So does anyone actually own those dice? How usable are they?

RPGPundit

One of the mailing lists I'm on has an SF vehicle sculptor who is happy with his smaller than normal scale vehicles. (15mm, I think.)  If he's happy then they're probably good at least for that purpose.


I do not own the dice, I was hoping someone else did so I could find out how well they roll.

Quote from: Monster Manuel;434608According to the site, the ones in the picture are stainless steel, so they're not straight out of the printer with paint or anything.

Actually, they could be straight out of the printer. There are 3D metal printers that do "laser sintering" to build objects; basically welding a bunch of tiny blobs of metal together.

Quote from: Silverlion;435068One of the mailing lists I'm on has an SF vehicle sculptor who is happy with his smaller than normal scale vehicles. (15mm, I think.)  If he's happy then they're probably good at least for that purpose.

That's probably John Bear Ross, his designs are some of the best of what can be done with digital design and rapid prototyping.  Several small start ups are using the process as well to create aftermarket components for existing kits.  Mark Mondragon of Dream Forge games is making awesome large scale wargame mechs.

Although its a slightly different process, Wargames Factory and Forge World design products digitally, which are then used to directly create molds on a CNC machine.  Although their earlier products were less than stellar, Wargames Factory infantry had made great strides in quality with their later offerings.  

Digital design will obsolete traditional "green" mini sculpting this decade.  Designers can create more quickly, accurately and with less practical experience than its takes to learn to sculpt well with green stuff.  As services like Shapeways improve and proliferate, it may become as economical for you to have all of your minis printed rather than buying kits, challenging the established business models of Games Workshop and other miniature manufacturers.

Quote from: Angry_Douchebag;435098challenging the established business models of Games Workshop and other miniature manufacturers.

And thus the Internet upends yet another business model and industry. Obviously it isn't quite there yet but neither was Print on Demand a years back. Now booksellers and publishers are feeling the heat.

Wonder how long it will be before you can take an old discontinued miniature, put it into a 3-D scanner, and get a new one printed.  Would be nice to get some of those old Grenadier ~20mm figures upscaled to the new ~30mm scale.