So, as the title suggests, I want to make a life-sized cardboard Sasquatch out of stacked and glued cardboard similar to how it would come out of a 3D printer. I’m posting in here looking for suggestions on how to start figuring out how to begin the planning and file creation process. I’m very comfortable in Adobe Illustrator and many years ago I was comfortable with 3D modeling software but I haven’t used any in several years so it might take me a while to get back into shape there.
Any tips or suggestions on how to get started while I anxiously await my tracking number?
I have the boxes covered, at my day job we go through TONS of them every week and fill up a huge recycle container.
I have a 3D model that I printed from Thingiverse that is pretty close to what I’d like, but I kind of want to make him a little more smiley/happy sasquatch than the model I have.
First off, your model is a mesh file, which is a royal pain in the patootie to try to turn into something that can be modified.
It can be done in something like Rhino, or you can try to import it into something like Fusion 360 to work on it. (Actually F360 might be a better choice, Rhino is very limited for meshes.)
Once you’ve made your changes, the Fusion 360 program has an add-in model slicer called Slicer for Fusion (you download and install it separately), that will slice it the way that you want it sliced into layers.
Fusion 360 will let you set scale for full size rendering - it’s a very nice little freebie. The slicer add-in will do layouts of the slices for you, although it’s not the most efficient method.
I find F360 and Rhino more useful for mechanical design or for geometric patterns, for these more organic sculptures, MeshMixer, Blender or Sculptris. For just a little bit of face modification, I think I’d try Sculptris first. The clay metophor is probably right.
After mucking about getting it into a 3D printable form or sliced for cutting is tricky though. F360, for example doesn’t like handling very many polygons which this model is very likely to have. Each of the software packages have model simplification methods (Blender has decimate for example) and then there are various fixers to make it hold water: https://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/how_to_use_meshlab_and_netfabb
I’ve tried Sculptris, Netfabb and Meshmixer. Had very iffy results, although to be honest I was shooting for specific mesh modifications that had to be clean of non-manifold edges and self-intersections. It really made a mess and I wound up taking it into Rhino and doing it manually. Maybe in this case they would work better, but I’d be afraid they would introduce some weird results if not used correctly. (For that matter, F360 and Rhino might as well.) I hate messing with meshes.
F360 has a sculpting option that I’ve been wanting to play with. It’s a separate section from the regular sketches and geometry. It might actually work all right for this. It looks easy enough to use from the vids, but I haven’t had a chance to get into anything specific yet.
You might be right that Blender is the best choice though. (Never tried it.) It’s another option.
I agree, most of these editors were made for modeling with digital rendering as the desired end result, not for making an actual physical object, so they all seem hell-bent on putting holes in the mesh or flipping faces.
Best bet of course would be to get the original model and purchase Zbrush. (I looked at that once tho and seem to recall it being teeth-grindingly expensive.)
123D Make morphed into Slicer for Fusion. (Same program, although the new one has a lot more capabilities. Not necessarily a good thing, it’s harder to use.)
Good isn’t it? (I want to be able to design one like that one day.)
