I don't know much about what would be involved, and doubt that it's doable, but I love the idea of being able to make my character then buy a custom mini.
I know it's far from likely but would be something that could be really cool. I'd be willing to pay $10 or less for a custom mini of my character.
I suspect that every purchase of the the 4th Edition PHB coming with a gift certificate for a free pony is infinitely more probable, but it would still be cool.
Since you are making a virtual mini with the character creator, would it be possible some how to buy a real version of it?
I don't know much about what would be involved, and doubt that it's doable, but I love the idea of being able to make my character then buy a custom mini.
I'm sorry, but it would be outrageously expensive to create a unique mini for a single player. It costs a lot of $$ to create the mold for a mini, then a custom paint job on top of that. It just makes no economic sense for a company to do that.
OTOH, if you just want a generic fighter, wizard, etc. mini to which you could apply your own custom paint job then sure that would be doable, but not exactly what you are looking for.
And let's just say I can 'print out' normal size minis from tiny to gargantuan, either in full color (only 8-bit depth, so not much better than the current D&D mini offerings), or in solid single colors to be painted.
These minis would theoretically be able to have detail as fine as 80 microns (.08 mm), realistically more like 160 microns (.16 mm)...
We'll keep theorizing and say it is strong enough to withstand many many games, assuming you treat it with a modicum of respect (i.e. normal wear and tear is fine, but don't throw it across the room).
And let's further suppose I could do this for a materials cost of about the cost of an unpainted metal miniature today. I'd obviously have to charge a bit more than that to cover my time, and to help pay off the wonderful high-end machine I recently bought.
What would be a reasonable price for you to pay for such a customized miniature?
How many would you buy?
Say they were priced at only $40 each - would you buy just one, maybe a few, or several? And how often would you plan on repeating your purchases (one/year, one/month, etc.)?
Again, what if they were closer to $25 or $30 each - how many and how often?
To drive this a bit further, since I doubt Hasbro/WotC would work with someone like me who is a small business owner, I'd have to come up with my own 3D character program - what features would you NEED, and what would you LIKE before you would buy such a custom mini? (Designing this software would of course be an added investment lowering my profit, possibly raising the prices on the minis...)
What if physical stations were designed and shipped to your local gaming stores; how frequently would you use them, knowing you'd have to wait between 1 and 8 hours for the mini to be 'printed'?
What would be a reasonable price for you to pay for such a customized miniature?
How many would you buy?
I would prefer $10 or less. At that price I could see myself buying 6 or less a year with my current income.
Say they were priced at only $40 each - would you buy just one, maybe a few, or several? And how often would you plan on repeating your purchases (one/year, one/month, etc.)?
I would likely buy one every 12-18 months.
Again, what if they were closer to $25 or $30 each - how many and how often?
Possibly 2 or 3 a year.
To drive this a bit further, since I doubt Hasbro/WotC would work with someone like me who is a small business owner, I'd have to come up with my own 3D character program - what features would you NEED, and what would you LIKE before you would buy such a custom mini? (Designing this software would of course be an added investment lowering my profit, possibly raising the prices on the minis...)
I need a variety of armors/clothing. I need a variety of weapons. I need to freely change the color of anything. I need a variety of hair/helmet styles. I need as much customization as I can get my grubby little hands on.
What if physical stations were designed and shipped to your local gaming stores; how frequently would you use them, knowing you'd have to wait between 1 and 8 hours for the mini to be 'printed'?
How frequently I would use them depends on the cost, but I could see an in store machine with the character creator being used frequently. There are games played at gaming stores and the players there I'm sure would be willing to dish out $15 or so for a custom mini.
The materials cost I spoke of would be roughly equal to the retail cost of an unpainted miniature - in my local market that averages out to be $7 to $10. Going with $10 to be safe, you then have to think of the added costs inherent in the manufacturing process;
- electrical costs of running the machine
- time to import 3D models and queue them for fabrication
- time to clean up a finished model and prep for shipping
- costs of advertising
- costs of the machine and the software
I think $25+ would be much more feasible with intent to make some small profit on my end, which I would of course want to do.
I could think buying of at least 3-5 versions of the same character.
Please PM me when you've finalized things (pricing, distribution, etc.) I would like to be one of your first customers.
In fact, I'd probably never buy minis at all from WotC. Albeit, if they were to sell the printers, and the consumable for the printers, but more likely, the 3d models (at a reduced price of the minis because it's just a file, and I have to buy the printer plus the consumables for the printer in addition to the model to print it)
This would add a lot of visualization to the game.
Then again, with the star-trekish holodeck that UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) is working on, if that ever became economically feasible, we may be able to get 3d dungeons made completely customized for each game, without viewing it on a 2d computer screen like all of the clients there currently are for playing D&D online, and the one that will be released with D&D insider.
Heh, good thing all you really need to play D&D is an imagination, otherwise it could get really costly. It's fun to see what will be possible in the future, though.
even with a 3D printer, however the printers have been coming down in 5 to 10 more years they'll be like home computers I think.Somehow I imagine this is something staff have been thinking about, and hope to implement once they get software, hardware and price to a selling point. I guess they will make their current modelling software compatible, but then wait til the parameters above are met.
And regarding customization, once you have a 3D printer and a prgram the only two things that can stop your imagination is build-strength and size.
I would perfer something ala the character creation tool from Vanguard: Saga og Heroes, adding in all the item options you find there. Given that the models created will not be 3d animated in a game, I would expect a lot more detail than found in Vanguard though. The character portaits from EvE online are good examples from Maya.
With such options I can see myself buying 2-3 figures a year, at a price around 30$.
I'm sorry, but it would be outrageously expensive to create a unique mini for a single player. It costs a lot of $$ to create the mold for a mini, then a custom paint job on top of that. It just makes no economic sense for a company to do that.
OTOH, if you just want a generic fighter, wizard, etc. mini to which you could apply your own custom paint job then sure that would be doable, but not exactly what you are looking for.
As time passes you're increasingly wrong. Rapid prototyping and 3d-printing machines are quickly becoming more common. WotC could probably sell custom figs and make a profit. Sure, they'd be moderately expensive and there might be a high lead time, but it's certainly possible.
...Or you can find a way to rip the d3d mesh from the character generator program, fix it up in a 3d mesh editor, and then find a friend with access to a rapid prototyper/3d printer dealie. ;)
Maybe metal or plastic would not be easily done, but maybe that clay-like green substance (forgive my ignorance) I've seen people hand model miniatures with? I know of at least one company that makes custom miniatures this way, though it's done by hand with an exacto knife. Wizards could perhaps partner with someone who could pull it off if they can't or don't want to dedicate the resources themselves.
What is the name of this company?
i wanna have this conversation
"dude i never seen that mini before is it a rare?"
"its the rarest of rares its a one of a kind red x mini" holds up to show name on base
yeah i want the characters name on the base too
I would love to have one of those of my own characters, its a bit costy at this moment in time ($99,95 for the model and $15,95 for the shipping and hanling).
Well there are such things as 3D printers.
I know it's far from likely but would be something that could be really cool. I'd be willing to pay $10 or less for a custom mini of my character.
Something like this http://www.figureprints.com/
I was gonna post about adding functionality that would allow you to port your CC mini to a 3d printer so that you could have a mini made and paint it up. Thats one of the things I've always wanted, a custom mini of my favorite PC (done portraits, gonna get a statue next - the inner geek must be appeased :P )
I was gonna post about adding functionality that would allow you to port your CC mini to a 3d printer so that you could have a mini made and paint it up.
If I order a 3d print of my character the mini better comes fully painted! :P
To me the most important issues (beside being prepainted, because if it's prepainted I won't buy it no matter what) are price and durability.
The WoW minis from figureprint cost $99 each. D&D minis would be smaller, however I am not sure wheter this makes them less or more expensive
I seriously doubt it, unless they sent you a bunch of pre-fab pieces for you to glue together and paint.
They said that about Magic... and look what we have.
It's not as good, but much more practical.
This one looks like it could print about 40 models at a time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyZtBYG0QOg
This video is actually kind of funny. This is the sort of thing that we will watch with our kids in 20 years when we all have fabricators in our homes and they will ask things like "They had powder canisters back then?! 4 hours print times?! LOL!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39VJP671LDY
STEVE: And we spoke about this a few weeks ago, but I was asking you if there was going to be, or if you're exploring the ability for you to actually create these characters as real physical 3D models. Minis that you can bring wih you. And since it does say on your card mini R&D I'd imagine you'd know this one. I know spore is fooling around with this, that you'll be able to do this maybe. And I was wondering if there was any progress or updates on that.
CHRIS PERKINS: At the moment, nothing that we're announcing. We have for the past year anyway been exploring diffferent options. Everything from print on demand to ordering directly from the company that actually cranks out the minis for us. There are some logistical issues as you might expect, as far as quantities, the fact that most of our minis are produced overseas, there's just a lot of stuff going on right now. Probably to early to say at what point we'll be able to get people to create 3d representations of the character digitally and then place an order and have that figure as a plastic figure show up at their door three weeks later.
STEVE: Ok. (crosstalk) But least you're looking towards going towards that route, because it is still a pen-and-paper game. And obviously if you have this really cool 3d representation of your character with a glowing sword and this awesome pose and you don't want to go to the game table and use like a bead as your character, you know, it's just not gonna be the same.
CHRIS PERKINS: Right. And there's a lot of unique tensions that go on, too. I mean, we have a business of selling randomized collectible miniatures. So one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is "How does a print on demand venture impact the value of the collectible game? You know, f you can make any character you want, why do you want this character in this box" kind of thing? Is it because it had a pose that you just can't make? You know, what are the characteristics that distinguish one from the other? Those are the questions we're trying to answer right now.
WotC really needs to buy a couple appropriate 3D Printers and start churning these things out. Hell, they can go beyond making figures and actually make terrain pieces! Can you imagine being able to order customized terrain pieces? I wonder how much the powder for the machines cost, though, and about how many 28mm figures could they produce for each pack they use? Cause that'll probably be the main determining factor for how much the miniatures go. Even at $10 per mini, those 3d Printers will probably end up paying for themselves inside of a year*. But not if the materials used to make the miniatures are so expensive that they start losing money at that price. Well, we'll see. Just hope the prices on 3d Printers and their materials start coming down, soon, cause I'd love to be able to make up my own characters.
* What would really make money for WotC in that regard would be to make a character generator that can make all types of characters. Not just fantasy characters. Like modern characters, for instance. While they're not necessary, I'm sure plenty of White Wolf fans would love to own painted figures of their favorite Vampire or Werewolf character. Or superheroes! Make a good enough costume generator, and you'll have Mutants & Masterminds, Heroes Unlimited, Champions, and Hero System fans using it to make miniatures of their super-hero characters. Lots of potential, there.
Not to mention the variety you could get with just PC characters. For instance, how great would it be to design your mount, the barding on him, etc, and make a miniature of it? Then make a miniature of your PC riding your mount? Or your horse dies, but hey, you picked up a Dire Lion in its place. Time to get a miniature made up of that.
Lots of possibilities, here, and lots of ways for WotC to make money off of this. I hope they go for it, and at a reasonable price.
Yep. Gotta take into account advancing technology, here. I'm still amazed by the very existence of 3d printers. Wow. And here I've spent years badmouthing the replicators on Star Trek as BS. Talk about having to eat massive, bloated crow. ;)
Don't worry. There are still some lines we can't cross under our current laws of physics.
Let's just say I have a 3D printer, or a rapid prototyping machine, in my home office.
And let's just say I can 'print out' normal size minis from tiny to gargantuan, either in full color (only 8-bit depth, so not much better than the current D&D mini offerings), or in solid single colors to be painted.
These minis would theoretically be able to have detail as fine as 80 microns (.08 mm), realistically more like 160 microns (.16 mm)...
We'll keep theorizing and say it is strong enough to withstand many many games, assuming you treat it with a modicum of respect (i.e. normal wear and tear is fine, but don't throw it across the room).
And let's further suppose I could do this for a materials cost of about the cost of an unpainted metal miniature today. I'd obviously have to charge a bit more than that to cover my time, and to help pay off the wonderful high-end machine I recently bought.
What would be a reasonable price for you to pay for such a customized miniature?
10-20 bucks
How many would you buy?
oh maybe 4 or 5 right away and then maybe one every couple of months if I could talk the wife into it. of course I have some friends that might buy a custom mini or two as well
Say they were priced at only $40 each - would you buy just one, maybe a few, or several? And how often would you plan on repeating your purchases (one/year, one/month, etc.)?
maybe 2-4 a year
Again, what if they were closer to $25 or $30 each - how many and how often?
6-8 possibly
To drive this a bit further, since I doubt Hasbro/WotC would work with someone like me who is a small business owner, I'd have to come up with my own 3D character program - what features would you NEED, and what would you LIKE before you would buy such a custom mini? (Designing this software would of course be an added investment lowering my profit, possibly raising the prices on the minis...)
lets see custom armor and cloaks hoods, weapons and colors I asked for, not having all the minis be in the same postion
What if physical stations were designed and shipped to your local gaming stores; how frequently would you use them, knowing you'd have to wait between 1 and 8 hours for the mini to be 'printed'?
hmm about as often as I could afford to do so