 April 20, 2010 - 8:19pm | Posted a link to this company on the miniatures project as well. www.shapeways.com have their own online 3D design tool that allows you to design any object, they then can create that object in metal, plastic or other material. Some people have designed and had created their own spaceships by using this. I wondered if it would be useful for people wanting to redesign the SF miniatures for production. I'm not very good at that sort of thing, but I'd buy some models if someone designed them. |
 April 21, 2010 - 10:24am | Wow this is cool! Great to see this kind of option out there. |
 April 21, 2010 - 2:30pm | This has the potential to make authentic ships from the Sathar wars ,etc - just make the model in a compatible 3D format. I'm going to have a good look at this! |
 April 21, 2010 - 2:44pm | And for $3,000.00 or more, you too can have a 3D printer. They are not cheap systems but they are fun to play with. |
 April 21, 2010 - 7:12pm | what would be killer is a model of the sathar fighters- there is some art out there but TSR never made them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 21, 2010 - 9:05pm | The TSR game Buck Rogers board game made some minis that look suspiciously like the Sathar fighter. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
 April 22, 2010 - 9:41am | There are several guys already doing miniatures inspired by other fleet games on Shapeways. I have seen Star Trek-ish, BSG-ish, and Gothic Space Fleets on there. I am not sure how open they are to suggestions, but it might just take the right words from a few interested parties to make it happen. If new ships were made, I'd prefer that they be scaled down a bit from the originals. The original ships were just too massive to be practical for play. The Sathar battleship sits on two 1" bases and still overhangs those by a good measure. -Eli |
April 22, 2010 - 9:07pm | I'd love to see a sprue of say 6 sathar fighters but you're right about the worm battle wagon being too big. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 22, 2010 - 11:46pm | It's pretty obvious this group has some capable 3D artists. It wouldn't be a lot of trouble to take those models and post them on Shapeways and allow folks to order what they want. Per model cost ends up being a bit higher, but you don't have to spend time hoping, praying, begging and taking your chances that some company will catch the bug or that you can find enough interested people to get a company to make a set that ends up just wetting the appetite. -Eli |
 April 23, 2010 - 7:08pm | I have looked over the shapeways site and it is very impressive. However there are some limitations involving the software I (and several others use). The software the recommend is colada or 3ds max, i have neither. The format i use is obj. aka wavefront obj which is supported by daz studio, 3ds max, poser and several other software packages. I would have to download (or purchase) a converter software to covert my format to colada or 3ds. They suggest that you either purchase or use the free trial version of meshlab. Well folks I just dont have the money to invest in software right now so it will have to wait for later. |
April 24, 2010 - 2:13am | I have looked over the shapeways site and it is very impressive. However there are some limitations involving the software I (and several others use). The software the recommend is colada or 3ds max, i have neither. The format i use is obj. aka wavefront obj which is supported by daz studio, 3ds max, poser and several other software packages. I would have to download (or purchase) a converter software to covert my format to colada or 3ds. They suggest that you either purchase or use the free trial version of meshlab. Well folks I just dont have the money to invest in software right now so it will have to wait for later. Have a look at Wings3D - a simplistic 3D program which will import obj and allows you to save in 3ds - and its free |
April 24, 2010 - 8:05am | I am familiar with wings3d but havent done anything with it because it doesnt have a lot of supporting software, plugins, etc. |
April 24, 2010 - 10:34am | Agreed - there's not a lot of support for it, but for a obj - 3ds convertor you can't go wrong! There's also Blender, I've just started looking at this, vastly better supported and better to boot; does this have options? |
April 24, 2010 - 5:26pm | Most likely i will investigate the direction of meshlabs free trial to convert my models to the appropriate format. I'm not sure when i will have the time to work on this but I will think about it later. It would be easier and less time consuming then leraning an entirely new program interface and redo-ing my models in that format. One day I may be able to afford Maya or lightwave two programs which are game changers in the CGi industry It would be nice to know which one of my models people would like to see as a plastic mini. |
 April 24, 2010 - 7:20pm | It would be nice to know which one of my models people would like to see as a plastic mini. You'll need a gallery and then could run a poll. I would order. :-) |
April 25, 2010 - 2:16pm | Well, you seem to know what you are talking about. I'm not savy in the various 3D programs, just know that the 3d printing concept seems to be gaining speed and would be a great way to offer both replacement and new designs for SF. |
April 25, 2010 - 7:03pm | I think you'd need to play with the scale a bit - the assault scouts would be fine as they are, frigates probably would as well, but after that, you'd need to make them a bit smaller than they should be. Wouldn't be too much of a problem, ranges such as GZG's starship range do the same, their capital ships are a lot smaller than they should be if the scale was consistently applied. What might be helpful would be to establish some parameters - like absolute smallest size of ship (fighters, shuttles) and absolute largest size of ship. Once you've got the minimum and maximum sizes worked out, it should be fairly easy to draw up a chart relating hull size to scale size. I think, lol! |
April 26, 2010 - 9:12am | I'm not sure that GZG fudges the scale on their ships all that much with the exception of fighters. They just have different ideas of the relative sizes between classes in their setting. Ideally, I'd like everything to be able fit on one base. Overlap is okay as long as it's not crazy. I was looking at one store on Shapeways where the guy had done starship modules and among his pieces were parts suitable for Sathar bridges and engine pods. This would seem to, at the least, demonstrate that it could be done. A friend of mine and I had even discussed ways to cut the overall cost down on Sathar ships by making only the main hull sections and the engines cast pieces. These would then be designed to be connected using commonly available plast or metal rods and tubes. Not as cool as having a whole spaceship model, but when you are looking at cutting cost, it would be an alternative. -Eli |
 April 26, 2010 - 10:35am | Looking at their pricing model, the cost is a fixed setup fee plus volume of material used. I'm not sure if the setup fee is per item (most likely) or per run. Since it is a fixed fee, and the volume of material is going to be the same whether you build it in parts of as a single item, it seems to me that building it in parts would acutally be more expensive since you may have to pay multiple setup fees while the volume cost would be the same. Maybe I missed something but that was my impression. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
April 26, 2010 - 12:02pm | It all depends on how you do it. In the examples I saw, heh ad made items as sprues containing multiples of a particular part. So, the per item charge is about the same but now you are getting (example only) 3x bridge, 6 x engines, etc.. This works with a certain business model and might be fun even as an aside to whole ships, allowing people the ability to kitbash their own. |
April 26, 2010 - 1:49pm | I think the posts about doing sprues of components is a good way to go, If you did a sprue of standard engines, a sprue of cargo containers, a sprue of say 2-3 different hull pods and some components to attach them to a central spindle of plastic rod, you'd have a range of different modular freighters almost immediately. I was thinking about a sprue of UPF and sathar fighters (say 6) a sprue of assault scouts (say 3), and the other ships having a single hull piece, but adding engines from an engine sprue. For the UPF vessels, I think there are only 2-3 different designs of engines, which might make things easier. It might also mean that designing new ships might be a lot easier with some standard components already done. I was just measuring some of my SF ships, the assault scouts are 2cm long, frigates are 5.5cm, Battleships are 12cm long. The so-called destroyer is 9.5cm long, but it must be a light cruiser. I think, if you make the largest ships, at hs 20, about 8-10cm maximum, it might work. the frigate should come down to around 4cm easily, destroyers at about 5cm, light cruisers around 7-8cm, battleships around 8-10cm. |
