An essay about unsupported, presupported, and “presupported” models, and my involuntarily learning about how to support models.
Over Xmas I found and printed some models for my BattleTech buddies. Fun fact; almost every BT model is scraped from MechWarrior games. Fun fact; nobody who scrapes those models and posts them spends the time to support, print, tweak supports, print, etc., those models. Now, I’m deeply grateful for the work they do and and delighted I can find a dozen Urbanmech models with slightly different weapons loadouts, print and paint, and troll the absolute balls off of BT fans.
What I’m not a fan of is having been forced to know about 3d model supporting for printing. I still don’t know it well- the extent of my ability is tweaking automatic supports. But I know some settings. Above, you can see the difference between “click auto support, click print” and “change auto support to tree style, reduce contact point size to 20 microns, play around with model angles so fewer supports are needed, and delete or shift the auto supports from tight spaces.” Here’s my advice for getting started, because there’s a lot of models out there that are unsupported. Or come unsupported and “supported” in ways that look a WHOLE LOT like “click auto support, click print” but let modellers sell models as “presupported” on MMF.
So, here’s the worst option. Bar supports suck. They’re always vertical which means they get in the way of, or can’t reach, certain areas. They glue to each other, creating these unsnappable pillars you have to chew at with pliers. They glue themselves to the model often enough to notice, and that’ll ruin a print on its own. The contact points are about 400 microns, which means snapping the supports off the figure either leaves warts to sand down or pulls a shard out of the surface of the model. The model is also face-down, so the most detailed and delicate parts are going to get touched by the supports and defaced.
Here’s the best option I’ve found with all of two days of cursing and not reading any documentation; tree supports, 200 micron contact points, and something like a 45 degree face up angle. Depending on the model maybe it needs to be flat on its back or standing up or on one side. But small contact points means minimal surface problems to deal with, tree supports mean angles are possible, and you don’t get pillars of supports to deal with.
Now, I don’t blame you if you don’t want to mess with any of that. It’s a pain. So, here’s my take on presupported models and what you’ll be dealing with/what you want to look for.
Worst “presupported” option I’ve come across. These Skrap Rakuns are fun sculpts, and I bought a big pack for my buddy that wants them both for TTRPG characters (he likes steampunk and raccoon characters) and as proxies for OPR Wolf Brothers. I’m not unhappy about the models. But this image should explain what I was talking about when I said “pillars.” Pulling these models off the supports is agonizing. I can find no difference between the “presupported” models and auto-generating my own with kind of bad contact point size. I’ve printed half a dozen and I’ll probably take the unsupported models, put them on their backs, and try making tree supports for the rest. I do like the sculpts! Just not the supports.
Here’s a pretty good example of “not shit.” Posed so face, gun, and PVC bodysuit are, at least from the front, undamaged by supports snapping badly. Minimal supports. Figure rotated so that the fewest supports are needed. OPR presupports are at least this good, and I love them for it. This is not my gold standard but it’s solid.
Papsikel’s Cyber Babes are using something close to tree supports; one column branching into many contact points. It’s not perfect (see the pillar on the left there), but these come off pretty clean. Contact points are small. I love Papsikel’s designs and this makes buying and printing their stuff sort of a no-brainer.
Unit9 uses bar supports but sets distances far enough they don’t become pillars, and their contact points are whisker-thin. Sure, there’s 200 of them, but the model’s rotated to minimize scarring and all I need to do is gently press my thumbnail into the edge and they peel off like butter. Currently the best I’ve seen.
