Pawn - I have a few questions to ask please

[Vanz_L_Forge]

First of all, here’s my Pawn:

The thing here is that I aimed for a High Poly model at first, but I ended up having a semi-High Poly one. That happened because I followed the steps below:

1. Aiming to 3D print my models when finishing the whole Chess Set, I decided to make them High Poly, in order to have as detailed printed results as possible. So first question is, is my assumption above right? The more detailed I want my model to be printed, the more High Poly I have to make it? Also, supposing that my model carries no intersections (I used the Bridging technique that we learned in order to ensure that), is there any limit in my model’s Verts, Tris and Mem, above which it cannot be 3D printed? Can I print a 234,3 MiB model?
2. I found it a great idea to use the Subdivision Surface Modifier on my Pawn’s body, following Mike’s steps (Extruded up the Base’s above Face etc.) and then using the above Modifier to smooth the Pawn’s body and everything was fine, as I wanted it to be, including the geometry, which was not that complicated (approximately 45 MiB of Memory, which I think it is good for a High Poly model). But when I Applied the Modifier, the geometry changed, becoming so much complex, that the Verts, Faces and Tris became thousands and the Memory of my model was augmented. As for the shape of my model, nothing changed, everything looked exactly as I wanted it to be. The Render and Viewport were 2 before I Applied the Modifier and the Quality was 3. I also used a 4 at both the Render and the Viewport, just to experiment, and ended up with more geometry than the 2 and 2 ones.
3. Not knowing how to solve my problem, I just started to manually Dissolve Edges from my Pawn, trying to cut down the Verts’ and Tris’ number, while keeping its shape as unchanged as possible. So I ended up whith the model above and I like it, but it has Verts: 4,586 | Faces:4,584 | Tris:9,168 | Mem: 234,7 MiB. Can I 3D print it or is it too big? The model’s shape ended up being a 32gonal I think, that’s why I’m calling it a “semi-High Poly”. I like it and I want to make all the other pieces like this one, but will it be possible to be 3D printed or not? Because, if not, it will be a waste of time for me to proceed in making the rest of the models following the same procedure.
   Finally, why is the Subdivision Surface Modifier acting like this? Before Applying it, the geometry is great and kept low and when I hit the “Apply” button, the shape of my model is exactly how I want it to be, but its geometry changes.
   Please let me know if anyone can answer my questions, I’m stuck and cannot proceed!

Thanks in advance.

[NP5]

1. My understanding is printing needs high poly, but it is related to how fine your printer can print. If the facets round the pawn for example are bigger than the level of detail the printer can do it will accurately print you facets! But if the model has smaller facets than it can print it can’t, you get the smoothed out shape. SO there is no point going gazillions of verts only just more than the printer ‘resolution’ can handle. Now it may be clever people can calculate that in advance. My reaction would be to test print your pawn at a level of detail. Look at at and decide if it has printed facets, if so increase the poly count reducing facet’'s sizes. Then retest. It should hold good for the rest of the set then as the scales are all very similar.

[NP5]

Yes subdiv is a later in the course thing. The object of the course is not a perfect chess set, let alone a printable one. It is to have simple object to teach tools that are new to students.

Yes subdiv, fakes much much bigger vert counts in effect. So ‘applying’ the modifier, creates them all! Now I suspect, others may be able to confirm, to print a model you probably need a plain mesh with all modifiers applied. Guess it depends on the file formats being used and how they handle the changes from one to another.

3. You could lower the number of subdivisions before applying the modifier. I suspect you are way overdoing it for an item that will print pretty small. Manually removing stuff will be very time consuming and probably not needed.

If you do not have your own printer, perhaps you could find a 3dprinter orientated forum where I suspect questions related to what is needed for getting a commercial printer suitably sized files. You may still get a more knowledgeable reply here yet too. As they want the customers, a commercial printer may well happily give you such advice too related to their printing machines.

[Vanz_L_Forge]

So, if I don’t own the printer to know its precision in printing, is it a good strategy to just make my model as High Poly as possible, so that to ensure it will be printed as detailed as possible? Also, thanks for answering so fast!

[FedPete]

@NP5

So ‘applying’ the modifier, creates them all! Now I suspect, others may be able to confirm, to print a model you probably need a plain mesh with all modifiers applied.

Yes, apply all modifiers!
What you deliver to the printer is just a bunch of verts (faces).

Depending on printer capability (resolution) in combination with printer material defines you printer resolution. And thus you Blender model resolution…
Use low poly and add a subdivision modifier. This makes modeling easier.
Except for sculpting, which has it’s own resolution rules.

When sending it to the print shop. You can deliver a sub division applied version (with your resulution of choice). To find out the best optimized resolution, it cost you some text runs.
but a 230MB file for a simple chess pawn is a bit overdone.

[Marc_Carlyon]

Responded in the Q&A but great follow up on this guys as you went into a lot more detail as i dont have a printer so haven’t follow that level of workflow.

Thanks as always

[Vanz_L_Forge]

I thank everyone for their time and their valuable feedback. Take care, everyone.