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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Ozreth on 28 May 2024, 04:45:31 PM
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Saw this mentioned on another forum and wondered what the folks here thought. I don't know much about 3d printing, but does it seem like soon enough they will be able to pump out well painted figures? Is the technology there? HeroForge currently does some I believe but they don't look good.
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I think this is similar to the self-driving car concept.
People who don't want to paint, or are too lazy, or paint terribly will flock to pre-coloured 3D miniatures. This only makes things better for the rest of us. No one who enjoys painting their own minis (or puts up with it in order to have something cool on the table...) will be flocking to this tech. It's not going to put commission painters out of business, and no one is going to stop painting because pre-coloured 3D prints exist.
I would 100% embrace playing against someone with pre-coloured prints, vs. the swathes of gray plastic and poorly primed crap that passes for "an army" at my local game store.
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I know some of the 1/144 scale aircraft I've purchased from Shapeways can be bought with colors applied by using different color filament. They're nice but the colors of the aircraft and markings seem a bit faded to me.
I've printed approximately 40 1/72 scale aircraft on my Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro but all but 1 have been done using 1 color of filament, the only reason the 1 had 2 colors was because I ran out of the color I initially started with.
20 years ago I was skeptical I'd ever see a 3D printer printing something I would want, who knows what we'll see in near future.
I'm still waiting for the Star Trek Replicator and the "wand" they use in the medical bay!!! 8)
Can you imagine talking to your printer and telling it you want a scale aircraft in the paint scheme of a well-known pilot and minutes later there it is?!?!?! o_o
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I think this is another aspect of 3d printing that falls into "can produce great utility if applied correctly" territory.
I could, for example, see the point in using appropriately-coloured filament (or resin) to produce specific parts in a colour that will reduce the effects of paint chipping, or printing various components of a model in suitably-tinted material to reduce the need for painting, as seen in modern "Plamo" kits, such as Bandai's. In that way, it may be attractive to those who don't enjoy painting that much, as described by Elbows.
But given the issues with material changeover times, I fail to see how it could reasonably be done in printers suitable for high-quality printing of monobloc figures. Multi-spool filament printers, obviously, but those will most likely remain limited with regard to layer height.
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Relatively recently I've started seeing the output from the new generation of colour resin printers, which use (to horribly over-simplify the process) a sort of inkjet system to build the models. They feed from an array of CMYK resin drums, and the surface colouring is about as good as you'd get from a 2D inkjet printer.
At the moment, the printers are pretty expensive, as are the coloured resins. But that will change. I doubt that they'll ever be as cheap as cheap resin printers are now, but I foresee a time when they'll be affordable for an enthusiastic home printer.
The models still have to be "painted" of course, but digitally, and the quality of the "painting" will still depend on the artist. It should be a lot easier to do eyes though.
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Yes, if the quality gets good I can see a number of people doing this.
However, many will stick with metal figures and thus keep painting their own.
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Archon's already doing it with *some* terrain. For them, the costs don't scale, so, while prepaints are more expensive, they haven't been able to offer as much of a volume-based discount as they do unpainted plastic. DougC on Dakka has been posting screenshots of the prepaint prototypes. I've noticed prepaints for smaller companies being *very* popular, maybe b/c crowdfunders have deep pockets. Or have too many **** mini's to paint b/c of all those KS projects. :P Start here and work backwards : https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1500/797368.page
EDIT: Big pic : https://imgcdn.gamefound.com/richtextimage/richtext/865ca0c4-c091-4fc1-83fa-6f6f1c2d00b3.jpg
HeroForge has been offering 3D painted for years. At $20 per mini (I think they were $40 at one time!), you're talking only RPG'ers who have been playing their characters for a long time. Maybe a Frostgrave wizard? https://www.heroforge.com/products/printed-plastic/
(https://www.heroforge.com/static/img/photos/white_plastic_matPage.png)
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As an example, I was under the impression / had assumed that the coloured-in figures offered here:
https://only-games.co/
are colour 3D prints? *
they don't inspire confidence by providing only poor quality images for the most part (some are computer renders rather than the actual physical colour output too).
But high /decent quality with custom control and 'reasonable' prices is bound to come I suppose.
It'll be a different 'look' to properly painted figures I should think.
* - actually - just checked some of the listings: yes they are 3D colour prints.
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As an example, I was under the impression / had assumed that the coloured-in figures offered here:
https://only-games.co/
are colour 3D prints? *
They are indeed 3D colour prints. Out of curiosity, I ordered a couple of figures from Only-games last year.
Verdict - Not bad. I think they compare favourably with hand painted 'tabletop standard' (though I know that's a subjective term). Cost may be a deciding factor and I do think at present that these figures are aimed more at the RPG crowd, rather than tabletop wargamers.
I wrote more about my views on this on my blog, if you are curious:
https://tworoundsrapid.blogspot.com/2023/09/colour-me-curious.html?m=1
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These are interesting- way better than what I was expecting.
As you say cost is still an issue - but that will only come down.
Not sure what I think about this as a direction of travel - I do like to paint my figures, but sometimes getting an army on the table has a value of its own. And the simple fact is there is always more figures to buy!
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'N' Gauge (so 12mm-ish) construction workers by Noch. They do them in Z gauge too...
https://www.noch.com/construction-workers/35050/ (https://www.noch.com/construction-workers/35050/)
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gosh rhubarb and Ced, that is interesting - thanks for posting that.
yes- quality not too bad at all - although a different vibe to hand-painted. More 'plastic-y' / rubbery really.
From a purely functional point of view, quite a few would prob. prefer it to your average daubings.
and price and quality can only improve.
of course, as I'm sure most here would agree, it's unlikely to ever look as good as a properly hand-painted collection of figures, let alone one with the heft etc of metal.
And that's before you get to the bespoke quality of such as Battlebrush Sigur, Deano and other top-flight 'painters for hire' as seen on these boards.
I can't see that kind of quality being reached affordably, if at all, any time soon.
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'N' Gauge (so 12mm-ish) construction workers by Noch. They do them in Z gauge too...
https://www.noch.com/construction-workers/35050/ (https://www.noch.com/construction-workers/35050/)
I'm always a bit sceptical when it comes to promotional pictures. But if these are real, the results greatly surpass the prepainted versions!
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Some insanely detailed colour prints:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IkvzMJihuY&t=360s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IkvzMJihuY&t=360s)
Get yourself 3D scanned and printed and head-swap yourself onto all your favourite command figures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd5NTTs00uY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd5NTTs00uY)
It's not likely to ever take over from painting figures. Lots of people in the hobby enjoy painting as an activity in itself. It might provide some competition to painting services, but even there people will still want metal figures, or prefer the hand-painted aesthetic. And it will be a long time before anyone's making 3D colour printed figures of most wargames periods. But the technology even at the moment is amazing.
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yes- quality not too bad at all - although a different vibe to hand-painted. More 'plastic-y' / rubbery really.
From a purely functional point of view, quite a few would prob. prefer it to your average daubings.
That's definitely true. Not too difficult to divide paintjobs into "for gaming" and "for display", with RPG figures, army leaders, and bosses having better paintjobs.
Fiverr has a section for miniature painting that starts at $5. IIRC, Blue Table Painting painted entire armies, though had issues, to say the least. : https://www.fiverr.com/gigs/miniature-painting
And, of course, there are the WizKids, etc. prepaints that are definitely in the "functional" category.
Krosmaster miniatures are, I think, stencil-painted. And they look good compared to, say, D&D prepaints. However, the miniatures are designed to be painted, rather than the typical hobby miniature, where the design comes first, and the painter has to put up with the miniature. :)
(https://cdn02.plentymarkets.com/vm1nws82d5m7/item/images/53977/middle/Feldherr-MIP20BO-Feldherr-MINI-PLUS-Tasche-fuer-3_2.jpg)
And, finally, there are toys and figurines. (: I'm pretty sure there's a ruleset that allows you to wage warfare between Disney and MLP. Brickwars is a wargame you an use with LEGO minifigs, though that's getting into OT territory. :D
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Perhaps it won't be too long till board games come with this as standard
Miniatures for hobbyists with the myriad of periods and genres are a smaller niche but people will undoubtedly take to them when the price falls. Bulk troops 3D paint, centrepiece models will get the care and attention of your paintbrush
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....people will still want metal figures, or prefer the hand-painted aesthetic.
The "hand painted aesthetic" would be trivially easy to replicate digitally, if that was a desirable feature.
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Through my time in this hobby, starting back in the late 80s, I went through a spell of about a decade where I preferred plastic models to metal for all the known reasons. However, I'm back to preferring metal.
3d printed minis are currently my least favorite type. I have several, usually through SWAG given away at tournaments, and none of them am I really keen on.
I could be wrong, but easily printed and painted minis seems like it's going to ultimately take the hobby in the direction of becoming disposable. Kind of what's happened to movies and music in the past decade. There's just so much...little of it is valued. Consume and then, on to the next consumption product pumped out. Hobbyists already have a a "butterfly" problem. When a painted army can be printed out in a weekend, I'd expect gamers to bounce even faster and to amass more and more piles of minis...each used less frequently.
Metal minis will probably become a niche within a niche. Like vinyl (or soon to be movie theaters), but I hope there's enough out there into the love of the craft to keep it up.
There's a gazillion video and board games out there I can play if I don't want to create or build for tabletop. Take away the creation of tabletop... I may as play one of those others. But I am about to turn 50, so this could be where I start yelling at clouds...
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While I understand where you're coming from...I'd disagree. A miniature is a miniature, regardless of it's build material. Now, a sculpt can make a difference...and plenty of people prefer the older hand-scultped style to the more modern digital stuff. I myself like digital, but despise the awful "World of Warcraft" aesthetic which is super common amongst 3D sculptors.
There's nothing more disposable about a plastic miniature or a resin 3D print over a metal miniature (other than metal being better for the environment long-term?). I have plenty of painted plastic miniatures which have been providing excellent service for decades at this point. Hell, I've painted 200+ miniatures from the old Battle Masters board game in the past two months and will be running games using them...so they're now seeing renewed service after sitting in someone's attic for the past 32 years(!).
They could be "viewed" as disposable, cheap board game miniatures...but now they're painted up, based and going to be seeing service in convention games for the next 10-15 years (I hope).
I guess what I'm saying is that something is only disposable as you make it.
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I'm an analogue sculptor,and I get asked all the time whether I'll do digital sculpting. ( Short answer I'd love to learn to but I'm averaging a sixteen hour day with analogue. ),and am I worried about printed pre painted.
The answer is no.
There's a simple analogy people like to create. You can buy prints of old Masters, commercial mass produced paintings,and AI art. Yet the market for art Supplies is thriving.
I do see it having a future with in the hobby space. The most obvious market being the 'Fan/ follower ' of a specific artist. Some of the high earners charge four figure sums. For colouring in. Imagine having a figure almost identical to the original for a three figure sum.
In exactly the same way and Artists will have signed prints of an original painting.
Or you could compare it to premade pre painted terrain . We've all got such items but then you still make your own pieces.
There's already a market for prepainted miniatures. It's likely to be a similar branch within the hobby. Even if you end up with pre painted / built-in colour miniatures there will still be those who want to repaint them and personalise such figures.
There's no silver bullet to kill creativity just difference in approach to creating something unique
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3d printing, together with AI and 3d scan technology will take over the painting and sculpting part of the hobby. It is not just about the printing, but also being able to reproduce anything there is, even your painted models based on the pictures you posted online, well, even you yourself based on your social media photos. Style wont be an issue, that is also easy to imitate. This won't happen overnight, it will be a process to overcome the smaller technical problems like colour quality or resolution, but won't take longer than 10-20 years. From then on painting and modelling will be a niche within the niche, as you won't _create_ any more, just deliberately do something the more difficult way instead of the easier one. The only exception will be the top 10% of quality- the same reason I am able to print Mona Lisa on my inkjet pinter, but I still go to the Louvre to see the original.
We saw this coming when we saw the first 3d printer.
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^ This is it exactly.
My post wasn't a concern about 3d printed minis. Though they aren't my preference, they're just another method of producing models. 3D printed models still require the effort of painting and basing. There's still a creative step. Once they can also be painted, to any style, then the hobby will fundamentally change. If I can have a warhammer army completed in a weekend, including 100% painted, then creating a warhammer army is gonna lose its allure as a planned and designed project. It's just something to have running on the printer while consuming streamed shows.
I'm not gonna say this is going to be good or bad overall. It will clearly impact all the hobby shops and hobby companies, no more need for all these paint suppplies, but it'll probably also cut down on waste, particularly from aerosol sprays. As mentioned, I do think it's gonna fragment the player base for each game even more and gamers are gonna become hyper-butterflies. Buuuut...maybe everyone will have minis for every game now. i dunno. TBH, I hope to pretty much be done with my hobby collection well before then.
Playing with hand sculpted, hand painted models is gonna be like the vintage car hobby, although still quite a bit nerdier. ha
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Sounds all a bit pie in the sky really.
Not to be pessimistic. No doubt the option will exist, but what we tend to do when faced with the allure of new technology is act as if its going to somehow change everything in a distinctly dramatic way.
There are still serious limitations to 3D Printing that are just rarely acknowledged and the material is most certainly a sticking point. Best thing 3D Printing did was make the design/production of masters easier and also made it possible to get a hold of niche vehicles/items that otherwise would be too cost inefficient to manufacture in more traditional formats. That was it. Trying to 3D Print off entire armies is still a bit so-so. Quality control is a major issue which will persist (and this isn't always down to the Printer but Human operator error and/or laziness and the actual designs themselves).
We're not even sure how well the material ages yet its so relatively new.
You also have to learn how to use the thing.
My general take is, we may see being able to print/paint armies simultaneously in future, but there will be strings attached; cost being key - better quality PJs will still dramatically increase the cost and £ ratio of printed minis to plastic minis, still sits in plastic/metal miniatures favor right now and likely will for the foreseeable. You'll end up with only some people really being able to utilise the technology well and fewer still will sell those services and if demand is high the more they can ask from your wallet.
Paint and Plastic/metal will still be reliable options (we also cannot understate the therapeutic effects of just painting figures).
The Hobby is more at threat of becoming niche because the people who have really championed it will be tapping out in the next 10/20 years more then anything. In fact I'm sure there is a range of possibilities here (no one suspected that GW would become suddenly much more successful during the Covid Years or that DnD would see a huge resurgence in the last 5-6 years). There are a lot of ways it could play out and likely in a way that wasn't obvious until after the fact.
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This will sound kooky, but oh well...
The assembly/modeling/painting process is a bit like a magic ritual for me... during with the manufactured products become 'my guys'. As I work on them I get to know them and put a bit of myself into them. They're never going to be the best, but they're mine.
Having a table full of figures that are indistinguishable from anyone elses'? Is that even a hobby any more?
Even with historical subjects, I just can't see myself wanting that. I'd just as soon be using cardboard flats... or even chits.
I'm sure it will catch on like wildfire, similar to many other trends I've ignored all my life... I'll be the guy with the crappy looking figures that he knows and loves, that will be hard to replace, that will likely get chucked in the trash when he's dead... oh well.
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Figure building and painting will not cease to exist of course, and not only because of some nostalgic old farts- photography, nor even photoshop did not kill canvas painting, heck, we have calligraphy as a hobby 600 years after Gutenberg.
Sure, 3d prints have a lot of drawbacks today, and some of them will stay maybe forever. But by 2040 we will have a convenient machine producing some rather marzipan-like coloured figures a lot of people will see as a viable alternative for building and painting their own figures, and they will be right regarding the speed and quality of their work (no offense). Also we will have a higher tier of industrial quality (and price) machinework producing some higher quality, but as I said, the top quality will be unfeasible to copy- the microtexture of painted surfaces are very hard to properly reproduce with printing, even with todays 2d technology, 3d will add extra problems to that. And the cost increase of a quality increase is not linear, more like exponential, so above a level it simply wont be worth it. On the positive side top tier painters will be able to get some money on worse-quality copies of their work the same way todays artists sell good quality prints of their stuff.
Also no one will print fully painted armies overnight, machines capable of this output will be above the price range of a fellow hobby enthusiast. And also an overkill for home unless the goal is to fill the entire barn with toy soldiers before the next full moon or to recreate the battle of Leipzig with 1:1 unit sizes.
In fact I'm sure there is a range of possibilities here (no one suspected that GW would become suddenly much more successful during the Covid Years or that DnD would see a huge resurgence in the last 5-6 years). There are a lot of ways it could play out and likely in a way that wasn't obvious until after the fact.
And yes, there are also non-technical factors. Vitualization of our life comes with a counter-force in form of a crave for "real" stuff, and regarding luxury items (which toy soldiers are) handcraft is always regarded as higher value thus higher prestige than machine work.
The Hobby is more at threat of becoming niche because the people who have really championed it will be tapping out in the next 10/20 years more then anything.
Depends on where you live, here 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (whatever it is called now) attracts a lot of younger folks who have the potential to turn into historical. Also historical wargame events attract a healthy amount of younglings- but this, of course, needs an enthuriastic team who organize public historical wargame events.
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interesting comments / thoughts.
I would think Freddy must have it about right.
And I guess what Fritz says above about it being 'trivial' to replicate any kind of painting style is likely to be true as well - although there has to be some kind of limitation in terms of workable materials for 3D printing with regard to how they compare to hand-painted figures? [*I see now that Freddy pretty much covers this thought with his predictions etc in the post above this one ...]
and obviously this is a 'taste' thing / subjective, but some of those prints in Osmoses's post above I find repulsive / unsettling in their happy-valley photo-realistic quality.
Wouldn't want to go within a country-mile of anything like that, although by the same token wasn't aware that kind of 'quality' / subtlety was do-able already.
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Not sure Freddy has it right myself. Most of what he says was the argument against digital photography a few years ago…..but convenience and speed won out there really quickly…..after all, when was the last time you saw a new wet film camera in a mainstream shop? This technology is fairly new now, but once it attains critical mass and becomes an everyday tool investment into ease of use and speed will transform it beyond recognition. After all, miniature production will be a very small part of what it will be ultimately be used for, and those uses will drive the change. We just get the crumbs off the table in that respect.
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Not sure Freddy has it right myself. Most of what he says was the argument against digital photography a few years ago…..but convenience and speed won out there really quickly…..after all, when was the last time you saw a new wet film camera in a mainstream shop? This technology is fairly new now, but once it attains critical mass and becomes an everyday tool investment into ease of use and speed will transform it beyond recognition. After all, miniature production will be a very small part of what it will be ultimately be used for, and those uses will drive the change. We just get the crumbs off the table in that respect.
I think the comparison to both photography and normal 3d printing is a bit flawed. Photography is a huuuuuuge market and the change came together with the "virtualisation" of photos- you do not see wet film cameras, but no physical photos either, it is all digital. 3d printing is booming because it has a lot of industrial uses too. But painting-quality 3d printing is kind of a niche, it does not have a lot of use besides modeling, so I predict a bit steadier pace of advance. A constant advance nonetheless.
Convenience is another thing- 3d modeling might be cheaper than in plastic, but far less convenient, at least for now.
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As has been intimated, will it become possible to do these things, yes.
But it won't happen as such because of our hobby, but rather as an afterthought or re-application of functionality developed for something that generates more money than miniature printing does.. as mentioned above - we get it at the tail end of something else, that makes it possible.
Our hobby will be one the beneficiaries of the development rather than the reason for it.
As with the example of digital photography - the mainstream industries adopted the tech - its cheaper/maybe not better in some ways (look at the change from analogue to digital telephony - data convergence - analogue is much better, but digital is good enough for telephone calls and cheaper overall, especially with the convergence of other digital and data transmission tech).
You will of course always get some people who want and like DIY. whether that is in miniature or full scale.
You will always have peoples tastes change and likely they will add some of it to their hobby space/collection.
Then you will get people who prefer the VR/holo-table/deck versions when they happen.
I like my lead mountain, it comforts me and provides me with inspiration, not sure 3d pre-coloured ready to play would suite me, even if they become affordable during my lifetime - and the theory being I will already have my armies mostly painted by then lol
Makes me wonder how that will go on the re-sell market Ebay auctions of "AI pro-printed pro-pre-coloured miniatures" added to all the other names on the listings?
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Convenience is another thing- 3d modeling might be cheaper than in plastic, but far less convenient, at least for now.
That's going to change very swiftly. I'm already seeing AI generated or assisted 3d modeling applications or add-ons, and that sort of thing has the potential to create a multitude of online HeroForge-like apps in a very short space of time.
I may be an old man shaking my fist at a cloud, but I have a jaundiced view of the onset of AI into every facet of life. I think it's going to be a similar situation as we had with the arrival of cheap DTP apps in the '80s and '90s, when almost overnight, trained layout design professionals were replaced commercially by masses of cheap amateurs with no idea of what they were doing, adding WordArt to everything.
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@Sunburst - I'll have to re-read Freddy's post - I didn't get the impression he was postulating against the 'successful' take-over of 3D printing in the hobby sphere (both commercial and domestic), rather just sketching out a probable / possible timeline and where it might reach a 'plateau' as far as most end-users are concerned?
But anyway - apologies, not seeking to create an argument where none exists.
Clearly the the technology is being developed / embraced at (effectively) break-neck speed, and even if its use in the hobby is nothing more than a convenient 'can-do, so why not?' off-shoot from its main commercial / industrial applications it's still hard not to see a situation where domestic use is common-place / the norm, with complete custom-control over 'colouring-in' / scale (important point this) / etc, etc., be it in 5yrs, 15 or ... sooner or later :D
Presumably a major impediment (domestically anyway) in a purely technical sense is the relatively toxic nature of the procedure - although I believe that aspect is improving all the time both in terms of materials and 'containment' ?
[This is diametrically opposed to the Photography analogy, where Digital technologies did away with direct useage of toxic materials for most end-users (I used to work professionally in these areas in the 'film' days).]
and hard not to agree with Fitz's 'jaundiced' view of this whole development in relation to IT / Digital technology and AI in particular.
But of course that's only in principle, sadly: for most end-users it will simply (unthinkingly) mean more and 'easier' options.
I mean there's a reason why such as Facebook exists and is so widely used and the common denominator does seem to be human-nature (and we're all guilty of that!!).
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@Sunburst - I'll have to re-read Freddy's post - I didn't get the impression he was postulating against the 'successful' take-over of 3D printing in the hobby sphere (both commercial and domestic), rather just sketching out a probable / possible timeline and where it might reach a 'plateau' as far as most end-users are concerned?
My point is about the coloured 3D relative swiftly (15-20 years) taking over a large part: 60-70-80-90% of the hobby, but never being able for a 100.0% takeover.
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One thing I can easily imagine (perfectly doable now, I'd have thought) is a kind of halfway house whereby miniatures are printed with base colours on, so that the fun parts of painting can be carried out without the drudgery.
Imagine buying a 3D-printed miniature with options to select base colours for various areas, whether that's light tones for people who like "washing down" or dark colours for those who like layering up. Or mid-tones for those who aren't bothered about painting and just want the colours blocked in.
Wouldn't that be great?
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My point is about the coloured 3D relative swiftly (15-20 years) taking over a large part: 60-70-80-90% of the hobby, but never being able for a 100.0% takeover.
I think it will do exactly what you say, but possibly even more quickly. The required resolution has now been achieved, and the aims going forward for this tech will be to improve speed and convenience. In the timeline you’ve outlined I think this technology could well supplant traditional injection moulding, leading to print on demand for a myriad of consumer junk items. Orders being printed on demand makes a commercial sense, with no poorly selling items being held on shelves, and successful sellers not being subject to mould wear and replacement. That is, I believe, the business model that will emerge. As to the potential market for such tech, think toys and souvenirs for one aspect.
Those whose main hobby is gaming will embrace this wholeheartedly, and will drive the prepainted aspect of adoption. On the other hand, those of us whose main hobby is assembling and painting figures may not. It will become driven by commercial levers. The one that makes the most money being the Victor.
Personally I would love to eliminate the tedious clean up and assembly of plastics so I can get straight to painting, and a print interface that could give me the variety of plastics along with print as required with no clean up would be a great time saver. Can’t see it coming any time soon, but I’ve been wrong before (many times)…..
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I think it will do exactly what you say, but possibly even more quickly. The required resolution has now been achieved, and the aims going forward for this tech will be to improve speed and convenience. In the timeline you’ve outlined I think this technology could well supplant traditional injection moulding, leading to print on demand for a myriad of consumer junk items. Orders being printed on demand makes a commercial sense, with no poorly selling items being held on shelves, and successful sellers not being subject to mould wear and replacement. That is, I believe, the business model that will emerge. As to the potential market for such tech, think toys and souvenirs for one aspect.
Those whose main hobby is gaming will embrace this wholeheartedly, and will drive the prepainted aspect of adoption. On the other hand, those of us whose main hobby is assembling and painting figures may not. It will become driven by commercial levers. The one that makes the most money being the Victor.
Yes, this is a possible future, but it will need some time still as "consumer junk items" (I love this term :) ) are varied and heavily regulated from the material point of view: types of plastics and paints used. It will take time to switch everthing into 3d prints, the current brittle material is OK for cosplay items but not too practical for everyday use.
Personally I would love to eliminate the tedious clean up and assembly of plastics so I can get straight to painting, and a print interface that could give me the variety of plastics along with print as required with no clean up would be a great time saver. Can’t see it coming any time soon, but I’ve been wrong before (many times)…..
Also, for now the cleanup for 3d is worse than for plastics. This might change, but it will take time.
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That's going to change very swiftly. I'm already seeing AI generated or assisted 3d modeling applications or add-ons, and that sort of thing has the potential to create a multitude of online HeroForge-like apps in a very short space of time.
I may be an old man shaking my fist at a cloud, but I have a jaundiced view of the onset of AI into every facet of life. I think it's going to be a similar situation as we had with the arrival of cheap DTP apps in the '80s and '90s, when almost overnight, trained layout design professionals were replaced commercially by masses of cheap amateurs with no idea of what they were doing, adding WordArt to everything.
There are a couple of big caveats there currently. The biggest "AI-driven 3d generators" Either put out entirely unusable meshes and UV mapping, or are discovered to actually not use AI at all but cheap labour in third-world countries under the guise of AI.
That may improve of course, but the flaws and issues of 2d AI "art" are very much worsened by adding that third dimension. The pool of available data to work from is much smaller, the methods of reaching results are much more varied (rendering and material types, styles etc) compared to images which in the end are always just a bunch of pixes next to each other. Having less data to draw from makes it more difficult to define styles and types as well. Even without the blatant IP theft of most/all AI companies, there exist hundreds of paintings in the pre-rafelite style available in the public domain. You can train an AI on that style. With 3d designs the databases are more scattered and much much less well indexed by style. And that's all 3d designs, 90% of that is for digital games. For miniatures specifically I sincerely doubt that there are enough files available in total to produce a functional AI model, not without drawing on those digital 3d models heavily.
Add to that the current impasse AI stuff has with making small adjustments and improvements, as the process is so murky that you can't elegantly stop halfway and adjust direction easily with even 2d to say, correct the number of fingers or direction a person is looking.
That could all change rapidly, or it might not. Plenty of companies promising to have big breaktroughs in the next 5 years... but then there always are.
There is the flipside here that computers are good at doing texture and shading these days, using all sorts of clever tricks. I think you already see this on the hero forge figures, they aren't flat colours, there is modulation and shading in the folds and creases.
On the physical side of things I also wonder if we will see any breakthroughs with the 3d printers used for colored prints, or an alternative method. For comparison, non-colored resin printers were big industrial machines you needed a second mortgage for 20 years ago. The kind of product that doesnt even list its price on the seller's page, you make an appointment and somebody visits you to discuss options.
In 2012 Formlabs released their Form 1 printer for 2k. They actually delivered the next year and launched the 1+ a year later at 3,5k. This was still a fraction of the cost of the previous industrial machines, I had to fight hard to convince customers that my form machine could actually deliver miniature-quality prints back then!
Fast forward 10 years to today and I use a 200 euro MSLA/LSD printer which is easier to use than my old form machine, with cheaper materials and faster to boot.
Meanwhile, you could get coloured 3d prints 15 years ago. The quality was a bit rougher than what we have now, and even more expensive but the machines are still not household prices or use. Resin 3d printing can get messy but its doable for a hobbyist, easier than building RC aircraft I'd say. PolyJet colour 3d printers are still "request quote" prices from what I've seen. Their quality has improved, as has their speed but its small steps, not the amazing leaps resin has made. Again, that might change. Another method could come along, or somebody could figure out the trick to making cheap ones and get rich doing so. But it hasn't happened yet.
As a side note, there have been plenty of pre-painted miniature wargaming lines produced in the past. Sure not 3d printed, but many mass production plastic and in some cases quite good quality, but these lines have yet to prove their staying power as most go under in a couple of years, let alone claim a serious slice of the market. 3d printing has come a long way quickly, but when you look at the big names and numbers, it's far from overtaking plastic, pre-painted or not.
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In my 'umble opinion the answer is no...
even a Galacticbrayn couldn't paint a toy sowjer, better than I can!!!
:o
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Haven't read any of the other replies, just replying to the original post...the simple answer is no! Because people like to paint.
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it'll come at one point in the future
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Haven't read any of the other replies, just replying to the original post...the simple answer is no! Because people like to paint.
I agree with that, and it won't be for everyone. Painting is my favourite part of the hobby (well, after buying new shinies), but I'm using contrast paints more and more because it lets me get through the basic grunts quicker. If I could buy those grunts pre-painted, would I ???
I can see it finding a place with boardgames - e.g. Zombicide with fully painted figures straight out of the box. The problem I see with that is how do you print that many figures in a way that doesn't cost a fortune?
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I already had my pre-painted era back in the old days playing Mage Knight (remember that?) and even then I wanted to repaint all the heroes.
Eventually I ended up skipping the "painting the mass of grunts" problem by playing skirmish-size games. While there's still some appeal in getting filler grunts you don't have to work on, when playing larger games, the problem comes in when your heroes look so much better than the grunts that they cease to look like a cohesive force (MK never had that problem because everything was on those clix bases, but that's not a typical situation).
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sometimes I dont get enough time to paint and sometimes I do. What would be nice is an on tap service that generated pre painted stuff for a particular battle or event and you didnt have the time to do ity yourself
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Haven't read any of the other replies, just replying to the original post...the simple answer is no! Because people like to paint.
For some of us painting is the real joy of the hobby, gaming is just the rationalization for buying more to paint. Even huge number of grunt fillers is not a burden…it’s a pleasure—it rests the brain like peaceful meditation since you need not make any decisions about the paint scheme, that can be quite a pleasant ‘agony’ with your heroes and personality figs that you want to stand out. I paint well in excess of tenfold the number of hours that I play.
I would look at 3d color printed pieces (even well done ones) as not much different than unpainted figs of any sort(which never get onto my gaming table. (Never really had any need to use unpainted filler figs, I patiently wait until i have the right numbers painted to field for the scenario. I just play something else until I do). Narcissism and a desire to challenge myself is such that I could not abide seeing mass-produced figs in front of me, no matter how good.
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Here are some of my pre coloured 3d prints via Reduced Aircraft Factory on Shapeways.
(https://i.postimg.cc/sxLmK7sd/IMG-20231208-093408.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/CnjbxZRm)
(https://i.postimg.cc/cLpjdyqy/IMG-20240305-195502.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/BjCNCzQM)
(https://i.postimg.cc/brrLQ3X9/IMG-20240205-193933-edit-99968738898478.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/7Jvg41Z5)
(https://i.postimg.cc/mgzJxZ5y/IMG-20240305-195449.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/Bj3MH3sj)
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Old gamer thanks for sharing those images - the colouring in looks great, and perhaps works even better on aircraft than on figures. Are you able to specify items like the numbers, so each plane is different?
What is disappointing on those is the quality of the 3d printing its self - it looks really rough - nothing like the smooth finish I see on the 3d prints my mate produces
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Yeah the print quality on those planes is pretty atrocious. The paint is "fine", and applied to a much better print, could easily be board-game ready.
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Well, Shapeways filed for bankruptcy today apparently https://www.voxelmatters.com/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy so not an option anymore anyway. Not that surprising as their quality was eclipsed years ago and the costs were pretty high.
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Well, Shapeways filed for bankruptcy today apparently https://www.voxelmatters.com/shapeways-files-for-bankruptcy so not an option anymore anyway. Not that surprising as their quality was eclipsed years ago and the costs were pretty high.
I haven't used them for a while, but I did not see that coming :'( My biggest complaint with them was that they insisted on using UPS for every delivery. That was so expensive that it was impractical to iterate a design with them. The materials were okay for what I wanted printed, but yeah, those are rough prints on the planes, which is a shame.
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Old gamer thanks for sharing those images - the colouring in looks great, and perhaps works even better on aircraft than on figures. Are you able to specify items like the numbers, so each plane is different?
What is disappointing on those is the quality of the 3d printing its self - it looks really rough - nothing like the smooth finish I see on the 3d prints my mate produces
You do not get a personal choice, the aircraft are all pilot specific but there is a lot of choice with some types, less with others.
I find that a couple of layers of satin varnish help with smoothing the surface texture. They offer a smoother finish but the price was too rich for me!
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Yeah the print quality on those planes is pretty atrocious. The paint is "fine", and applied to a much better print, could easily be board-game ready.
Ah see thats the problem here. The painting is an integral part of the printing method, which creates a layer of fine plastic grains which are "glued" together and get a drop of colour. Its a very different method from the common extrusion or resin printers people mainly use today. Those however do not have the option to integrate the colours in a particularly detailed way. Extrusion printers can work in multiple colored filaments, but thas also has limitations.
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SLS printing can be done at a much finer grain size than those examples, to the point where it becomes comparable to the output from older 2k resin printers. The SLS printers capable of doing that are still pretty expensive though.
The most promising full-colour (16 bit, I think) process right now prints picolitre drops of coloured resins in layers, exactly like an inkjet printer, and it prints its own water-soluble support shell at the same time. The resolution is pretty high, and the results are excellent, but again those printers are expensive enough that they'd be out of reach of 99.99% of home hobbyists.
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SLS printing can be done at a much finer grain size than those examples, to the point where it becomes comparable to the output from older 2k resin printers. The SLS printers capable of doing that are still pretty expensive though.
The most promising full-colour (16 bit, I think) process right now prints picolitre drops of coloured resins in layers, exactly like an inkjet printer, and it prints its own water-soluble support shell at the same time. The resolution is pretty high, and the results are excellent, but again those printers are expensive enough that they'd be out of reach of 99.99% of home hobbyists.
exactly. Now, as I've said (in a lot of words) before here, I haven't seen any indications that we will have another sudden big innovation in that technology, but truth be told I also did not believe it when formlabs first claimed they had one with their resin printer. It may be right around the corner, but I don't think it is. With every colour you are adding so much extra needed systems, when the reason resin 3d printers became affordable is that people kept finding ways to make them simpler.
It may be an asinine comparison, but I sinceraly have more problems with my 2d color printer than I have with my 3d printer. When the 3d printer breaks I can get cheap replacement parts to fix it myself fairly easily. If doing colored 3d resin printing requires making the printer more like an inkjet or what have you, i'll stick to painting by hand thank you.
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blimey, fascinating stuff - if somewhat daunting, in more ways than one, to an old-timer.
darn interesting read.
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You can play with yourself.
(no, not like that)
((ok, not JUST like that))
https://9gag.com/gag/aXPwdoP
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You can play with yourself.
(no, not like that)
((ok, not JUST like that))
https://9gag.com/gag/aXPwdoP
Lol I was just going to post that.
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I was at a Historicon a while back that there was a company that was doing that in 28mm.
You could be a general in a number of wars. Not sure how well it worked as I never saw or
heard of it again.
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I was at a Historicon a while back that there was a company that was doing that in 28mm.
You could be a general in a number of wars. Not sure how well it worked as I never saw or
heard of it again.
Oh yeah, I remember seeing that; they did a 3D scan of your head and plopped it on a mini IIRC.
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Eldritch games has just announced a Kickstarter for 3d printed and painted figures - TableTop Game News article (https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/eldritch-foundry-to-launch-kickstarter-for-full-color-custom-miniatures-on-october-29/)
Eldritch Foundry has announced an upcoming Kickstarter campaign, set to go live on October 29 at 8 a.m. Eastern time, offering a new level of customization for tabletop gamers. The campaign will introduce full-color 3D printed miniatures, allowing users to digitally “paint” their creations.
They do look more than good enough for rank and file.
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Eldritch games has just announced a Kickstarter for 3d printed and painted figures - TableTop Game News article (https://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/eldritch-foundry-to-launch-kickstarter-for-full-color-custom-miniatures-on-october-29/)
They do look more than good enough for rank and file.
The death of painting is upon us :o
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The death of painting is upon us :o
Not until those machines are cheap enough for an average person to have in their home.
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The death of painting is upon us :o
Now we have the capability for AI written rules and colour printed figures we just need them to come up with robots that can play wargames with each other, and the circle will be complete.
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Now we have the capability for AI written rules and colour printed figures we just need them to come up with robots that can play wargames with each other, and the circle will be complete.
You'll pay for watching - it's like football... lol
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lol
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The death of painting is upon us :o
Only for those that don't like to paint. the rest of us will carry on having fun with our brushes.
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What we really need is a 3d printer that can print and paint lots of figures in minutes for a game and then melt them all down for storage. You just restart the printer for the next game ;)
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What we really need is a 3d printer that can print and paint lots of figures in minutes for a game and then melt them all down for storage. You just restart the printer for the next game ;)
It’s called a computer/console/video game and pretty boring for those of us who like to paint, rules fiddle, scratch build, or even just look at the handiwork of a skilled artist.
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It’s called a computer/console/video game and pretty boring for those of us who like to paint, rules fiddle, scratch build, or even just look at the handiwork of a skilled artist.
I know,its my warped sense of humour that makes me type these things. You cannot beat a bit of fiddling and scratching lol
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As the technology progresses I wonder if we will see photo-realistic 3D terrain?
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As the technology progresses I wonder if we will see photo-realistic 3D terrain?
Couldn't you just use rocks?
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All you need is a hologram generator.
Any Terrain & painted minis no problem
Plus a built in AI opponent who knows all the
Rules 😉
Z
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Doubt 3d printing will replace painting, in the same way that people still sculpt despite the existence of 3d printers- just look at the talented folk on this forum! I think it’ll just be a nice alternative to those who don’t enjoy painting :)
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Couldn't you just use rocks?
But small rocks float. Good for naval battles?
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As the technology progresses I wonder if we will see photo-realistic 3D terrain?
What? And replace all those lovely pixellated neoprene mats, jigsaw cornered MDF buildings, random slabs of doormat, and (never quite aligned) bits of wonky cardboard road? Wargamers will never go for it…
;)
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What? And replace all those lovely pixellated neoprene mats, jigsaw cornered MDF buildings, random slabs of doormat, and (never quite aligned) bits of wonky cardboard road? Wargamers will never go for it…
;)
🤣🤣🤣 it’s like trying to too 8-bit Nintendo - never happen 🤡