3D printing the Aliens [now with results!]
MrFangs
Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184474Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184474Members, Reinforced - Shadow
If all goes well, I'll have access to a 3D printer soon. Quite naturally, I'm planning to print cute little Gorges and fearsome Fades with it 
Has anyone tried this already? I'm not afraid of digging into tech stuff, but I have no experience with 3D modelling at all. The main thing I don't know is how one would define the pose of the model to print... standing, attacking, running etc. I know that Poser is used for stuff like that, but could it be made to work with the NS2 models?
(All for personal use only, of course.)
Has anyone tried this already? I'm not afraid of digging into tech stuff, but I have no experience with 3D modelling at all. The main thing I don't know is how one would define the pose of the model to print... standing, attacking, running etc. I know that Poser is used for stuff like that, but could it be made to work with the NS2 models?
(All for personal use only, of course.)
Comments
SpecOps marine too
I'm afraid not
Still hoping that UWE comes up with official ones...
Hmm... with commercial high-end printers or materials (metal etc.), maybe. The one I'll have access to (Ultimaker) usually prints PLA, which is around 30€/kg. So typical objects cost a few euros only. The downside is that you can only print in one material and in one color... high-end printers can combine them.
So the .model file is actually a .3ds file? I haven't been able to find much information about it because the extension name is so generic.
All required information should be in the .model files, but they are probably in a custom format. Does anyone have more insight on this?
Unfortunately, these can only be opened with 3DS Max to convert them to another format. I would like to get them into Blender, which can import .obj (that seems to be the recommended way for importing from 3DS). Alternatively, Blender could also read .dae files.
Does anyone have 3DS Max so he/she could convert the .max files? I don't have it, and no, I don't want to "download" it from the shady corners of the net
But today, I present... *drumroll*: my first 3D-printed Gorge
(USB plug for scale.)
This was my very first attempt at creating a live 3D Gorge, and I'm quite amazed how well it turned out. The material used for printing is black PLA. I think it could also be painted like tabletop game figures, but the material itself looks very cool already.
Here are some more pictures of the details:
Here's a close-up of the mouth (difficult to photograph). The 3D printer can't create horizontal gaps, so I had to carve most of it by hand - more on this later.
And of course, a Gorge wouldn't be complete without its tails
All in all, it was quite a bit of work, but totally worth it. I'll post more info about the creation process soon.
If you could confirm these things are paintable with model paints, I'll order a complete set off you
How much did that cost to print?
@Hugh - Have you seen this yet...?
GORGIEGIEGOIRIOGERGEEIEIEIEIE
The main "cost" of creating this is time. Setting up/calibrating the printer, test runs, checking it, starting over if something goes wrong etc. The final print took several hours, don't know exactly how many. And then I worked about 4 hours on post-processing (cleaning up the model, carving gaps), although that will most likely become faster with experience.
Edit: And of course, creating the print-ready 3d model file in the first place. Format conversions, aligning etc.
Yeah, I'm curious about that as well. It should be possible, as PLA is basically like hard plastic. There should be some kind of paint that doesn't dissolve it.
Please take my money.
Wonder if this will be taken far enough to make a hardtail bicycle out of metal, then imagine they can use other materials like aluminum or carbon fiber
interesting, if taken far enough this can change the assembly line!
Cool stuff!
@Zomb3h Love that screenshot
you're just now discovering 3d printers exist? lol......
they've been around for awhile......
3D printers are already changing the assembly line, and they have been in use since the 80s. It's been compared to the next industrial revolution in manufacturing. Youtube '3d printing'. Also nice job MrFangs.