So without any searching on the web for whether or not it could be done, I decided to embark on a little test mission to see if it was possible to take a figure modeled in something like Poser and turn it into something that could be 3D printed. The rationale behind this was that I could export the Poser figures to Wavefront OBJ files, and Repetier can open OBJ files…. so yeah, it should work right?
Kinda…. there’s some issues…
The first issue I ran into was hair. Similar to the hair Flexi Hair in SecondLife the much of the Poser hair I have is made up of rectangular pieces that are curved and then turned into something akin to hair by image maps with transparencies that give the illusion of realistic hair. So scrapped the hair and just decided to work with a bald woman. And it worked. Took a while to print and at one point it was funny because I phoned my wife from work and asked how the print was going and she said “We have a crotch”.
The other problem I ran into, was more or less expected, support material and cleaning the print up. Since I hadn’t checked the leveling on the bed the printed models were eh at best. Sure they can be cleaned up and finished but I am keeping them to the side for now as fidget projects while waiting for stuff to print, etc.. The whole thing was more of a trial and error run and now that I have them printed I can say it works.
The detail in them is quite remarkable and I’ll get some pics of the printed ones here soon once I get them cleaned up some more. My thoughts for hair were to salvage some from abandoned Barbie dolls and see if I could make little wigs for them. Alternatively, I could sculpt hair on them but then they’re more or less limited to one hair style.
The end result could be models I would be able to cast in resin and sell as kits.
Here’s the 3 reasonably successful prints I’ve made so far that just need some cleanup and detailing to finish them.
The first image above is actually the last model I made. In order to reduce print time and the amount of support material needed she was broken into 3 pieces which resulted in no support material needed for the legs or torso, just the arms and head and print time was really shortened.
The first image above is actually the last model I made. In order to reduce print time and the amount of support material needed she was broken into 3 pieces which resulted in no support material needed for the legs or torso, just the arms and head and print time was really shortened.
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