Question 3D Printing VAM objects

[Bob Nothing]

Hi, is there a way to convert a scene or a person atom to an STL file for 3D printing?

 

[TToby]

Hi, I have allready tried this some time ago.
Unfortunately with bad to mediocre results:
- You can't export and print the dynamical generated VaM hair! You need to replace it in DAZ or Blender.
- PLACEHOLDER (I need to check out if the VaM OBJ exporter really does not export clothes. I don't think so, but can't remember.)
- The DAZ3d Genesis 2 figure, which VaM is using, includes the (relatively high-poly) mouth-and eye-internals, which will screw-up your print.
- You need to edit the exported 3d mesh with a 3d tool or printing tool to erase internal structures and to close the gaps and holes in the surface. And maybe you want to fuse some details like fingers and toes.
- There is a plugin for DAZ3d to somewhat prepare DAZ figures for printing. To use this, you have to transfer your VaM-look (morphes) to DAZ like usual. No hair/clothes export on this way, too, but you can add VaM stuff instead. So this will end up more or less in DAZ to 3d printing - there are some tutorials.
- The figures are high detailed and a pain to print. I suggest to use a SLA printer or a FDM printer with fine print head and dual extruder to print water soluble supporting structures...
- Instead of this you will at least need clever posing, good tools and a lot of patience for post-processing.

You see, it's more or less possible, like with every 3d mesh, but IMHO not very enjoyable.

 

[Bob Nothing]

Hi, I have allready tried this some time ago.
Unfortunately with bad to mediocre results:
- You can't export and print the dynamical generated VaM hair! You need to replace it in DAZ or Blender.
- PLACEHOLDER (I need to check out if the VaM OBJ exporter really does not export clothes. I don't think so, but can't remember.)
- The DAZ3d Genesis 2 figure, which VaM is using, includes the (relatively high-poly) mouth-and eye-internals, which will screw-up your print.
- You need to edit the exported 3d mesh with a 3d tool or printing tool to erase internal structures and to close the gaps and holes in the surface. And maybe you want to fuse some details like fingers and toes.
- There is a plugin for DAZ3d to somewhat prepare DAZ figures for printing. To use this, you have to transfer your VaM-look (morphes) to DAZ like usual. No hair/clothes export on this way, too, but you can add VaM stuff instead. So this will end up more or less in DAZ to 3d printing - there are some tutorials.
- The figures are high detailed and a pain to print. I suggest to use a SLA printer or a FDM printer with fine print head and dual extruder to print water soluble supporting structures...
- Instead of this you will at least need clever posing, good tools and a lot of patience for post-processing.

You see, it's more or less possible, like with every 3d mesh, but IMHO not very enjoyable.

Thank you very much for the information and getting me started/pointed in the right direction. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[HolySchmidt]

If there's an endboss in VaM, it's TToby
I think he made a 100% play trough. With all achievements.

 

[Bob Nothing]

If there's an endboss in VaM, it's TToby
I think he made a 100% play trough. With all achievements.

Nice

 

[Bob Nothing]

Hi, I have allready tried this some time ago.
Unfortunately with bad to mediocre results:
- You can't export and print the dynamical generated VaM hair! You need to replace it in DAZ or Blender.
- PLACEHOLDER (I need to check out if the VaM OBJ exporter really does not export clothes. I don't think so, but can't remember.)
- The DAZ3d Genesis 2 figure, which VaM is using, includes the (relatively high-poly) mouth-and eye-internals, which will screw-up your print.
- You need to edit the exported 3d mesh with a 3d tool or printing tool to erase internal structures and to close the gaps and holes in the surface. And maybe you want to fuse some details like fingers and toes.
- There is a plugin for DAZ3d to somewhat prepare DAZ figures for printing. To use this, you have to transfer your VaM-look (morphes) to DAZ like usual. No hair/clothes export on this way, too, but you can add VaM stuff instead. So this will end up more or less in DAZ to 3d printing - there are some tutorials.
- The figures are high detailed and a pain to print. I suggest to use a SLA printer or a FDM printer with fine print head and dual extruder to print water soluble supporting structures...
- Instead of this you will at least need clever posing, good tools and a lot of patience for post-processing.

You see, it's more or less possible, like with every 3d mesh, but IMHO not very enjoyable.

So, I did my first print using the extrusion printer (my resin printer doesn't arrive until tomorrow.) I actually just took the exported obj direct from VAM to my 3D printing software and printed it. It actually came out amazing, especially considering it was extrusion based. That said, of course, hair didn't print with it so it doesn't look quite right, but for a first print I am very impressed. If it's that good with extrusion, 4k resin is going to look amazing. My wife even loved it, but she doesn't love herself bald So, any way I can get hair on there? I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'but you can add VaM stuff instead' inside of Daz3d? How do you do that? Such as hair/clothes, etc?

 

[TToby]

So, I did my first print using the extrusion printer (my resin printer doesn't arrive until tomorrow.) I actually just took the exported obj direct from VAM to my 3D printing software and printed it. It actually came out amazing, especially considering it was extrusion based. That said, of course, hair didn't print with it so it doesn't look quite right, but for a first print I am very impressed. If it's that good with extrusion, 4k resin is going to look amazing. My wife even loved it, but she doesn't love herself bald So, any way I can get hair on there? I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'but you can add VaM stuff instead' inside of Daz3d? How do you do that? Such as hair/clothes, etc?

Hi, glad to hear that you are somewhat happy with the results.
I confess it was amazing for me, too, to see a VaM look become real on my printer.
Beautiful arms, hands, legs, body... but for me the real trouble starts with the head, hair and clothes.
-For instance, in VaM/DAZ the eyes comes in separate meshes: two layers of eyeball, retina, tearline, lacrimal, 4 eyelashes per eye... 10 separate pieces per eye (I even may have forgot some) plus eyelids. The mouth with tongue, lips and teeth is a similar issue. This printed out very poor for me. I had to remove them and to close the holes before starting the print.
-The clothes are very thin layers, with hollow space beneath them. This was unprintable. I had to edit the mesh extremely, to close gaps and fuse layers.
-The DAZ hair comes in multiple thin layers with alpha-maps to simulate single hair strands. I ended up using some very simple DAZ hair styles and/or manga-style hair meshes.
-Of cause, normal-map details will not be printable. There are some ways to bake normal-map details into a mesh, but at that point I already gave up. Not to say, a VaM look realy comes to life with a good 4k texture...

Saying this, I have sometimes used VaM figures for printing some body parts and artful decorations, by cutting and using parts of the mesh for my own creations. For things like this, it's great: quick posing a figure in VR, press the export button, cutting and editing the mesh and ready you are with an art-nouveau style element. I don't use this very often (for some strange reasons, my wife doesn't like me decorating things with naked girls) but I really like to have this option.

 

[TToby]

Almost forgot to answer your question:
Yes, you can transfer a look from VaM to DAZ3d as a merged full body morph. There are some threads about this (mainly to create custom morphs in DAZ).
In DAZ you can add DAZ hair, clothes, and poses, as usual.
There is a DAZ "3d printing" plugin around to remove eyes and mouth internals, and to prepare it a little bit for printing. Unfortunately this plugin doesn't help with clothes and hair layers.
For the hair, I would suggest to eighter add some simple manga-style hair (sometimes you find some in the web, plus you can try to use MMD hair or ripp hair from games), or 3d-modeling your own right to the figures head in Blender/ZBrush.

Happy new year.

 

[Jiraiya]

Oh my. I had not considered doing this. Now I want to try 3D printing VaM models!!!
Heh, I wonder if you could break one up into parts to make a ball joint doll, with the limbs/body/head customised from your model.
That would be kind of awesome. There needs to be a plugin for this

 

[Bob Nothing]

Almost forgot to answer your question:
Yes, you can transfer a look from VaM to DAZ3d as a merged full body morph. There are some threads about this (mainly to create custom morphs in DAZ).
In DAZ you can add DAZ hair, clothes, and poses, as usual.
There is a DAZ "3d printing" plugin around to remove eyes and mouth internals, and to prepare it a little bit for printing. Unfortunately this plugin doesn't help with clothes and hair layers.
For the hair, I would suggest to eighter add some simple manga-style hair (sometimes you find some in the web, plus you can try to use MMD hair or ripp hair from games), or 3d-modeling your own right to the figures head in Blender/ZBrush.

Happy new year.

Thank you very much for all this information. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[TToby]

Oh my. I had not considered doing this. Now I want to try 3D printing VaM models!!!
Heh, I wonder if you could break one up into parts to make a ball joint doll, with the limbs/body/head customised from your model.
That would be kind of awesome. There needs to be a plugin for this

Hehe, I allready had the same idea. Lol.
I more or less took a ball joint doll model from Thingiverse and replaced the parts aside from the ball joints with elements from VaM. For simple cutting and rejoining things for 3d printing I love to use TinkerCad, which is a very easy to use small free online tool.
Though, because of the very long printing times in highest quality, I lost my interest on half the way end ended up with only the limbs ready .
To my excuse, I have no such thing like a favorite VaM look that would be worth the hassle, because I am constantly creating and evolving new looks in VaM, with the texture as main element... and I am really not good at painting RL figures. Maybe someone else has more patience for this.

 

[TToby]

A quick picture to show, that I am not simply shit-talking. Only some of the many failed parts.

 

[Jiraiya]

That's actually really good!
What printer and settings are you using? That whole model in the middle looks really smooth. Lovely detail on the socks too. What's the scale here?

 

[TToby]

That's actually really good!
What printer and settings are you using? That whole model in the middle looks really smooth. Lovely detail on the socks too. What's the scale here?

For printing this, I have used my cheap (but somewhat good) "Ender 3" printer. Totally unmodified back then.
The figure in the middle is approx 11cm long. The height from knees to toes is approx 4cm.
This and the one feet are printed in the fines printing resolution of that printer (Layer higth 0,1mm with a 0,4mm nozzle). The other parts are in the worst resolution for speed.
To give you a rough idea: the figure in the middle had a printing time of AFAIK 7-8 hours!
In addition to this, I had to choose a pose that allowes minimal support structures (those are a pain to remove).
Explanation: you can't "print in the air". It has to go from bottom to top, layer by layer.
A support structure would make the surface rough (like on the ball joint at the lower right),
and you would need to remove it without breaking small details.
There are other methodes and printers, but those are (much) more expensive.

BTW: Don't let me fool you: the head of the figure, especially the DAZ hair, is totally destroyed. This stuff is from my trash bin.

 

[Bob Nothing]

So, I thought I'd give a quick update on my 3D printing from VAM. The silver is an extrusion printer using a non Daz3D model (straight from VAM.) The translucent green was done in a resin printer with a Daz3D modified model that added hair. (Not clothing as I didn't want to add too many variables into the mix.) The main issues I have with the resin print (other than break off a few fingers removing support structure) was that I printed it too small. I printed it small just to make sure I could get a good print, and I did print it solid (not hollowed out.) The plan is to use white resin plastic to print it out full build size (close to a foot tall) with a base on it and try to make it look like a statue. (Although I'm probably going to be stupid and get ambitious and add angel wings as well.) Long story short, turns out you really can print from VAM! Then I can sand it down after removing support structure and it will look like a statue.

 

[Bob Nothing]

As you can see, I have vastly improved the printing output. This is a character custom made in VAM, exported as a single morph to Dax3D, added hair/posed, then exported as an .obj from Daz3D, then 3D printed on a Anycubic Photon Mono X 6k in skin resin.

The back unfortunately doesn't look as well, but I just used auto-generated supports. The trick is to get better support structure. Ideally as minimal as possible. I'll have to look to different poses, etc.

 

[TToby]

Looks great! You have a very fine printer for those small parts! I have only a normal FDM printer and therefore I was not very excited about the outcome. This may add to the personal fact, that I still have not found the right use case for printing those VaM/DAZ figures. There is so much great stuff out there to print, but so little time…

For instance, I love the work of this artist on Thingiverse, but printed only one small part: https://www.thingiverse.com/color3djp/designs
Sorry, if this is too off topic.

 

[Jiraiya]

The answer to fine detail is to print bigger.
If you break it down into sections a 1:1 print is possible

 

[marcusmravik]

The answer to fine detail is to print bigger.
If you break it down into sections a 1:1 print is possible

1:1 print a positive, make a mold of it, then fill with silicone... profit. Or fuck. Either way. Maybe fuck then profit? Ew xD

 

[Jiraiya]

1:1 print a positive, make a mold of it, then fill with silicone... profit. Or fuck. Either way. Maybe fuck then profit? Ew xD

That's actually a really cool idea. You would need to do a lot of sanding on the finished model to make it smooth enough for a mold, but you would have complete freedom in design.

 

[marcusmravik]

That's actually a really cool idea. You would need to do a lot of sanding on the finished model to make it smooth enough for a mold, but you would have complete freedom in design.

Hell yeah! Maybe just coat it with epoxy? Or just some bondo lol

 

[Jiraiya]

If you print with ABS you can acetone smooth it. There are a few dedicated products for smoothing prints out now.
I can't imagine how much it would cost to 1:1 print, smooth and make a mold, then cast a doll!.

 

[janet67]

This is interesting, I would be interested in buying some of my vam models in silicone, or other materials, once someone perfects it. A real art piece.

 

[janet67]

I know nothing about 3d printing, so of course I looked at amazon. I saw a cheap one for about $300, however, after a little research it seems there are quite a few health issues involved with 3d Printing. To start with I do not have a well ventilated room. Pretty disappointing. I was surprised that gloves, goggles and all kinds of precautions are recommended to 3d print. I guess depending on what is being used. I still think I'll buy a good book to learn about it in case I ever get a garage or work shed. It sounds like you have to be almost a lab tech tinkering scientist/inventor to 3d print!

 

[Bob Nothing]

I know nothing about 3d printing, so of course I looked at amazon. I saw a cheap one for about $300, however, after a little research it seems there are quite a few health issues involved with 3d Printing. To start with I do not have a well ventilated room. Pretty disappointing. I was surprised that gloves, goggles and all kinds of precautions are recommended to 3d print. I guess depending on what is being used. I still think I'll buy a good book to learn about it in case I ever get a garage or work shed. It sounds like you have to be almost a lab tech tinkering scientist/inventor to 3d print!

The 'health issues' of which you speak are blown way out of proportion. Long story short, if you expose your skin to the resins a lot you might eventually get an allergic reaction. I am NOT saying you shouldn't be careful with it and you should open a window, etc, (I can already see the people freaking out on me for saying this) but you can safely 3D print without having a room designed around it.