Model Export to 3D printing

[gamerfromspace]

So I ordered a 3D printer and started thinking about the things I could print and what I realised that this game would be an amazing tool for creating and printing your own ships. So for example after you finish building a ship, you could export it to an STL or OBJ file so it can be opened in a CAD software, modified if it needs to for individual printers or if someone would want to make a stand for the vessle and then sent to the printer. Space engineers did this and it seems to be looking really cool so it would be really fun idf this game had this too, especially as 3D printers are more and more accessible.

 

[Cpt.Hissy]

sadly ships here are disproportional and ugly (real shame for a navy focused game..)
but overall nice idea

[SonicB]

I have a couple of resin printers and I'd like to second this. In my experience (as a cosplayer of game characters lol) any exports from game assets usually need a lot of work to tidy them up for printing... but if we have a favourite design from a campaign it really would be great to access the model. You would need a resin or very good FDM printer to recreate warship details at scale, though.

Hell, you might even get people buying the game just to use the designer for tabletop miniatures - you probably wouldn't believe how much tabletop gamers will throw at their hobby to get custom pieces. (hey devs, if you want to offer this as an official service, call me 😄)
 

[Himbeereule]

I exported some of the assets to stl, but the way they are makes it very hard to assemble a printable model. Unfortunately, I don't think they will ever be suited to be.

 

[Cptbarney]

On 7/8/2021 at 11:11 AM, Terka1917 said:

I exported some of the assets to stl, but the way they are makes it very hard to assemble a printable model. Unfortunately, I don't think they will ever be suited to be.

 

could take it into blender, remove any double verts excessive geo and then bring it into any decent CAD software. unless the model is that messed or tedious to take apart and clean.

[SonicB]

18 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

could take it into blender, remove any double verts excessive geo and then bring it into any decent CAD software. unless the model is that messed or tedious to take apart and clean.

Microsoft 3D Builder or Fusion360 (used to be netfabb) have decent auto clean-up tools. Might be worth a shot, although in my experience most directly exported game assets of any complexity have garbage geometry.

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, SonicB said:

Microsoft 3D Builder or Fusion360 (used to be netfabb) have decent auto clean-up tools. Might be worth a shot, although in my experience most directly exported game assets of any complexity have garbage geometry.

Which is odd because i always assumed game geometry would be basically perfect (as i try to do with my models, despite not working in said industry). also way too many tri's not sure why game engines havent been update so they can take on quads without needing to turn everything into tris same with computers as well being able to process quads far better.

Tris just make geo look like a mess really.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Everything is internally triangles in fact. Computers use the basic geometry, a plane is defined by 3 points -> tris everywhere.