3-D Printed Terrain

[Weltenlaeufer]

Does anyone have a 3 d printer here or any experience with 3-d printing? I might get some cool terrain stl files soon and have a few questions.

[whitebeard]

Printing terrain (buildings, walls, and large fearures) is not really all that great.

Large prints take an extremely long time and are really only managable in low resolution. Printing is much easier than crafting it yourself, but the quality at 0.2mm is noticably bad for walls and such. Unless I needed to rapidly fill a tabletop with terrain for a skirmish game like Frostgrave or Mordheim, I would just craft it myself.

If you have never attempted hand crafting your own terrain, look it up on YouTube and give it a try. It is surprisingly easy to get fantastic results.

[Weltenlaeufer]

Printing terrain (buildings, walls, and large fearures) is not really all that great.

Large prints take an extremely long time and are really only managable in low resolution. Printing is much easier than crafting it yourself, but the quality at 0.2mm is noticably bad for walls and such. Unless I needed to rapidly fill a tabletop with terrain for a skirmish game like Frostgrave or Mordheim, I would just craft it myself.

If you have never attempted hand crafting your own terrain, look it up on YouTube and give it a try. It is surprisingly easy to get fantastic results.

Thank you whitebeard. I gonna look into it, crafting your own terrain sounds fun! I was looking into the mystic-realms terrain (https://www.mystic-realm.com/) and I really like what they are doing, so I am looking for a way to print this stuff. I was wondering about how high the material costs are for 3 d printing. I gotta find someone with a printer and maybe get a joint effort done to get some of this stuff on my table.

[whitebeard]

I looked into the Mystic Realm terrain and was surprised... "Act 1" is mostly trees and rocks (and the cottage). These things are all REALLY EASY to craft on your own. Organic shapes like this are very forgiving for a crafter. To achieve this you really only need the rough shape you are looking for and a hot glue gun.

tree_base.jpg

scene.jpg

You need to check out DM Scotty's YouTube channel. Look up his "Crow Hollow Cursed Tree" and "Weeping Treant" then browse his other tree and rock videos... There are so many ways to achieve similar textures and Scotty does similar projects with many different materials.


That said. I'm also very pragmatic about my hobby time versus what it would cost to just buy and or print stuff. You should be able to print these trees as hollow 10% in-fill light weight models with a course setting such as 0.2mm layer height (with no supports) AND then hit them with an automotive grade "filler" primer. The filler will hide the rough ridges and not really cost you on the organic look. I would guess that you can print 40 or more trees with just one 1kg spool of filament ($20). If you owned your own printer, you could print a good batch of models during the week, then paint them quickly on the weekend. Done!

Either way, show us what you end up doing!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Thanks for your detailed reply whitebeard! I checked out DMscotty, wow, he is the Bob Ross of Dungeoncrafting! Really cool stuff! The tree ent looked like very advanced sculpting, but I looked at a few more and I could see myself actually gettin into crafting some stuff myself. Thanks for the tip, I gonna study this guys channel more and get more inspiration!

I actually made a few trees from bits and pieces at a store the other day, it was great fun.

Also thanks for the printing tips! I checked in with a local 3 d printer service and see how much they charge here and try to print a few mysticrealm files. I really liked there act 2 stuff but for now I gonna just print a cavern pool and one tree. I ll post pics once I do.

Your pictures look great. Very inspiring!