Orienting 3D Printed Minis for Better Quality, Supports, & Removal (Printing The Game #10)

[@3DPrintedTabletop]

🎉Hey ya'll! We have a D&D Book + STL Kickstarter coming on Aug 3rd! Check it out here: 3dpt.me/uncharted-yt Thanks for the support!

[@the_average_canadian]

"A piece of the horn is missing" Ahh so the dragon is now old and wiser, having lost a section of a horn in a battle long ago, still bearing that scar to this day as a reminder of the lessons he learned instead of regenerating it with magic.

[@LinvuS]

Exactly, i think fails some certain 'fails' should be called 'features'.

[@hoofrog]

Not sure what you did different this time good sir but the production value of the his video seems like an upgrade from your earlier vids. Kudos and thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@3DPrintedTabletop]

All I did was get a better camera. I set aside some Kickstarter money to upgrade my set up so I can make my videos just a bit better for you all. Thanks again for noticing and for your support from so early on, Roger!

[@UncleJessy]

Quickly becoming one of my fav channels. Awesome content man! Keep it up!

[@Ernestotaku]

That dragon wing finished really good. All the membranes and the skin is well detailed. You are the answer to all those people that says that filament printers are no good for minis.

[@wirnheir1916]

You should upload speed paints of 3d printed minis, would totally watch.

[@jlinddog]

If you choose the "Line Type" color scheme in Cura for the Layer View, supports will be much easier to see. Might help with the overall vid quality for those shots of support generation.

[@KrazyZombieMan]

I agree. I’ve definitely picked up a sense for model orientation and support as well. I think this video is excellent for people who are just starting out, or who maybe haven’t considered this. I’m personally a big fan of tree supports.

[@kae5717]

Found this with the power of "Google please help" and I'm so glad for it! I knew SOMETHING was wrong with how I oriented my minis with how they turned out, and looking at this video it all makes so much logical sense, but I was too new at the whole deal to get to that conclusion on my own. Thank you!

[@NickFarrow]

Keep these videos going. Great stuff. Got my kids interested in D&D now because of your videos

[@AdrianMagni]

What about splitting the model and printing it in two parts? E.g. the dragon head you could have the front with the mouth facing up and the back with the horns facing up.

[@Jason-on4hg]

Great video. Possibly in an upcoming video you can share about the settings you use for supports in Cura. It's a fine line between having supports that function as they should and having them seem to glue to the model. I'd like to see some detail about that topic. thanks, keep up the great work!

[@insomnia7337]

Yes, this please! I'm new and I've tried messing with supports only a little bit. I just used default settings in Cura and supports were attached so hard it was impossible to remove without breaking the model. I don't know what to change.

[@garybarnett6941]

Thank you for uploading this, this is an area I struggle with heavily, being new to 3D printing in general

[@5punkybob]

Cheers bro.. HEAPS good information. I'm not a DM but I 3d print minis for all the guys in my group and using your tips I have been making some great prints!

[@SpaceKingDinosaur]

Thanks for more rules, tips & tricks from your increasing experience. As you describe, this sort of thing will need to be evaluated on a case by case basis, but your information here will certainly give us things to consider when approaching the task. Great video! Keep being awesome!

[@jmarc9111]

Finally the video I was looking for!!!! and it was exactly what I wanted to hear I had a hard time cleaning my supports off the Hero Forge template Paladin, and changing the Orientation should fix the Issues I has having with removing the supports. thanks you!!!

[@andym8241]

Cheers Danny, this looks like it's going to be really useful for me to know! I should have a Photon by the end of 2018 or early 2019, can't wait to put all your vids to practical use!

[@potteryjoe]

Great tips. I usually just print figures vertically, then get irritated while removing supports & cleaning up. Guess I'll put more thought into orienting!

[@docbun]

4:00 Looking at the Dragon example, would you help me understand why it wouldn't be easier to cut the body into 2 halves, printing each half laying on the cut?

[@3DPrintedTabletop]

You totally could, but the print resolution would be impacted and sometimes doesn't look as good, and you'd have a very obvious seamline you'd have to fill. We did this with our Clockwork Dragon actually :)

[@Repodicus]

Great video. Wish I'd seen this before I did my first dragon head, but learned on my own :). The wing tips and body orientation as well as raising the model height off of the plat are very helpful.

[@TheXTruthAbout]

Hey Danny, my Cura doesn't have that button for adding custom supports. Where is that setting?

[@KrazyZombieMan]

It’s in the top bar under Toolbox and browse packages. It’s a plug-in that you install, and the button should pop up (after you restart Cura) right below the support blocker button.

[@Repodicus]

@@KrazyZombieMan Toolbox is now Marketplace in Cura 3.6.

[@TriconPOE]

What is the general opinion on slicing the models in half and printing them in two halves and basically gluing them together? I understand it might be hard to fix visibly but if you're going to post-process (especially prime and paint), is this doable?

[@Dots3BrandonG]

Could you do a video on manual supports? Would be amazing!

[@kevinclark6776]

love you dude, keep doing you man

[@3DPrintedTabletop]

You too, Jam'in!

[@fuzzypanda2804]

Thank god I cam across this. I tried printing the 3D orc fighter and his face is almost non existent and alot of it just looks brittle and that it could break any second. I did 15 percent infill with 3 layers and it still looked brittle. It was also pretty small so I may up the scale a good bit and see if that fixes some of the issues.

[@TBWOC]

How do you "cut" a 3D model into smaller parts? I would like to spread the parts horizontally on the ground so I need less support. Then I would assemble and glue the parts like any other model kit.

[@Chad-Dion]

Any advice for printing multiple pieces of a larger model and keeping them all the same scale?

[@Oakbeast]

Thanks for posting this. definitely going to consider everything here as I’m doing my next sculpt. ;)

[@muzkur]

What you think about 2 extruders printers to do that? Using a specific filament to supports can help in the finnish.

[@thadsteel4300]

I'm wondering, is there a way to 3d print sets of sprues?

[@timsoyer3840]

Have you stop doing your videos? Or because of what you have shown me, I have begun printing my own miniatures.. far from an expert but it’s a work in progress. I hope you will make more videos but even if not, let me say thank you. I am let me send my best wishes to you.

[@Daniel-yf5bf]

Hey 3D Printed Tabletop, I don't know if you have considered using Meshmixer to create your own custom support structures instead of the supports created by Cura. You can create the supports in Meshmixer then export them into Cura for printing. I find that the detail is nicer and the removal of supports is a lot easier (and there is less clean up to do on the model). I highly recommend it if you get the chance to test it out. Kind Regards, Dan.

[@Metalpanzerwolf]

Wow you really helped me to tighten up my understanding of supports. I am always skeptical when someone says their print need no supports. Thank you for the wonderful video! Your channel is the one I go to for miniature printing these days. Did you ever do a Creality printer setting for Simplify 3d? I cannot seem to find one.

[@gabrieletesio6848]

will you ever do a similar video or multiple ones for resin printers? (anycubic photon and so on)

[@youngwolf0]

a question occurred after my last comment. I'm printing 4 giant minis just now and am noticing if I print them standing upright then the bases come out a lot cleaner. Do you mind making that compromise or do you print the bases separately and glue them on?

[@wolfmusician6759]

Wait how did you removed your supports to make it come out good?

[@terraxcell]

How would you orient a shield by it self

[@Ebolson1019]

one of my players sent me the stl of his mage he got off hero forge and one arm if fully extended horizontally and the other holds a horizontal staff. all 3 orientations result in support building off the body to reach the arm (and the flaming skull flying from it). Any advice?

[@julienboucaron9780]

Nice tutorial video Danny. Continue the good work ! Did you try to print in ABS ?

[@Zacknafin]

Danny must have gotten new toys (mic and camera)! Great video as always!

[@3DPrintedTabletop]

Enough people added pledged KZbin rewards that I decided to reinvest some of it back in the channel. All this is is a new camera - it is a $400 upgrade that I wish I'd done sooner. Thanks for your support, Zack! :)

[@drricardouribe1803]

Thank you for the tips, it seems that you are very meticulous with support setting and this makes me wonder why haven't you tried meshmixer custom cleaner supports, you should definitely give it a try and who knows, maybe when you gain experience with that you could make another video about supports (we all love this type of videos)

Hello, man! Did you upgrade your Ender 3 in any way, like installing dampeners or other mods?

[@DreadKnight666]

Amazing video, just what I needed to see :-)

[@davethepak]

Thank you for the vid - very informative. You have really helped me in learning to use my 3d printer (ender 3 pro) for gaming.

[@avejst]

Well done 😀👍 Thanks for sharing 👍😀

[@MurderHoboRPG]

wow. I cant believe how far slicers have come in just 2 years. Watching this is like I am watching 3d stuff from the eighties. Chitubox is really killing the game. but Chitu is probably not ok for fdm right? Idk I only have a resin printer.

[@MobileDecay]

The wings on a dragon are a pain. Every time I try to remove them the wings break off. 😩

[@michaelwilbur4166]

Thank you for the video Danny!

[@juanarenas6517]

Hello, first thanks for the video and share the experiences with everyone. I find it difficult to understand the language since I understand very little. The subject you are dealing with seems very interesting to me, since I would like to print some figures and I still do not have them because of the subject of the supports. I just have to translate into text, what a shame. Thank you very much again and great job. regards

[@slickschoppers]

Nice Video, I wish I had seen this a few years ago when I was starting out.. it would have saved me a lot of time a frustration :)

[@ValkGame]

I finally found a way to get Cura to work with my Flash Forge CP, it does a way better job with tiny detailed minis than Simplify3D.

[@gardian1701]

I know this video is old, but what you need is Prusaslicer paint on organic supports. You won't go back. 👌

[@3D-BUG]

Thank you! Good advises.

[@TheNinja4]

Any good ender 3 mods or upgrades?

[@fhuber7507]

Sometimes... cut it in half. Print a front and a back and possibly eliminate a lot of supports.

[@KentuckyFriedGamers]

Great tips, thanks

[@marakamark9346]

Good video :)

[@youngwolf0]

you didn't talk about exacto knife safety and I stabbed my finger with one!!! just joking, it's my silly fault for not being careful ;p Your videos are super helpful and thanks to them I'm slowly printing a pretty decent mini collection :)

[@antibodyarmy]

broken and dismembered mini's no problem, they are now terrain design for those more gruesome scenes that can be portrayed in certain scenarios.

[@kingofnowhere.]

I want 3d printer

[@richarnaud7794]

What if I'm not a gamer and I just like printing miniatures? What does that make me? Lol

[@talonblack8250]

Just use a resin pri printer. There pretty cheap these days.