[SH] Ecorium terrain for 3d printing

[Malika]

Hmm, I think that if I would go down that route, all the corridors should have the same pattern, and personally I quite dig the pattern I've already made.

In the meantime I've finished the L-section. Next up are the T-section and cross section pieces. I'll do them either today or tomorrow. After that it's some door sections and variant floor components that will allow you to build rooms.

[Malika]

Ok, just finished the T-sections and cross-sections, then put them all together.



Just realised that rooms will be really easy to make then, I just take out certain walls (those ones in the middle) and either replace them for other floor panels or pieces of equipment (generations, food production units, etc).

[David Wasilewski]

Looking good. You could do worse than checking out Dwarven Forge for their old sci fi range for ideas and shape types useful for flexible building patterns.

I would echo what others have said here with regard to epic scale sci fi terrain. At the moment, there's a big gap in the market as Forgeworld have foolishly stopped making it. Yes, the hawk wargames building stuff is awesome but it is over priced. They have admitted as much to me when I saw them at a show recently. Why they can't just cast them up as one piece buildings and halve the cost I don't know? They have such a large range that you don't really need to have loads of customisable pieces anyway. I priced up a 20 building city and it came to over £1000.

Now if you could make something similar in scale and detail and 3d print it in one piece, I'm sure you could halve the price! If you made them WH40K style too (without putting anything too overtly GW on them) Im sure you could make some good money.

Dave

[Malika]

It's not so hard to make something better than the old scifi range from Dwarven Forge I think. No offense to them, but I found their kits to have something...well...it's cool if you're into those old school late 80s / early 90s miniatures.

As for the Epic scaled terrain, please check this thread for more on that. I might pick it up again at a later time.

[Islacrusez]

Hmm, I think that if I would go down that route, all the corridors should have the same pattern, and personally I quite dig the pattern I've already made.

The way I see it, they already have a different pattern. The corners and junctions have 4 plain tiles, while the straight pieces have this funky grate. Since top and bottom floor are already cast as separate pieces, your combo possibilities would increase drastically if you provided various types of top grate, both open and otherwise, allowing people to pick and choose the type of floor they want across their building.

[Malika]

Ah, floor variants. Others have also mentioned I should have different walls available. I think that would be after I've finished with all the stuff I want in this style. So first I'm going for a playable table based on the interior of the Ecorium, later on I will develop different styles of walls, floor grids, underground tubings etc. All interchangeable with one another of course. Maybe even go for grid and bottom variants that allow players to enter the grid and fight underneath it. Lets see how that'll work first...

[Malika]

Ok, I just threw my old designs down the drain! Man...after reading Philip's feedback I got so annoyed. But ok, this is all part of the creation process, the first version isn't the final version, and it's very possible that the version I've made today will be tossed aside as well!

So yeah, Ecorium project 2.0! I had to ensure that all the parts become very easy to cast. At the same time I didn't want to discard the level of detail I've put into the previous model. I love the idea of modularity and fast/cheap production, but at the same time I want this piece to have a quality standard high enough that it's a good alternative to the Mortalis kit. Otherwise I could be buying some old Dwarven Forge terrain and be done with it...

But yeah, here we go: pictures!

[Malika]

Just tweaked the wall design slightly, thereby making future production even easier. Instead of two mirrored wall components, you now only need 1 type!

Here's the result!

[harec]

It is very nice Malika

[Malika]

Thanks a lot dude!

In the meantime I've built a room, just to show you what can be done with these bits:

[Malika]

As you can see, I've started working on the detailing underneath the grid:


I can't help but think of those scifi/cyberpunk movies of the 90s when they "jump into the internet" when seeing this, or the Tipharen bio-chips from Battle Angel Alita.

[Stormwind]

Oh very nice!

[Islacrusez]

Some nice detailing there, kinda makes me want to do something like this too. I echo that it's much better to be able to interchange tiles completely at will, and I'm curious to see what more you'll come up with. I've given some thought to the connectors... I'm just wondering if a dovetail-type joint might not be a better option? that way your tiles won't come apart every time someone knocks the scenery. Just wondering how it'd assemble complex arrangements with the walls etc...

[Malika]

Dude, that's an amazing idea! Dovetail-styled connectors would be a small modification, super easy to do and the model wouldn't fall over when knocking them.

In the meantime I've been running into a problem whilst trying to print this model. When I try to check/repair the model for holes and such, it fully closes the grill. The only way I can keep the bottom a single piece print would be to make the grill go all the way to the bottom.

If I want the grill not to go all the way down, I'd need to make the kit a two part thing. That in itself shouldn't be a problem, I can either keep the detailed sub-grill thing, or go for a way of going without all that detail underneath.

I'm preffering the latter option as a standard, since it would enable me to print the component in two pieces, then put them together and cast them as a single piece. But then I need to see which way I'll go: separate grill, or separate bottom... Either way should be fine, since I'll be glueing them together for the master...

[Islacrusez]

Actually yeah, it'd work seeing as your walls don't connect to each other. So if you design your dovetail connectors to slide vertically, any wall could slot into any tile, and any tile+wall combo would simply slot in without interfering with the other walls. A connection between the wall pieces would be useful to avoid damage to the connectors if the walls are knocked or during construction, but what form this would take I don't know. Perhaps a vertical connector sliding into notches on walls? But then the notches would likely cause issues in casting (especially if also dovetailed) and the connectors would be useless on corners. Probably not worth the hassle for the time being, I don't foresee it being too useful.

For the grate (just the grate), would photo-etch or laser-cut not be a better option for it? Remember that it will not cast in one piece without the grate going all the way down (not liking that option myself) even if you can get it to print. 2 pieces all the way. Plus it'll mean one can mix and match grates if desired, and have them missing or damaged, to provide difficult terrain / environmental hazards...