When it comes to buying good 3D printable models it is always good to check if the seller has a sample video of how their printable item printed on their machine.
Ask the seller what software they used to slice the model and how many polygons the mesh is.
Unlike 3D models that are only meant for rendering purposes 3D printable models need to be held up to a higher standard.
After running countless tests on the cheapest printer in the world, 101 Hero and then upgrading to a mid range but excellent printer the SeeMeCNC Eris
I was able to discover what true high quality printable items look like.
Some people may think that a really fancy high polygon mesh is great for 3D printing but actually that is only true if that model was created from a perfectly designed low poly mesh that was made to reproduce the perfect edge flow and vertex count to recreate the object in question.
Many designers just Zbrush or Mudbox their models starting off with badly modeled meshes or using other methods. That may work just fine for rendering out posters or making 3D models used for backgrounds, that do not need to be animated rigged etc... but works horribly for 3D printing.
If your average 3D printing buyer is running your every day laptop or computer with 8 gigs of ram there is no way that they will ever be able to work with models that have 10 000 polygons.
With 3D printing every polygon really counts. Every time you stream data from an SD card or USB cable to your printer it adds to the speed time.
Every time you want to scale, rotate, re position or edit a model for 3D printing the poly count matters and high poly just means you waste more time in making any needed modification to the model.
In some cases when you are using good software like Mattercontrol it will even tell you to reduce the model to improve printing performance.
It is also very import to understand that high details like veins, tendons or perfect lines for certain elements even in non organic models may never show up in your final prints unless you have a high end printer and are using the finest of settings and printing really large models.
In most cases the finest details from your high poly meshes never show up in your prints.
It is far better to build a low or mid poly model that is perfectly quads and edge flows are perfect then to spend ages building details that your average buyer will never be able to make use of or print unless they are planning to use a professional company to print the model for them. Even in that case that printing company is going to charge them for re topologizing and possibly remaking that model from scratch costing them more money which is not in the best interest of the seller or buyer.
When building 3D printable models it is import to figure out not only the final look of the model but how you will print them. Figure out the orientation of the prints and how to best make use of the cheats to ensure the correct parts come out beautiful and smooth and will require the buyer the least amount of hassle to sand or need to use complicated plastic or other types of support structures.
Try to envision the path that the print head will have to carry out when printing the model and if the model will need to be divided into multiple parts in order to get the best results for your buyers.
It is also important to test your model and see how it will print under different conditions. In some cases people will want to print the model with zero infill to save time... Does your model print that way? If not... did you tell your buyers that it cannot be printed that way?
Buyers are very skeptical about the 3D printable models they buy and for good reason. Producing a rock solid 3D printable model take a lot of hard work and consideration.
