Blender. How to add detail for 3d printing without trying very hard 

So pleased it was helpful.

Thank you for leaving feedback, it really makes a difference and I am very pleased this video was useful for you.

Thank you for the feedback. There's so much Blender can do and I am glad this was helpful for you.

Thank you. That's very kind.

Glad it was helpful and thanks for the feedback.

Really pleased it was helpful and thanks for the feedback!

I'm so glad! Thank you for letting me know :)

Thank you for the feedback. I am glad it was useful for you. This method is particularly useful if you plan to 3d print the result because it gives you real geometry rather than something that can only works when rendered.

Glad to hear it helps and thanks for the comment.

Great! Thanks for the feedback.

I am very pleased this was helpful for you. Thanks for leaving the feedback.

Thank you for letting me know. I am pleased you found it helpful

@@notverygoodguy 😊

Very pleased to hear it was useful!!

Great to hear! Thanks for the feedback.

Very pleased to hear it is useful and thanks for the feedback.

And thank you for the feedback.

Glad to help and thanks for leaving the feedback!

Thank you so much for taking the time to give your feedback on this. It is much appreciated and I am very pleased this video was so helpful for you.

Glad you like it :)

@@notverygoodguy Yes I did, and it was really helpful!

Thank you very much for your feedback. I am glad if it was helpful.

Good to hear! Thanks for the feedback.

Great to hear! Thanks for letting me know.

Thank you! Glad it was useful

That's great to hear. Thanks for letting me know.

Great to hear and thank you so much for the feedback.

Thanks for the feedback. I am very pleased you found it useful.

@@notverygoodguy It's simple, helpful, and straight to the point, thanks again.

I am very glad to hear that this was so useful for you and thank you for your feedback!

Thanks for the feedback. It's always nice to know if the video was helpful.

Thank you. Appreciated.

Thanks for the feedback!

It's a pleasure, thank you for your comment.

Glad it worked for you and thanks for the feedback.

Thank you :)

I am very glad this was useful for you and thanks for the feedback. Without knowing exactly what the sub surf is doing to your models it is worth pointing out that it is specifically designed to break low poly models :) If you are only trying to add more geometry without changing the shape the selecting "Simple" in the sub serf modifier option will give you that.

Add more loop cuts. Mainly to the edges. Also I think the sub surf mod hates triangles so try not to have too many triangular faces.

You might try the Remesh modifier as well. It does something similar but in a different way.

Select simple instead, it keeps the geometry of low poly.

You all are talking a language I don't yet understand 😂

Well that's quite a compliment :) Thank you.

Obrigada!

Thank you!

Thank you very much. I hope to have some more interesting stuff soon.

@@notverygoodguy I am scanning car trims and 3D printing, thinking of applying a leather texture to print after modeling the scans. This tutorial will be helpful in reaching that goal.

@@jaimevaldez3058 Perhaps you could pop into the "Blender for 3d printing" Facebook group and post pictures of the results. I would be interested to see them!

I think I could do a better impression of him if I put my mind to it. Maybe the next one.

Thank you

This is a great idea! Thanks

Thanks for the feedback!

Glad this was useful for you. The original model is just hard surface modelled within Blender. Just a re-sized cube with some some added edge loops and some of the resulting edges moved around a bit. There are some supporting edge loops on the edges to ensure the sub division surface modifier doesn't turn it into a ball :)

You are very kind :) I am very slow but am planning the next video soon.

Very pleased if this was useful for you!

Thanks!

Not for 3d printing. The shade smooth option makes your model look smooth on the screen and in any renders you do but it does not smooth the model itself. So, if you export your model and print it it will look like you have the "shade flat" option set anyway. So, for 3d printing always have shade flat and not shade smooth.

You are right, it doesn't show up does it. Press Tab to toggle between edit and object mode but make sure your mouse is on the main viewport window (the one that your model is displayed in) when you do. Alternatively you can select the drop down box top left of screen just under the "Edit" and "Render" menu items that probably says "Object mode" at the moment and select edit mode from there.

No I don't do any UV work but I imagine if you unwrapped your model and applied the texture you could then use a displacement to apply it to geometry. I could WELL be wrong about that though.

Instead of Local, change the displacement coordinates to UV, adjust strength, done

@@unclejacksimulations9423 Thanks!

Any printer will do it if you cut your model into smaller parts and fix them together afterwards. This is probably a good way to do it anyway because if you have a failure near the end of a 4ft print you will have wasted a LOT of filament. That said, if you really want to print something that big as one part, the only remotely reasonably priced printer that can do that is the Creality CR-30 but it can only do that size on one axis. www.creality3dofficial.com/products/cr-30-infinite-z-belt-3d-printer

It doesn't need to be complex, a wall would be fine, but it does need to have enough geometry. If you select the "Simple" option in the subdivision surface modifier you should get plenty of geometry without it turning your wall into an oval :) I don't do this in the video because you might notice I have added edge loops close to the straight edges of the model which can also preserve the shape of the model when using the subdivision surface modifier. By the way, if your wall has no thickness, this displacement method might not give you what you want so you might need to add a solidify modifier before the displacement but after the subdivision. I hope this helps but let me know if you have any further issues. Good luck.

A UV map creation version of this is on my list of videos to do but I feel your pain. I would say that there is no getting around requiring enough vertices if you are going to use displacement as a way of adding texture. Have you considered using a texture as a brush and just painting it on in sculpt?

@@notverygoodguy I haven't opened blender in over 20 years before today. It wasn't very good back then compared to 3ds Max which I had access to as a student. Painting using a texture brush sounds prefect - I'll look into it.

Finally got it sorted out. I was expecting UV mapping to have some sort of observable state but it seems that it's more of an invisible property... maybe associated with vertex groups??

Sadly not. It would be very hard to do. It would need to guess which orientation you wanted to print in for a start. But what would it do with a large over hang such as an arm straight out at 90 degrees? The closest I could think of would be to select all the edges that you are concerned about and bevel them with ctrl b and mouse scroll wheel. The 3dprint add on that comes with blender can attempt to identify the problem areas at least.

@@notverygoodguy Interesting, thanks. I will have to revisit Blender but previous visits I struggled and felt a bit overwhelmed by options! Shapr3D I get along with quite well but blender seems super powerful if you can get your head round it.

@@TheAndyroo770 Blender does have a lot of features for sure but take it slowly and it becomes invaluable!

Very pleased you found it useful!

When you export to stl for printing everything gets converted to triangles anyway so no, it doesn't matter. The model does have to be manifold and inverted faces, overlapping and other broken meshes can cause a problem.

@@notverygoodguy ok thank you

I will look into this but I haven't seen the issue you describe. I have used photo's for the texture and they have come out fairly well.

@@notverygoodguy I use blender for jewelry pieces, large pendants mostly. I use texture on different vertex groups on the piece. I could never get the actual texture from the photo onto the piece it was always streaking along an axis. then I finally figured out that if I used a UV unwrap on the vertex group and then added displacement modifier with the texture it placed it evenly over the area with the right settings in the modifier. I also found that manual UV unwrap works better than smart in most cases. just sharing what works for me

@@rjv2395 Perhaps it is because I am more likely to use a flat surface and unwrapping wouldn't make much difference to that. I'll definitely try with a UV unwrap. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes I know but with Davinci Resolv crashing on me every five minutes I didn't have the motivation to go back and fix that :)

This will print just as you see it here. If it is a wood texture, it will print looking like wood. For really rough stuff with bits of branches sticking out of it you might need to add a bit of sculpting or modelling though.

You definitely need the geometry if you plan to 3d print the result. I believe it gives a suggestion in the video. Create a subdivision surface modifier and set it to "Simple". This will create more vertices for you but retain the shape. If you are not interested in 3d printing this then it is probably not the best solution. You can bake detailed textures onto a low res model if you just want to only render stuff but that's a completely different video :) Hope this works out for you.

Ahh, cunning! Thank you :)

I am glad it was useful for you. My next video will be about the different ways for creating clothes on human models with a view to 3d printing them though will not be out until after the new year. The solidify modifier should not remove detail though it can be a bit difficult to control what it does sometimes. It has lots of options that might help you though without seeing why you lose detail with it, it is difficult to offer a recommendation. If you can find a way to provide a .blend file I could try and have a look at it. I don't cover DAZ for making models in this channel even though it IS pretty good mostly because its licensing restrictions for 3d printing are a bit over the top in my view. Maybe you might consider an alternative.

@@notverygoodguy well.. i paid a good amount of money for my assets and i strongly believe its noone elses business if i print those for my own pleasure. in addition, i probably put in a ton more hours into making it printable, than the creators of most pieces have put in creating each piece. i agree, that commercial use and/or even publishing these models for free might be an issue. despite that, i published one of my models for xmas, for a short amount of time. It does print fine.. however, parts of the clothes are very thin and broke, and i got no idea (yet) how to increase the inside of boots i.e., to have them merge and not ending up with feets printed inside the boots, leaving behind resin traps. -because expanding along the normals does drag one side in the other out - and it might be doable by splitting it up in all tiny parts. and i dit with the 600+ hair-items in the later given example. as i know no other way to communicate with a youtuber but the comment section ( https REMOVE THIS ://cults3d. REMOVE THIS com/de/modell-3d/verschiedene/merry-xmas-meebeecom/de/modell-3d/verschiedene/merry-xmas-meebee )

@@notverygoodguy i only joined most of the parts and not been using a boolean. therefore you should be able to split it up in parts if i am not mistaken

@@amimeebee Wow! You put a ton of work into getting that printable!! The hair alone is a masterpiece of patience! I can't imagine the time it took to support this :) There isn't much that can be done with the stl file without the original but I think you have found a problem that everybody finds when trying to adapt things made for rendering into something that can be printed but most don't have your patience. You already have your solution though too. It is making every individual item thick enough to print and have access for support. And make adjustments. For example the outer skirt that nearly sits on the inner skirt should really be actually be joined to it much like the corset is. It won't make any difference to the model given the size you are likely printing at but would solve all sorts of problems. I see your problem with the boots and the only solution I can see is to actually make the boots solid a little way inside. Ideally you would boolean them with the leg too. Hair usually has to be just a few objects and people usually sculpt hair or create a few curves which are then converted to mesh and merged. Controlling the solidify modifier when you have small details can be difficult but you can restrict the effect of it in parts of your model by using vertex groups and adjusting the factor slider but ultimately, when creating detailed clothing you should be making it thick enough before you add details like folds and creases. I do admire what you have done here because I can see the effort involved and you have apparently been successful. I will try and do a video of handling difficult issues with the solidify modifier in the not too distant future.

@@notverygoodguy Thank you very much for taking the time and having a look at it. Yes, merging the pieces is the plan. i just still lack the skill to do it. but the vertex group thing is a point to start at. i will dig deeper. regarding the patience: if you use the "try and error" learning methoid of self-educating, one needs a lot of it. i started 2 months ago. and while i put a lot of time in figuring things out already, i am not too concerned. the example is my 3rd printed model. and while getting to the first one took above one months time, the third one "only" took about a week. i am pretty sure, soon i will be able to do more complex models in lesser time and be able to concentrate more on the creative aspect of the creation than on solving the technical riddles. but even if not: its a journey, not a race ;)

This could be just a case of getting the strength of the displacement correct. It is a very small step between looking right to looking awful. Holding shift as you adjust the strength can help. If not, provide a link to a blend file you have with the texture (remember to "File->External Data->Pack Resources" first to add the texture image to your blend file) and I can take a look at it if you like.

It may be little but is still important. I wish I had known, I might have mentioned it :)

Hard to say with the amount of info you have provided. It may be you simply have the effect strength too high. Is there any way you can provide more detailed info. A screen shot would be nice :)

@@notverygoodguy yes ups I thought I upload screen .. :) let fix that

snipboard.io/BrxIDL.jpg

Hope it helped!

@@notverygoodguy it did, thanks!

I don't think it should be. You can change the x and y crop which will stretch it. Alternatively scale down your model and then scale it back up again when you have applied your displacement modifier. I am not sure if this works as I haven't found a texture anywhere that is too small.

nvm...i think something was corrupted with that file...I made a new one and it's fine. the first one was loading two different files

@@badmonkey91 Glad you have it sorted!

It will do that yes. If you want to wrap the texture around your object you'll need to UV unwrap it first. I don't cover that in this video but many other people do. You have given me an idea for a new video though :)

@@notverygoodguy thank you so much for the reply! I'll definitely check that out. And I look forward to the video! :D

Try one of the others anyway. The most contrasty probably will work anyway as long as you have enough geometry in your model. It is possible to use photos so using the displacement map isn't as essential as I made out :)

@@notverygoodguy ok I got it working. Thanks for your tutorial work

@@ThatHippyDuck Thanks for letting us know!

Sorry to hear about that. I haven't heard of that happening to anyone before. DId it always crash at the same place?

It's kind of hard to say with so little information. Can you describe how what you do get or can you link to pictures of your model mesh?

Thank you for your reply. I get either no texture on an object or scale (strength) it up to very heavy peaks and valleys. I have created objects in blender and brought in STL's same result. I've created objects in blender and covered them with Vortices, same results. Thick, thin, short, fat objects all have the same outcome. 1 thing I wondered is are you working in meters or mm? I am in mm. @notverygoodguy

Also using version 4 @@notverygoodguy

@@robert5770 OK I hadn't tried version 4 as it doesn't work well with charmorph but I just downloaded and tried this displacement and it still seems to work and I do use mm. Try it just using the default cube. In edit mode select everything if it isn't all ready select and subdivide it to ten (you can set how many it does in the little menu thing that pops up bottom left). Then do it again but subdivide maybe to 2 or 3. Then apply a texture that has a lot of detail like the stones I used in the video. If you are getting huge valleys and peaks try adjusting the strength slowly by holding down the SHIFT button while you drag your mouse over the value. The fact that you do get this problem does suggest its working. If all else fails see if you can find a way to post a link to your blend file, I'd be interested to see what is going on.

Are you using the displacement texture? Have you played with both the strength slider and the slider in the "crop" section in the texture planel? I just tried this again on the latest Blender and it still works fine. Other than that, if you can provide a link somehow to your blend file, I could take a look.

While I understand that it is frustrating when things get changed, the technique discussed in this video does actually work with the latest Blender (3.0.0). Can you say what issue you had. I too get annoyed with things changing (knife project works differently now for example but they rarely make big changes and if you stick with an "LTS" release, things should stay the same.

@@notverygoodguy I don't know about Viktor, but I can't get anything other than noise when I add the displacement map

@@OdysseanPromise To me this suggests either the "strength" value is too high in the displacement modifier, you don't have enough geometry or maybe even the is an issue with the texture itself. If you have a way of sharing your blend file I would be happy to look at it.

@@notverygoodguy I did adjust the strength as you suggested. Even at very low (.050) strength it’s more like just a dusting of pock marks rather than cobble stones I tried on some very very small planes and could get it to generate but the texture doesn’t seem to repeat in any real way and just warps, even with the “repeat” option on

@@OdysseanPromise Is there anyway I could look at the texture you are using?

Do you have enough geometry? You need do sub-divide your model quite a bit to get enough resolution. Alternatively, it may be that your texture is really low resolution. Let us know.

The double lines are there to constrain the subdivision surface modifier. Without these the flat faces would turn into curves when using it. You can achieve the same using "mark sharp" on the edges but the "double lines" is more reliable. There are no add-ons used in this video, it is stock standard Blender. The only non-standard setting I have is that I always have "face orientation" set to on but that shouldn't make a difference here. Perhaps you could explain where it isn't working for you. Maybe I can help.