3D Print Your Custom Game Character

From what i've seen of the Wow Figureprints, there is a bit of a quality disconnect still. Its been a few years though, maybe they can look legitimately decent now, instead of the washed out / gritty look those had.
 
Yep, they will need to either have licensing agreements with the game companies/publishers in question, OR they will have to give the fan's an easy way to request permission from said publisher to have this company print a 3d model of their character.

People think that they have some ownership of the digital creation in a game. Sad fact is.. We do not.
 
I think it would be absolutely amazing if we could submit drawings of our favorite pen and paper characters and get a model made. Since they are using screenshots at this point anyway, I asked the project lead if this would be possible. If anyone else is interested in this, it probably would not hurt to ask as well.
 
I would love to 3d print some of my ships in STO, complete with the MACO and Nukara deflector effects. :)
 
Dejavu. Didn't another company try to do this the other year or so and they were getting hammered by Nintendo or some such?
 
that video just seem horrible to me. 1/10 would not back...

I think figurines are cool and all, but do people really love their created characters that much?
 
This is already being done. I know, I've personally seen models taken right out of World of Warcraft and printed and hand painted by private owners with 3D printers. These are pretty common at Lan Parties here in Kansas City.

Also, some guys are using 3D printers to replace very expensive WarHammer figures tho admittedly, the quality in detail is lacking, but still.

What I find that's really cool is that I read where Lego is closely watching companies and end users with 3d printers. Already some guy has designed his own set of inter-locking blocks and has printed out a shit ton on an industrial 3d printer, There are a handful of stories out there about this guy.

All this company is doing is taking a middle man position, getting the proper licensing deals in place so they can sale / up-sale to joe consumer.

As soon as 3d Printers get faster, cheaper, bigger, I will purchase one.
 
that video just seem horrible to me. 1/10 would not back...

I think figurines are cool and all, but do people really love their created characters that much?

I would have way more connection to a personalized character that I have put hundreds of hours into than a generic figure or main character from a game.
 
that video just seem horrible to me. 1/10 would not back...

I think figurines are cool and all, but do people really love their created characters that much?

I haven't see the video. I'm at work and can't play it due to certain limitations.

However, yes, I do believe that people do have enough of an affinity with their character from certain games to want something like this. In my case, I have spent countless hours building up my ships in Star Trek Online and my characters in World of Warcraft to want to have miniatures of them. Having my Excelsior class ship with the full, shiny MACO set, an Avenger class with a full Nukara set, or my orc prot warrior in his almost patchwork, yet unique armor set would be nice to have to set on my desk, reminding me of the adventures and battles I've been through to get there. They're customized by the way I've played them and the equipment I've put on them, therefore they are unique. Nobody is going to make any mass produced figurine that would match them.

Other games, I don't particularly care about because they don't have real customization. Printing up a nintendo or bioware character that looks the same at beginning of the game as the end of the game really doesn't seem like a good thing to me. It's such a waste. They're all the same. It's better to get a figurine from the publisher for that kind of thing. It would probably come out looking better.
 
I think the better idea here would be to create software that interfaces with 3D Printers and game software to allow you to 3D print your own model and sell the software. Branching off of that, you could either sell it to consumers OR sell the technology to the game companies who could then charge consumers for its use. I think MMOs and F2P games would have the greatest benefit doing it that way.

Also, it would be nice to have a piece of software, if it doesnt already exist, that allows you to import multiple screenshots of something, outline the area of the item you want printed, and then the software is able to create a three dimensional model from it. For instance, you take screenshots of a character from the front, front left and right, left, right, rear, rear left and right, top and bottom, import them into the software with the software being told which angle each screenshot is at, then you draw an outline of the model (probably the most painstaking part) with the ability to specify additional parts not to include (holes in the model), and then the software is able to take all that data and spit out a 3D print. Once the render is complete, given a complex enough 3D printer, you can then specify what colors to use on the different parts or an option to use the textures in the image for coloring.
 
I would, but I doubt they have enough plastic thread in stock :cool:

On a somewhat serious side, an 18"er would realistically set you back 400 bucks or so. I remember seeing similar 3D Print shop services when I visited Germany actually...

So yeah, it makes for a damn expensive dildo.
 
Ehh, the small and medium figurines are unpainted so that would still require a lot of effort on the customer's part. Also, what do they mean by "from 2D game" in the rewards?
 
And they get sued out of existence for the first bit of game IP they 3d print.

Pretty much this.

Unless, of course, you just make characters that are written about in the fiction but not made as any tangible models. For example, you could do Tenser or Rary from old school D&D but not Elminster. Just make them, call them Tensor and Rory and then sell.

At least that's what I understand of the ridiculous ruling between Games Workshop and Chapter House. Someone's always got to ruin the fun for everyone else.:rolleyes:
 
They actually already do this with WoW, I can't see it working out without publisher involvement.
 
Ehh, the small and medium figurines are unpainted so that would still require a lot of effort on the customer's part. Also, what do they mean by "from 2D game" in the rewards?

I would assume it's from the likes of Ragnarok Online and such

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBuPMfG5y4

Altho thinking about it, 2D sprites can actually be more intricate than 3D, so i do wonder what game they're thinking of.
 
And they get sued out of existence for the first bit of game IP they 3d print.

I'm no legal expert so I may be wrong, but perhaps the difference here is that they are offering a printing service rather than a product. It's like a person taking a picture of their favorite character and going to a printing service to print a poster size of it. They are not creating a poster and selling them to me, they are just providing me a printing service.

Of course if I start creating many posters and selling them, then the IP owner might have a problem with that, but that would be my doing and not the printing company's problem.

As long as they don't mass print the characters and sell them, I don't think they would be in legal trouble. From what I understand, they are merely offering a service.
 
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