ZBrushCentral

Building Rapid Prototype 3D Models from Zbrush Files Tutorial

PARENT-MAIN CHILD-ZBrush Tutorials Forum
#81

CGGuru:
The poly count was about 650,000 polys.
He was 45mb and I sent them an OBJ file.

I thought I needed to send a super-high density mesh.
But this is not the case. Especially when he is only 5 inches tall.

The price of a print is dependant on a number of things.
The only real way to know is to send in an obj/stl file for a price quote.

The material is VERY strong. I could have it painted or mold/cast it into a bunch of copies if I wanted. I used to be a toy sculptor and I’m re-inspired by the quality of this print.

#82

MouthforWar

thanks for the in dude great work again

#83

Wow, great looking 3D print… it’s gottta be cool to actually hold your virtual creation.

Keep up the great work!

#84

Hello all. It’s great to read all the positive comments about the 3D Prints. Here at GROWit, we’re preparing for Siggraph next week. If you submit two models by midnight (PST), August 7th, we’ll give you the second model half price! Just mention the Siggraph promotion – by doing so you’re giving us permission to display both of your models, and we’ll ship them immediately following the show.

The half price model will be the smaller of the two, and must be less than 5 inches tall. Remember, all models need to be submitted by midnight (PST), August 7th.

E-mail [email protected] with the files and Michael or David will reply with a price.

Thanks everyone!

#85

wow, mouthofwar, the printed model looks pretty cool.
great job by GROWit.
the material has a nice surface too.
like madmatt i asked myself if it was cleaned after the printing somehow
(something similar like cleaning a bigger piece of work with sandblaster)

im searchin for a similar company for producing some extraordinary merch, but its hard to find in germany.

and thx for the thread and all great posts. great info boost at all.

#86

Hi zhaxen. At GROWit we work with clients from Europe all the time. It takes a couple extra days to get to Germany, but otherwise es ist kein Problem.

Also, thanks to all who submitted files for Siggraph! The show was terrific!

#87

oh thats great news.
i took a look on your website and then took a look on objets site as well and
just watched their demo.
pretty impressive both.
the connex500 is monster.

maybe we get in contact in near future. :+1:

we were at the GamesConvention2008 Leipzig with our EACT and i saw
the MuckleMannequin Booth, but when i think of would be possible when
that technology will be able to print out bigger works…oh dear^^.

#88

Hi, can anyone give any advise on how to combine subtools into one solid watertight mesh? Or is it ok to have a model that is composed of overlapping geometry which has been the result of mesh inserting subtools to create a single obj? I’m trying to sort some models out, so I can have them rapid prototyped. Any info would be greatly aprieciated

#89

Most 3D printers have no problems with models made from intersecting meshes. Just make sure each mesh is watertight, and is clean of non-manifold edges, and other junk.

#90

It would be good to get an answer or a link about how exactly to merge multiple subtools.

I know you can always retopologize multiple subtools… but is there a way to join/ weld multiple subtools without retopologizing and get them ready for 3D printing? Could a program like Modo help with this?

Any adivce would be greatly appreciated.

Vince

#91

Have you got any tips for fixing meshes which aren’t watertight? I’ve got a model that is composed of multiple subtools. There are open / bad edges contained “within” the model and the various subtools overlap and cover these areas. I assumed that by performing boolean operations within somethig like modo I could eliminate the unwanted bad internal gemometry leaving me with a watertight external mesh. I’m not having any luck though…Any advise / workflow / suggestions would be greatly appriciated

#92

We have software that fixes the the files in a fairly automated process. If our software doesn’t fix it, our engineer will fix it piece by piece. Typically, as long as it doesn’t take longer than 15 minutes (it rarely does) we’ll fix the parts for free.

I wish I had better advice, but I doubt our software is worth the investment for you guys as it’s specific to our industry.

#93

Growit, Is your program Geomagic, Rapidform or Polyworks?

We finally got a copy of Geomagic along with our 3d scanner. Geo will clean up point cload data and stl mesh, I assume it will work with Zbrush obj’s too. Anyway when I try this I’ll post my results. The drag is that geo is incredibly expensive.

fork

#94

The program we choose to use will vary based on what exactly is wrong with the file.

#95

[shhark, thank you for sharing this kind of knowledge…

[url=“member.php?u=32444”]__________________
[url=http://www.metrorp.com]Rapid Prototyping
](member.php?u=32444)

#96

Quick question for you all . . .

If I were to insert a mesh on an existing subTool and then with the clay brush blend the two objects, would or could I experience problems in the printing process?

The two objects would be over lapping . . .

Thanks for the great thread.

Steely

#97

This is a most amazing thread and I’m really upset I didn’t see it when it started.

Things have certainly changed since this was started, better resolution printers for one, but not much info about prices coming down, or if any of the “gang print” scenarios ever worked out.

I noticed almost all of the problems mentioned in this thread have pretty much been solved thanks to the new zbrush plugins Decimation Master and 3D Print Exporter.

I’m curious if any of the companies listed here have tested files using the new plugins.

#98

Steely_340:
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “insert a mesh” but within what I know about what you can do with ZB it shouldn’t be a problem. Depending on what you’re trying to do, you’ll probably need to your bake your 3D layer or merge your subtools by using the “Insert Mesh” function in the Geometry palette. As long as the meshes intersect & your “shell” is watertight it should work out :slight_smile: .

Pigumon:
Things really have moved fast since I started the thread. It would be great to get back on subject & keep tabs on the direction of 3D printing & how ZB interfaces. The “gang print” scenario is the way to go but somebody needs to start the club. I proposed it but really got very little organized response. I’m not with Paradigm anymore but if anyone wants to still try this I’d be happy to manage it. Drop me a PM & I’ll start a queue. If we get enough models together I’ll get some quotes & see if we can’t figure a way to get some prints done at a reasonable price :D.

Fork:
I know this is going back in time a bit…You can merge subtools by cloning each on them then adding them with the “insert mesh” function in the Geometry palette. This is covered in the tutorial. I think the new STL Export plugin has the ability to take care of that for you now though. I think most of my tutorial is no longer necessary with the Decimation & STL plugins. Thanks to Pixologic all this just got a lot easier :+1:!

#99

AWESOME design, awesome print

he reminds me of a buffed version of Tingle from Zelda: Wind Waker @Josh

I didn’t see your reply until just now, it’s really great to see how things are advancing so quickly especially in the past year. It seems Envisiontec has just released a new machine that claims to have perfectly smooth surfaces with no need for post work, stuff you can make a mold directly from!!!

I’m working on getting a blog going for this, I don’t see why we couldn’t incorporate a place where people could pick a “space” and it would update in a table so people could see if their items are close to being printed or not. I think you mentioned you’d have to pre-pay for such a scheme which makes sense to me. Maybe with a time-limited refund… say if all the spaces aren’t filled within 8 weeks, then the money is refunded, or with the option of paying slightly more to compensate for the few empty spaces?

I have some large pieces I’d like printed, so it doesn’t really work for me in this case, but I have a ton of smaller ideas I could work on just to see.

Attachments

tingle.jpg

#100

Pigumon-

Just wanted to let you (and others) know that have been using the Decimation Master and 3D print exporter now for a number of prints and worked through some issues during beta testing. Everything seems to be working great in the oficial release. Now you can send us your polypainted ZTools in VRML form and we can produce some full color models directly from Zbrush! The Decimation Master is going to be very helpful to us and has made preparing Ztools for printing much easier. We produce Zbrush models primarily using Objet’s Connex (in fact the print posted by MouthforWar was printed by GROWit using the Connex), although Zcorp models are great if you want color at a great price. We have a few different colors to choose from as well as rubber parts. The Connex lays down 16micron layers (~.0006") which means highly accurate models right out of the machine.

GROWit has worked with many artists from a number of forums from around the world. Please contact us directly if you have specific questions, and we will try our best to keep an eye on the threads!