Help with printing and scaling Game Models

Hi there! newbie here! (I have a robo3d printer, if that helps)

Ive extracted some pieces off a model from League of Legends to print for cosplay and im having a bit of trouble with the sizing and also getting it to look right in the printing software. I was able to get a couple items to print correctly, but I am not a wiz when it comes to 3d software.

I printed a bracer and with some help from the internet it came out decent but the top and bottom of the bracer filled in and i wasnt able to figure out how to stop that from happening.
Bracer
Bracer Model

I also have some armor that i would like to print but I am not sure the best way to go about it.
Armor Model

The sizing is also confusing for me as its not calculating in inches or cm (im assuming its mm?), and theres no designation on the MatterControl software or in 3Dstudio Max as to what the sizing convention is for the model. I looked on the webs to try to modify the sizing in 3DS to inches or something I could easily recognize for sizing the model but was unsuccessful in doing what i needed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Hey wickedpixyl,

you can resize on Shapeways when you upload (upload at www.shapeways.com/create) or download a program like netfabb.

I hope that helps!

Best,
Andrew

Do you want the prints to be low-poly?
That's one problem with taking game rips.
If you want a smooth more detailed look to your prints you're going to have to some modelling in 3d software.

To solve the fill in the bracer I'm assuming there's geometry there.
Can you upload the model so we can have a look?
To fix that you would just need to boolean it out, or edits some faces.

The other option if you don't feel comfortable doing 3d work is to outsource the work to a 3d designer.
If you want to do that you can post in the 3D modeller needed section.
Or browse the For Hire section.

If you want to work to scale in 3ds just imagine the grid units as 1 inch/mm/cm or whatever your comfortable with.
When you export as obj scale is relative. 1cm could be 1mm or 1m.

After your done check out what is actually is in nettfab.
Then you'll know for your next project what your grid actually is.
You can also switch from inches to mm there. (But come on, metric is > then imperial. =p).
When I was starting out I would export a cube to shapeways to see what scale it really was.
netfabb saves time though.

Good luck!

I figured out through netfabb (THANKS SO MUCH FOR THAT!!) that none of my polygons were closed on the inside?? if that makes sense?

So im working with 3ds to clone the armor and give it a width and close the gap. Repairing the error in netfabb didnt do what i needed and working with 3ds is making me pull my hair out but i was able to get the Leg armor to a point where it looked like it would print correctly but at a 52h print. Might have to rethink my design on that one >.>.

The problem im having with 3ds now is that when i create a clone and remove the polygons i dont want and try to create polygons to merge the 2 elements to give the item a width so that it will be able to print... i cant merge the 2, its like they are on separate layers and i can only add polygons to one and not the other. I was able to do this for the leg armor but im having much difficulty with 2 other pieces.

If i cant figure it out in the next few days i might have to upload it and see if someone can fix them for me with a minimal width so i can start printing them.

Thank you so much for responding you guys. this is the 3rd forum ive posted in and the only one i got responses in. ^-^

Im at work but ill upload files later tonight.

I'm not familiar with 3ds at all, so sorry if this doesn't work, (I use maya).
But I googled it, and this is what I found:

"Turn one of the object into an editable poly/add the edit poly modifier.
Click 'attach' then select the other object.

or

Compound Objects -> Connect"

I would also look up terms like welding/merging vertices.
And bridging edge loops.

I'll come back and check later to see if the files are up.
I'd be more than happy to help out.

Haha! I found the same thing and tried that last night and had no luck TT. I cant wrap my brain around as to why i was able to do it in one and not the others... Ill figure it out. I have faith in myself!!

I was able to print a couple pieces though so im not entirely useless! Here

and this is the 52h model: Here.

I can't help bringing time down, I don't have my own printer so I am a bit clueless.

I know a couple things like changing the infill pattern.

I'm assuming a lot of the volume is in the spikes.

MeshMixer is another freesoftware you could try out.
They have some tools to make objects solid/hollow.

Shapeways can print as thin as .7mm, but I don't know what type of printer you have.

My friend with a Davinci XYZ doesn't like printing thinner then 2mm depending on structure.

There's also a ruler tool in netfabb to check thickness on points you click!

You need to give your model a few millimeters of thickness. That's actually very easy in 3DS Max, all you have to do is apply the shell modifier then input the desired thickness.

Brilliant!!! I had tried that once and idk why but it did something weird to the model. But i tried it last night and it was magical!!! Im printing one of the pieces today while im at work with that (9h print) so ill see tonight how everything came out.

Thank you so much!!!

Happy to help!

SO then.... I get the perfect print... 16h print. and it runs out of filament when its pretty much done... (?°?°??? ???

Loooookkkkkkk TT