Just how cost effective is 3D printing terrain? 

Great video. I know it is more effective, especially after considering the initial costs and disposables, but what I love is the opportunity it gives us. I can make and print my own terrain that the bigger companies would never consider. Too niche, too big, too complicated to tool, etc.

Love your videos. Definitely keep sharing more 3d printing videos, I also love the design stuff as well.

More vids like this too please! Interesting seeing 3d terrain options

100% agree, I'm working on terrain just now and what I want simply doesn't exist, plus it'll be designed and printed exactly as I want it

I have been planning on getting a 3D Printer. And this looks affordable. Your insight is invaluable! Thanks for sharing!

Excellent stuff

If the terrain has really small (fiddly bits) details, such as buildings and the like, then filament printing is definitely a win. Making the rocks, trees, and general scatter bits, may be more cost effective (and possibly more "fun"), to make them by hand with foam boards and various other art supplies. None the less, whatever works for the person who is making these items for their gaming table, or just for display... if it works for you, then THAT is the best option. Does time=money? Yes. But... this is a hobby. Well, unless it is your job :)

I play in 15mm, and a lot of what I print is rescaled from files intended for 28-32mm figures. There isn’t such a range of scenery available for 15mm, so it works out very well. I’ve been printing lots of scatter scenery, figures and vehicles in resin, but FDM is definitely the way to go for buildings. I got a very basic Ender 3 Neo for just over £100 in November and have produced loads of stuff so far, enough for a full table and I still haven’t used 2 rolls of filament yet. What I’ve printed would probably have cost twice as much to buy elsewhere as the money I’ve invested in hardware and consumables.

Pro tip: Weigh the spool when you open it and have dried it, and write the weight on the spool. Then when you get down low, you can weigh it again and see how much filament is left, subtracting the difference in weights from 1000g to see how much is left. The slicer will tell you how many grams of filament the sliced part will take. Looking at "meters of plastic" is probably not the thing to look at, but the weight. "Should I save 4 hours and spend 0.1% of a spool of filament?" A lot of slicers will even let you put in the cost of the spool of filament and it will tell you the price of the filament used. You can also adjust the infill and see if that saves you much. You can also use "adaptive layer height" where the more detailed areas are printed with a lower layer height and the smooth parts are printed with a higher layer size. There are also a whole bunch of different places that sell models, which you can find with the obvious googling. There are also lots of places where you can upload the models and they'll mail you the printed part in a day or two.

Good observations! I'm still not sold on printing terrain yet, but in my case the comparison is between trash bashing and printing - buying those walls for 30 quid isn't on the table as a matter of principle XD I can totally see the value of printing for details, statues, and other greeble though I suspect resin would work better for things like that.

I generally use fdm for my terrain but I have used resin for some really highly detailed stone buildings from Gothic things. I used sunlu standard plus resin and its pretty solid. I have tried to break some of the walls and i needed pliers to actually snap it so it is quite strong when its thick (say 5-10mm thick), of course any sticky outy bits won't stand up to rough treatment but thats the same with fdm. I haven't dropped any yet but I assume bits may snap off or shatter because the resin gets a bit weighty.

My biggest thing is that I could never buy the urban GW terrain as a kid. Now that I can afford to buy a bunch it’s not made anymore , lol. Always wanted to get those sector box sets… but now I just print them on my Saturn. As close as I’ll get because ain’t no way am I going to go on eBay and pay 6x the price lol

Very good comparison! I reckon you could drop your infill a fair amount and make that filament go further

interesting!!

Your printer is really fast. My ender 3 Neo Max is slow at 100mm sec only

It's cheaper but it definitely doesn't look as good as the original designs. There are some great STL for ruined buildings medieval tho

hi, i think youre just using the wrong kind of resin! eg. anycubics uv tough resin is quite cheap an would be perfectly suitable for terrain

These models are expensive. Must be a lucrative job to design them