1st and 2nd batch of 32mm minis

These are all 32mm miniatures (Bottom of feet to top of head). They were printed in FUD. Each miniature is in the range of 600,000+ polys.

The first test mini I did came out pretty bad concerning the print job.



The support material was not only caked on but after hard scrubbing with a tooth brush and soap, nothing really changed. Soaking it later in Acetone for two 30 minute sessions changed very little as well. I ended up scrubbing very hard with the tooth brush and removed about half the residue and ended up breaking the sword off in two places in the end. And half the residue was still there...

So I decided maybe this was a fluke, made some design adjustments as this was my first 3d printed work and ordered two more. The results were much better despite one of the minis coming with a broken sword this time. The sword is pretty thick for a mini and where it broke at the handle it is 2mm x 1mm.




The sword came broken on this mini.





The results of these two printed minis were better, however, after brushing them with acetone (carefully so they wouldn't break like the heavier brushing of my first order) I noticed some of the support material had gone away, however the powder like residue that was all over the model refused to leave. So I took the mini that came with a broken sword, soaked it for 30 minutes in acetone and then scrubbed it multiple times with a toothbrush front and back. Literally no change occurred. It seemed this support powder was literally sintered into the figure.

So I then decided to primer the the figure that I had scrubbed really hard to see how it would translate since it is hard to judge with the transparent FUD material. But that did not go so well either. After a VERY light coat of primer, it clearly highlighted the texture that just really is not acceptable for making production miniatures.





Clean shot of both and the powdered residue that refused to come off.
High res of the last one: https://rkegames.com/shapeways/IMG_0786_rke.jpg

So while my second print results were much better than the first, the result was still more or less not acceptable. Looking at this picture again you can see on the arm being held up on the orb on the gauntlet that it is smooth and also his upper back detail is smooth. Basically any part not really touched by the support material seems to be great/perfect. However the legs, muscled part of the arms and the loin cloth especially on the front of the mini came out the worse.

So I am not sure what to do. Soaked in acetone the first print job really did not get much better and even when the second test prints came with just a light coating of support material, it still would not come off.

I still have the second mini from the second test print I can try and clean but not sure what else to try that a good brushing with acetone, then soaked in acetone for 30 minutes when that did not work followed by a rigorous scrubbing still wouldn't fix. I really think this support material is literally melted into the FUD.

It is not so much a question of getting the one mini that came with a busted sword re-printed, but more a question of can I get minis printed to produce quality production miniatures that don't have a light textured grain over roughly %50 of the product with some areas worse than others? And that fact that even when using harsh chemicals, cannot come clean. I'm not really upset, just a bit bummed...

I'm wondering, could the issue be that I am using too many polygons? They are 600,000+ polys. If the machine is trying to work that out in such a small area maybe it is spending too much time and the support material ends up getting sintered into the model material itself?

However if that is the case then why are certain parts of the miniature like the upper chest which are very polygon heavy always perfectly printed? That is one thing I noticed in all three of these minis, the upper part of the armor came out wonderful and plastic smooth. Also upper parts of his arms (guy with gun) came out great (his biceps) yet the lower part just underneath had support material stuck into it (his triceps).

I tried scraping some of this cloudy support material off of the base very hard with my fingernail and none of it came off. So it really seems to be fused to the model itself. In the picture of the model I primered, you can somewhat see the banding in the upper part of the loin cloth and other areas. It is very hard to see on the other mini that I did not primer due to the transparent color and bright white. However the primer really brings it out.

To the naked eye: The green parts are perfect. The other parts are passable. The red parts have a fingerprint type texture all over.
https://rkegames.com/shapeways/IMG_0812_rke.jpg

Just brain storming, trying to think of something that could help. It really isn't a question of re-printing the miniature but more the question of; when I order 16 of these are half of them going to have this issue? So rather quality/consistence.

Sorry the print did not come out well but thank you for posting this! The bad prints interest me as much as the good ones, as they reveal potential pitfalls we can all learn from. I'd ask customer support if you can have it reprinted just to see if this print was an anomaly or not. (I hope the former is the case).

Also, that's a very nice and detailed sculpt! Done in ZBrush, I take it?

Sorry, I should have posted that initially, done in Sculptris! I have never been able to grasp Z Brush but I do use it to decimate my meshes. I was able to fully learn Sculptris in a day and am eager for the new version of it to come out (from all people, lol) Pixol Logic.

The dude with ze broken sword in Sculptris...

I've had people tell me I don't need so many polys but one thing to note is Sculptris is terrible at topography management and use. It is not nearly as efficient as other apps when modeling especially concerning grooves, lines and fine detail.

A re-print really isn't the overall issue, the issue is consistent quality with FUD. I don't want to lay an expectation on Shapeways if it is not producible. It's kind of nit picky of me to say "this model has fuzz on it, I would like a reprint". The reality is miniature molds can pick up the slightest difference between sculpted putty on a miniature and putty that has been wet and smoothed a little more. So it can easily pick up fuz and fingerprint type banding on a printed mini. Hitting the mini with primer a couple times to subdue this effect is a possibility but at the cost/loss of fine details. Concerning re-prints, the broken sword is an obvious but I'm not sure if some fine fuzz is cause for re-print on Shapeways behalf especially if I expect something from FUD that is not overly possible. Especially when I'm ordering dozens of these in the future, how many will be off, then having to wait weeks for the replacements? Plus I don't think Shapeways offers re-prints for the slightest amount of support material fused to the mini.

Just wondering if my expectations are too high for the bulk print process Shapeways offers concerning FUD. If so then I need to just move on, not sit around and complain and cry. And I know the guys and gals at Shapeways will read this and let me know what is what. That's why I posted it. To figure out if what I wanted can realistically and regularly be done or not. Hope so, I love Shapeways!

The broken sword looks like a "break here" zone with a helping groove, and it has to support a big part protuding and getting lots of hits while in transit. From the photos it looks like a ball barely touching a flat surface, that while can be multiple millimeters, it's a tension zone anyway.

You should try adding proper fillets or other tricks like making the hand touch the crossguard, even with the thumb going a bit over the side of it, if not just making the arm contact the sword a lot. That way it shouldn't break while in the shipping box, neither while handled.

That's some great work in Sculptris; I've played around with the program but never created anything this ornate. Very impressive!

The fusing of the support material to the surface of your figure shows that the "two layer problem" referenced in this thread is still not solved:

https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=5959&a mp;start=40&

Of course, given the delays in FUD printing, your object may have been printed before they found a solution to the problem. (I'm not sure that they have though, as there's been no further updates on the FUD design rules since August 9).

If you need a high quality master of the figure to cast multiple copies, I would pay extra to have it done elsewhere, like Offload Studios or Moddler. I don't think the quality control problems have been ironed out with FUD, as much as I'd like them to be.

Great modelling. I too have used Sculptris and would prefer to use it over Zbrush expect for the fact that I could never get anything but the standard brush available to use. Two different computers, many downloads and re-installs - nothing...

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an update to the programme. Even though Pixologic hinted they would update it my sceptical mind says they bought the company just to get rid of competition for ZBrush... unless they've announced anything recently since I haven't been on their site for a while.

Glenn

Yeah, I was able to do that with the guy holding the gun. I will just run the guard a little more into the gauntlet for added base strength at that specific point. Good point with the hand as well. I will do both for added strength.

Might have to, however Moddler is a no go. He has no way of combining multiple shells in a 3d file into 1 shell and said he would charge about $90 to "fix" the file not including the cost of printing the miniature. (I emailed Moddler before Shapeways announced FUD)

And thank you for that thread! I never saw it, directly explains my problem and of course Mr. Bill Bedford hit the nail on the head describing the problem even in the old thread for cleaning FUD. I hope Shapeways can overcome this. I love their prices, their ease of "do it yourself" use and I really dig them. I will wait a bit to see if Shapeways overcomes this issue with the support material. I mean heck, I waited through the detail materials until they got FUD then waited through FUD while they worked it out some more. I think I can wait a little more to see if this last issue can be knighted down.

Yeah I just use the standard brush as well. I tried making my own with pug-ugly results :confused I don't think it was ever implemented well. They really haven't announced anything in ages. I posted heavily in the Sculptris Feature Requests Thread because I really dig the program so I figure what the heck, maybe this is my chance to help from the ground up. I am wondering the same thing as you but they did also hire the guy who made it and brought him in-house. The sceptic/defeatist in me says he will just incorporate the voxol whatever ease of use technology into ZBrush and be done with Sculptris. The other side of me says maybe they will make Sculptris into a sort of easy to use version like Adobe Photoshop Elements aimed at bringing people into 3d sculpting and then hopefully moving them on to ZBrush. I would be fine with that. The third option more or less is them turning it into some awesome dedicated modeling program that rivals their main package ZBrush. I don't think they will do that. And it has been quite some time as you said...

Thread for a guy who is testing the new sculptris in progress. Thread was started 6/11.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=143508&pag e=1&pp=15

Excellent! Some custom brushes in that work as well...

Some work by maker of Sculptris making add-ons for both Zbrush and Sculptris:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=96408&page =1&pp=15

And on this page at bottom he states Sculptris is in Alpha 6 being worked on and tested...
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?t=96408&page =5&pp=15

Looks good. I'm going to have to re-visit Sculptris and see if they've updated the prog since I last d/l it.

Glenn

I think it's all hidden in development unless you are testing it. The next version will very likely be a commercial app you have to pay for I am guessing... But nobody knows yet!

Thanks, yes, you are most likely correct. Free would be too much to ask for! which is why early adopters of Sculptris were dismayed when Pixologic took over...

Glenn