Thingiverse, Shapeways & the Like -- Links to Favorites

[jennifer]

I'll start with this one from RichterScaleStudios on Thingiverse:  Arched Window Insert for 1/2" foam
www.thingiverse.com/thing:1320927



The gentleman was kind enough to upload it to Thingiverse after I asked him if there was any way I could get it (after I watched his amazing video).   Check out this video and his channel -- he makes some magical stuff!

[Meph]

Sweet. Going to have to print some of them up and make a nice cathedral or something.  I will start with one of the obvious that Curufin turned me on to and that is this link for lots of D&D Minis.  Miquel Zavala has tons of D&D Minis.  It's the best place to find them right now.  Next is the Openforge collection on Thingiverse which is an open source version of Dwarven Forge.  They are really nice tiles with a huge variety.  Last is the Dragonlock collection of dungeon tiles.  These are also really nice and have clips to attach them together.  They are a commercial product but when you see what you get for $20 I think it's well worth it.

• Miguel Zavala Miniatures www.shapeways.com/designer/mz4250
• Open Forge Dungeon Tiles www.thingiverse.com/search?q=openforge&sa=
• DragonLock Dungeon Tiles www.fatdragongames.com/fdgfiles/3d-printer-models
  
• DragonLock Lizardmen www.rpgnow.com/product/173704/DRAGONLOCK-MINIATURES-Lizardfolk-Set-1

[/ul]
I have printed a handful of Openforge tiles and I like the quality.  I am going to print a handful of the Dragonlock tiles this morning and compare them.  Honestly, since I am buying the Dragonlock collection I will probably just utilize a mix of both in my games but it's nice to have such a wide variety of tiles to choose from.

You can see below a few Openforge tiles I printed.  The standard tile is 2"x2".  Dragonlock and Dwarven Forge are also 2"x2" tiles.  Openforge also gives you a set of walled tiles that are 2.375" on the walled size or even 2.75" on a hallway tile with double walls.  That allows for you to still maintain 1" grids inside the walls.  The wall tile I printed below is like that.

While print settings will vary between brand of printer and the specific type of filament being used, here are our print settings on a Printrbot Play with Hatchbox 1.75mm silver PLA:



100 micron



190 Temp



25mm/sec speed



.8mm wall thickness with a .4mm nozzle (i.e. 2 shells)



6 top/bottom layers



10-15% infill



No rafts or supports

[tauster]

I don't have a printer (yet...), but thats one of the things I love about 3D-printing: You can print the complicated or the itsy bitsy tiny details, insert them in your overall project and both save tons of time AND reach a level of detail that with simple crafting alone wouldn't be possible.

[Meph]

Oh and one thing I forgot. For those "Edge Tiles" (that's what they call the tiles with the full grids) there are edge buffers so all your tiles will line up.

www.thingiverse.com/thing:204659

[jennifer]

Meph those extra wide tiles and edge buffers are pretty clever! I really like both sets of these tiles. Since the openforge won't have the locking clips that the dragonlock have, how do you keep the tiles from moving around? WHen you print them how much infill do you use? How heavy is each piece and how much does the average piece (with wall) cost to print?

[Meph]

I am printing a Dragonlock corner tile right now. I have already printed a Dragonlock 2x2 tile and will be printing some clips next. Once it's finished I will have a little comparison of Openforge vs Dragonlock.

[wilmanric]

Feb 6, 2016 12:44:29 GMT Meph said:

Oh and one thing I forgot. For those "Edge Tiles" (that's what they call the tiles with the full grids) there are edge buffers so all your tiles will line up.

www.thingiverse.com/thing:204659

These are cool.  Nice idea. 

[Meph]

While I am still printing I ran some numbers for you. The times aren't exact because I haven't been writing them down. I may be wrong but the Dragonlock tiles have seemed to take a bit longer to print. Right now 1kg of white PLA is $22.98 on amazon. That is $.02298 per G. All the costs below I rounded to the nearest cent. I am not going to try and calculate energy and paint costs, just cost of PLA to print.

Dragonlock Corner - 35.51G, estimated time is 2h 36m. Cost of material to print is 82 Cents.
Dragonlock 2x2 Tile - 14.22G, estimated time is 57m. Cost of material to print is 33 Cents.

Openforge Edge Corner (Remember is 2.375"x2") - 35.14G, estimated time is 2h 16m. Cost of material to print is 81 Cents.
Openforge 2X2 Tile - 14.47G, estimated time is 50m. Cost of material to print is 33 Cents.

Cost is about the same while Dragonlock tiles take a little longer to print. I will go into the quality and my thoughts when this Dragonlock corner tile finished soon.

[jennifer]

Feb 6, 2016 18:31:26 GMT Meph said:

While I am still printing I ran some numbers for you. The times aren't exact because I haven't been writing them down. I may be wrong but the Dragonlock tiles have seemed to take a bit longer to print. Right now 1kg of white PLA is $22.98 on amazon. That is $.02298 per G. All the costs below I rounded to the nearest cent. I am not going to try and calculate energy and paint costs, just cost of PLA to print.

Dragonlock Corner - 35.51G, estimated time is 2h 36m. Cost of material to print is 82 Cents.
Dragonlock 2x2 Tile - 14.22G, estimated time is 57m. Cost of material to print is 33 Cents.

Openforge Edge Corner (Remember is 2.375"x2") - 35.14G, estimated time is 2h 16m. Cost of material to print is 81 Cents.
Openforge 2X2 Tile - 14.47G, estimated time is 50m. Cost of material to print is 33 Cents.

Cost is about the same while Dragonlock tiles take a little longer to print. I will go into the quality and my thoughts when this Dragonlock corner tile finished soon.

You know I was just thinking, the designer of the openforge probably deiberately made the surfaces of those tiles that uneven because the designer probably expects you till fill it with something... e.g. snow, sand, dirt etc.  Now it makes sense.   I bet they would look really great filled in a bit.  What do you think?

By the way I see that you bought some black plastic .. good idea   I am gonna order a spool of black pretty quickly I think.

[Meph]

No I didn't order black. I just sprayed it with some Krylon plastic paint I had here. I am thinking about ordering black but I ran into a post earlier where some people stated that white PLA seemed to print best. No idea if there is any truth to that but I am going to look into it before I order.

Even with the black PLA you will still want to prime them before painting so I dont know if you are really saving. Easy to prime white with black...harder to prime black with white.

[jennifer]

Are the bottoms of those openforge hallowed out like the dragon lock? If so, you could glue in some construction sand to give them a nice weight.

[Meph]

Ok my tests are done and I can say without a doubt, Openforge are my choice for my table. First things first, I did some reading on the Dragonlock forums this morning and it seemed like a lot of people had trouble printing. Build quality was low and lots of people had problems with the clips.

All my printing was done with default settings.

First is the floor tiles. I know when Jennifer saw this tile the other day she got the impression that it's not flat. This picture is deceiving imo because while it does have raised texture areas, they are so small that they have no effect on the use of the tile. I think these floor tiles look pretty good and will paint up nicely.



Here is the Dragonlock tile with default settings. I am guessing that changing the settings some will get you better quality but it will also increase the print time and material cost. Personally I think this tile is just pathetic for a commercial product.



Next up is the corner tiles. I chose to print the "Edge wall" series of Openforge because it is 2.375"x2" and gave me full 1" squares on the tile. With the Dragonlock there is no option so I printed what they offer which is 2"x 2". They designed their tiles to be compatable with Dwarven Forge which use the same size tiles.



I do think that the brick work on the Dragonlock tiles is a little better because they are more pronounced. What I don't like is the wall thickness. The Dragonlock tiles have huge walls.



Next is the build quality. Personally the Openforge tiles just feel much better to me. They have more heft to them. The Dragonforge tiles they skipped the bottom so you could use the clip system and they just feel flimsy to me. I think both are probably pretty durable, the Openforge just "feels" better to me.





As you can see below miniatures will sit on either tile just fine. Of course there is an obvious difference in usability of the tiles due to the thicker wall and smaller floor space. Once again, I prefer the Openforge tiles.







Lastly is the clip system which seems to be the big attraction to most people, me included. There is lots of discussion on the forums about these clips not printing right and not fitting right. The include the standard clip and then a +1 and -1 click for size adjustments if needed. The standard file is a single clip which is ridiculous that they don't include a file that can print 10 at a time or so. My clip appeared to print just fine but I had one big problem and that was getting the raft off it. Because of how small it was I was not able to get the raft off the piece. I really didn't want to slice my hand open. I suppose I could sand it off but really that's a lot of work for a convenience item.







The clip did work and held the 2 pieces together just fine. I don't know if once the raft is off if it will become too flexible and not hold right. Some people have reported that issue but as it is, mine fit snug and held it well. The one major problem I found is that right now with the raft attached, the tile can't sit flat on the table.



So there it is. For me the increased wall size and smaller tile size is enough to easily outweigh the benefit of the clip system. I think the quality of the Dragonlock tiles is low and the selection of tiles is really low. With Openforge you have the ability to print standard sized tiles like Dwarven Forge and Dragonlock, or you can print the "Edge" tiles that are larger and the walls don't sit on top of the floor tile. You also have the ability with Openforge to pick from many collections of tiles such as Dungeon, Smooth, Crenelated, Sewer, Ruined, and Tudor Wall tiles. You can also print Diagonal and Curved corner tiles which Dragonlock currently doesn't offer.

I am pretty disappointed with the Dragonlock offering. I am glad I only bought the initial pack and doubt I will find a reason to buy the expansion or future expansions. I originally thought even if I didn't use them I could print the secret walls tile but since their wall sizes are so large, they wont match up to the Openforge.

One last thing I need to touch on is print times. I said in my previous post that I wasn't keeping track of times. I can say that my Openforge tiles have been pretty close to estimated times but the Dragonlock Corner tile really made me pay attention. On the forums I saw people posting as recently as January that it was taking them 3+ hours to print their tiles. I assumed it had to do with their printers. The Dragonlock corner tile took me 3 hours 16 minutes to print. That is 45 minutes longer than estimated and given the final quality, that is really disappointing.

I hope this helps you guys that are also getting started on this like me. By all means do your own tests if you think Dragonlock will work for you. For me I am not going to spend more money on it since I feel that the Openforge tiles are superior.

As for the lack of clips, I have an idea that I am going to explore. This wont work for everyone but it will fit my needs I think. I will most likely use adhesive magnetic sheets on the bottoms of my tiles and then design my table to accommodate them.

www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Sheets-Adhesive-mil-Magnet/dp/B003XNAHMC/ref=pd_sim_229_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=11LFUdoaLfL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0F05XR6DFPTYHGSNVB01

$13.65 shipped. With 10 sheets in there that is enough to put on 200 2x2 tiles. Since the bottoms are flat then hopefully the adhesive on those sheets will be enough to hold them on there. I am still looking at other ideas but I am not going to let the lack of clips make me go with what I consider to be an inferior product.

I hope this helps you guys that are just starting out printing like me. By all means do your own test but it didn't take me long to see which was the better route to go for the long run. 3D printing takes a lot of time so I don't want to waste it changing tiles down the road.

[Meph]

Another link worth noting is Printable Scenery. While it's another commercial site they offer a bunch of product that I haven't found elsewhere yet. The one I am most excited to try out is their cavern tiles collection. These are really affordable since $9.95 gets you the full set of 34 tiles! In another week or so when I am on vacation I might pick them up and print out some pieces. I will report back on the quality.

www.printablescenery.com/home/143-dungeon-tiles.html

[curufin]

Meph, this is an excellent review. Im sorry you didn't have more luck with the DragonLock tiles. I printed off the remixed clippable OpenForge foor tiles. The clips didn't fit (too wide and not long enough). I think there is a reason when only one single tile got remixed...it just didn't work right. I was thinking that 2" wide making tape might be another option to link prebuilt rooms. Run a couple strips along the bottom, covering the seams.

[Meph]

Feb 7, 2016 13:41:19 GMT curufin said:

Meph, this is an excellent review. Im sorry you didn't have more luck with the DragonLock tiles. I printed off the remixed clippable OpenForge foor tiles. The clips didn't fit (too wide and not long enough). I think there is a reason when only one single tile got remixed...it just didn't work right. I was thinking that 2" wide making tape might be another option to link prebuilt rooms. Run a couple strips along the bottom, covering the seams.

Thanks.  I think I will come up with some kind of solution that works out.  Worst case I set them up off table on chipboard or something and just transfer them to the table as they explore.  I am not going to let that one aspect get me to print tiles that I think are inferior.  I am pretty damn happy with how the openforge ones are coming out.  I am now experimenting with printing 2-4 of them at a time.  4 will be the sweet spot I think, then I can leave it printing overnight.



I did end up taking a razor and carefully shaving the clip on the dragonlock tile.  Once it was shaved down properly it fit perfect and sat flat.  If the tiles were a little bigger, the quality a little better, and the damn print time lower then I would consider it.  Too many negatives for me though.

By tonight I should have a large room finished and will get some pics.  It will definitely be a slow process.  I am going to pickup some spools of PLA and when I am on vacation just setup print runs of 4 and walk away.  I haven't decided if I should wait until I have a full set printed before painting or just do as I go.  As long as I am using colors straight from the bottle, no mixing, then it should stay consistent across the collection.

[tauster]

Sorry for the hijack and shameless self-promotion:

I'm selling my two sets of Dwarven Forge Master Maze caverns at bargain prices. Maybe not the kind of thing that you 3D printing enthusiasts are into at the moment, but who knows? *hint* casting tiles *hint*

[DnDPaladin]

i wonder how can you love such high walls ? my players already need to stand up to see my tiles and they have like half an inch high. imagine them trying to see the game wihout coming on my side of the table. like literally climbing straight above it to see anything.

on a side note, those looks ridiculously awesome though !

[Meph]

Feb 7, 2016 18:49:57 GMT DnDPaladin said:

i wonder how can you love such high walls ? my players already need to stand up to see my tiles and they have like half an inch high. imagine them trying to see the game wihout coming on my side of the table. like literally climbing straight above it to see anything.

on a side note, those looks ridiculously awesome though !

I used to think the same until I printed a couple.  Originally I was going to look at cutting the walls in half but now I kinda like them.  They just look so cool =)

[Meph]

I printed my first door today. The model for the Dungeon Edge Door only has models for either no door, or the fixed permanent door. I printed the Edge door and then printed the 2 door sides from the normal Dungeon door model. I didn't think to use supports so my door arch came out crappy. I am lucky it printed the arch at all. Next time I will use supports.

For the door there is a channel on the inside for a "hinge". I straightened a paper clip, glued the door together making sure not to fill the channel, then fed the paperclip through the hole in the wall, the door, and the floor. Then I put a dab of glue in the hole on the top so the clip cant come out.

[tauster]

Feb 7, 2016 18:49:57 GMT DnDPaladin said:

i wonder how can you love such high walls ? my players already need to stand up to see my tiles and they have like half an inch high. imagine them trying to see the game wihout coming on my side of the table. like literally climbing straight above it to see anything.

on a side note, those looks ridiculously awesome though !

I agree, walls that are high enough to make it hard to see all the minis are ...only second best.

But here's something cool you can do with terrain that blocks the line of sight of your players, not only their characters:

TLDR: Use large terrain pieces to hide enemy minis so your players don't see you placing them.

Last year we played several combat room sessions with large terrain pieces on the table, like this one. Normally, all players around the table see when the DM positions enemies on the battlefield, and even if their characters won't be able to see them yet, the players themselves already know. Most are grown-up enough to suspend their disbelief, but it still takes some fun out of the game.

However if you have large terrain pieces and use a little sleight of hand, you can put some enemy minis behind large terrain without the players noticing. I could surprise my players several times in a row when I suddenly revealed a mini that they hadn't seen me placing (and that sniped at their characters), to the point that the feeling you have when you don't know where your foe is was much more real than in a usual session. We all agreed that this was much better than before. Ever played paintball and sneaked through the game course with adrenaline pumping through you? It wasn't that intense for us (all in my group know how that feels), not even close, but suspense reminded us a bit on that.