Which I understand, chase that bread, but it means I really lose interest in their projects if it's one big ad for something.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:54

bbcisdabomb: Jan 15, 2008; SHEESH

Randalor posted:

I don't know if it's been said elsewhere, but we need more Bob Ross' for various hobbies, someone who makes it seem like anyone can do it with basic tools and a little practice, and not "So then I mount this to the industrial lathe then after carving it down, I take it to the laser cutter and...".

TheDMsCraft does some really staggering things with toilet paper and white glue. I trailed off watching him a year or so ago but the only thing he ever got sponsored was his hot glue gun.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 16:09

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

^^DM Scotty loving owns, he's the nerdy uncle we all wish we had

Wyloch is still great and does everything with basic tools and materials. Jeremy from Black Magic Craft still does a bunch of back to basics videos every once in a while, too.

# ? Aug 12, 2021 17:07

Eediot Jedi: Dec 25, 2007; This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

Beffer posted:

How quickly is the printer scene evolving? It seems that there�s been a big move in resolution lately. Will that keep going and where does it end? And how quickly are prices coming down?

From the outside it looks like it�s at a tipping point from pro to enthusiast and just about to reach home consumers. Or maybe I�m just projecting my experience from other devices.

If you're still reading the thread anycubic are making a DLP printer for hobbyists. Instead of using an LCD screen to mask the UV light, it uses a little projector and mirrors which can be very accurate compared to LCDs. It's not a new technology, it's just previously been too pricey. I imagine if anycubic are doing it other brands will look to do it too in the near future.

Machine is the anycubic photon ultra, going to go on a completely unnecessary kickstarter mid Sep, launch date unknown, kickstarter price $500US, potential retail $600US. I didn't know this was in the pipe when you asked the other week.

This guy seems an alright, he's not a serious pro 3d printer business mogul and knows it, he points out concerns and potential flaws with printers he reviews. I trust him a bit as he didn't seem to mind potentially costing elegoo preorder money by pointing out potential forwards/backwards z-wobble in the mars 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAf0mpF9Nww

# ? Aug 13, 2021 10:21

Lumbermouth: Mar 6, 2008; GREG IS BIG NOW

Silhouette posted:

^^DM Scotty loving owns, he's the nerdy uncle we all wish we had

Wyloch is still great and does everything with basic tools and materials. Jeremy from Black Magic Craft still does a bunch of back to basics videos every once in a while, too.

Fuckin love Wyloch. He's the reason I bought a specific 1.25" metal ruler for terrain crafting.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 14:14

Bucnasti: Aug 14, 2012; I'll Fetch My Sarcasm Robes

Eediot Jedi posted:

If you're still reading the thread anycubic are making a DLP printer for hobbyists. Instead of using an LCD screen to mask the UV light, it uses a little projector and mirrors which can be very accurate compared to LCDs. It's not a new technology, it's just previously been too pricey. I imagine if anycubic are doing it other brands will look to do it too in the near future.

Machine is the anycubic photon ultra, going to go on a completely unnecessary kickstarter mid Sep, launch date unknown, kickstarter price $500US, potential retail $600US. I didn't know this was in the pipe when you asked the other week.

This guy seems an alright, he's not a serious pro 3d printer business mogul and knows it, he points out concerns and potential flaws with printers he reviews. I trust him a bit as he didn't seem to mind potentially costing elegoo preorder money by pointing out potential forwards/backwards z-wobble in the mars 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAf0mpF9Nww

drat that thing looks nice.
I wonder how well DLPs scale for size compared to LCDs because that build area is awful small.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 15:48

Beffer: Sep 25, 2007

Eediot Jedi posted:

If you're still reading the thread anycubic are making a DLP printer for hobbyists. Instead of using an LCD screen to mask the UV light, it uses a little projector and mirrors which can be very accurate compared to LCDs. It's not a new technology, it's just previously been too pricey. I imagine if anycubic are doing it other brands will look to do it too in the near future.

Machine is the anycubic photon ultra, going to go on a completely unnecessary kickstarter mid Sep, launch date unknown, kickstarter price $500US, potential retail $600US. I didn't know this was in the pipe when you asked the other week.

This guy seems an alright, he's not a serious pro 3d printer business mogul and knows it, he points out concerns and potential flaws with printers he reviews. I trust him a bit as he didn't seem to mind potentially costing elegoo preorder money by pointing out potential forwards/backwards z-wobble in the mars 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAf0mpF9Nww

Thanks for this. That�s exactly the sort of thing I was wondering about.

# ? Aug 15, 2021 00:16

Eediot Jedi: Dec 25, 2007; This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

Bucnasti posted:

drat that thing looks nice.
I wonder how well DLPs scale for size compared to LCDs because that build area is awful small.

Yeah me too. It looks comparable to a mars 2, judging by the side-by-side of the build plate with the mars 3 plate. I'm not hanging out for another small printer especially for $500-600 USD, not unless it absolutely smokes LCD printers and makes them look like duplo next to lego. Which is hard to imagine looking at the prints I get now.

Beffer posted:

Thanks for this. That�s exactly the sort of thing I was wondering about.

No worries.

# ? Aug 15, 2021 01:58

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Eediot Jedi posted:

Machine is the anycubic photon ultra, going to go on a completely unnecessary kickstarter mid Sep, launch date unknown, kickstarter price $500US, potential retail $600US. I didn't know this was in the pipe when you asked the other week.

This guy seems an alright, he's not a serious pro 3d printer business mogul and knows it, he points out concerns and potential flaws with printers he reviews. I trust him a bit as he didn't seem to mind potentially costing elegoo preorder money by pointing out potential forwards/backwards z-wobble in the mars 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAf0mpF9Nww

Thanks for the link. I'm going to hope I can snag one of the first 100 because this just seems like an awesome direction for resin printing to go to (in terms of sub $1k DLP machines). I especially like the idea of going back to having glass under the FEP. The unprotected monochrome screen with the bare polarizer is such a horrible design for a resin printer.

# ? Aug 15, 2021 21:19

The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

InternetJunky posted:

The unprotected monochrome screen with the bare polarizer is such a horrible design for a resin printer.

Economical, though! :razz:

# ? Aug 16, 2021 00:26

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

I think I want to pick up a new FDM printer. I'm reading a bunch of reviews and comparison right now, everything seems to point at the Prusa i3 MK3S+. One of the main reasons I want to upgrade is build volume, my Monoprice printer has like a 3" by 3" build volume and that's just too tiny for the projects I want to do. I think I want to keep myself under $2k. I'm going to continue shopping around, but figured I would check here in case anyone had any recommendations.

# ? Aug 19, 2021 22:37

parabolic: Jul 21, 2005; good night, speedfriend

Quick dry fit on a Feudal Guard tank from The Makers Cult with some of the derivatives their community has been posting. The heavy body and double turret with stowage are really working for me.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 17:25

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 07:40

Bucnasti: Aug 14, 2012; I'll Fetch My Sarcasm Robes

I missed most the feudal guard, but I think I'm going to buy some of the individual files because I think they're perfect for supporting my Imperial Knights.

# ? Aug 20, 2021 17:58

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