Hi guys, thanks for letting me in on the beta! I am very excited about this project you are setting up.

I can't wait to actually start miling out some of my work, but I am a little uncertain wether or not my work is suitable for 3D printing or not.
I've got this vampire bust sculpt, which I want to adjust slightly, making it sit on a pedestal. I will have to reproject the detail onto a new watertight mesh, but before I do so, I want to check a couple of things. I hope you can help me out!

- The model is currently sitting at 1,3 milion Triangles. This will likely increase once I've reprojected the displacement detail onto a watertight basemesh.. I presume the final model will be around 2 milion polygons. Will the Shapeways software be able to handle this?

- Preserving as much detail as possible, how big would you advice me to print this model and in which output material?

- Is there a chance you can give me a rough idea of how much of the detail will be vissible once printed in the best possible conditions?

Any tips you can give me, will be most welcome! Thanks for your time.

The model:

Additional shots: http://www.jelmerboskma.com/vampire.html

[Updated on: Mon, 04 August 2008 14:47 UTC]

Bart,

Thanks for your quick reply. Model was sculpted in Zbrush indeed.

Too bad your server is capped at 500k, are you guys planning to work on that? I know a whole lot of folks that would love to have their zbrush / mudbox work printed. Most of those models easily pass 1-2 milion triangles.

The way Zbrush works, is that you start with a fairly low res mesh, about 3000 triangles for this guy, and you keep subdividing the mesh to add smaller form and detail. To add detail in only certain areas would mean you'd have to seperate the model up into pieces as well, and I guess that would open a whole bunch of other problems when outputting it in 3D. Especially when you are working with different levels of subdivisions for the final version.
I suppose cutting the model up in tactical places and do multiple prints, is a way to work around this though.

A friend of mine, who's currently working at Stan Winston's down in Hollywood, recently showed a great example of detailed 3D printwork based on ZBrush data. His work on Indiana Jones and the Kingdon of the Crystal Skull made for an excellent 3D print. I am fairly certain his original model was constructed out of more the 500k polygons. This is a perfect example of the type of print quality I am looking for, have a look.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=59905& page=1&pp=15
When you take a close look at the profile shot of the 3D print, you can clearly see a seam there. I am thinking they may have done two seperate prints and brought those back together afterwards as well. What do you think?

When hollowing out a model, you do mean giving the current model thickness and have an inside set of faces with their normals faced inwards? Because that would double the polycount!

[Updated on: Tue, 05 August 2008 13:42 UTC]

Wildsketch: Thanks for sharing your experience on hollowing out models! I am wondering how you would go about connecting the outer with the inner shell, when they are at different levels of subdivissions though. If Shapeways would allow us to actually upload ZTL files, it wouldn't be a problem at all. The size of the zbrushfile for this guy is only 5,54 mb. In obj format it's a 110 mb, which still isn't too big of a deal for me. 20-30 mins upload tops?

Owenstar: You'd actually be surprised to see where the budgets of films go to. Even on the biggest of productions, things in the effects and post departments have to be done in a very savvy, lowcost way, from time to time. But you're right about the pricing. The reason for me to post here is that I am looking around to find an affordable way to output these type of models. Since they wouldn't serve much more then decorative value for myself. Just gathering food for thought

[Updated on: Tue, 05 August 2008 23:37 UTC]