Help needed, please read.

[TheDarkSpartan]

Long story short, I have a buddy who's able to 3d print me a wearable Halo 3 Hayabusa helmet. Problem is I'm a double x motorcycle helmet and neither of us can find anything how to adjust the size. I'm sure there is someone in the group that has expertise in 3d printing so I thought as a member myself that maybe it was time I ask for help. Does anyone know how to adjust the size so my friend doesn't use all his filament on experimenting with size?
Any help is appreciated. Thank you
Attached is the link to the helmet itself if it helps.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2734906

 

[Wraith0912]

Armorsmith is one of the more popular choices when it comes to scaling files for prints. It is a paid program ($40 USD), but the support it provides is very valuable. You set up an avatar of yourself with your measurements (YouTube videos such as this one show you how), import the model, attach it to the avatar, and then scale accordingly. Once you're done, you export the modified file out as an .stl which you can then print. If the scaled part proves to be a bit too big to fit on your printer, you can slice the part up into pieces through programs such as Meshmixer or the slice function in PrusaSlicer. Hope this helps!

 

[S225]

Similar to Armorsmith, Meshmixer is a free alternative that will allow you to import files to scale and slice into parts. You could take the helmet file that isn't cut up yet and do some asymmetrical re-scaling if needed. Downside is you may not have a good reference like Armorsmith to see your head in the space.

 

[TheDarkSpartan]

Armorsmith is one of the more popular choices when it comes to scaling files for prints. It is a paid program ($40 USD), but the support it provides is very valuable. You set up an avatar of yourself with your measurements (YouTube videos such as this one show you how), import the model, attach it to the avatar, and then scale accordingly. Once you're done, you export the modified file out as an .stl which you can then print. If the scaled part proves to be a bit too big to fit on your printer, you can slice the part up into pieces through programs such as Meshmixer or the slice function in PrusaSlicer. Hope this helps!

Thank you

 

[TheDarkSpartan]

Similar to Armorsmith, Meshmixer is a free alternative that will allow you to import files to scale and slice into parts. You could take the helmet file that isn't cut up yet and do some asymmetrical re-scaling if needed. Downside is you may not have a good reference like Armorsmith to see your head in the space.

Thank you

 

[SgtSaint]

Having gone the free route for my first armor and now Armorsmith for my second I'd urge you to spend the $40 on Armorsmith. It will pay for itself in reduced wastage of filament. The ability to put your digital armor on a posable mannequin and look for collisions is worth the price right there.

Next I'm going to give the same advice I give every time I see a thread of "I'm starting at the helmet": Don't.
If you and your friend don't know how to scale the helmet then it stands to reason you don't know how to scale any of the other parts either, right?

My *personal opinion* is your helmet probably should be last, not first. Yeah yeah, everyone wants a helmet to drool over. But it's the thing everyone stares at so you want to do it AFTER you've developed a process and techniques and skills.
Personally I always recommend starting at the feet and working up.
You're going to weather and distress the boots more than anything else... and they get looked at with the least critical eye.
Then shins which have to ride on the boots.
Then thighs since you have to avoid joint conflict so you can walk, sit, stairs etc.
See how this goes? Up from the boots.
By the time you get to the chest and helmet; the parts at eye level that everyone stares at, looks at first, is right there in your face in every photo - you can make them look stellar. And if you start at the boots you're looking at parts that are only a day or two per part not 6 days per part. So you can hone your scaling skills.

 

[OFiveTwo]

Plot twist: be chaotic. 3D scan yourself with your phone, import the scan into meshmixer, use THAT to size the armor.

Edit: that is a violent choice, please do not do that

 

[SgtSaint]

Plot twist: be chaotic. 3D scan yourself with your phone, import the scan into meshmixer, use THAT to size the armor.

Edit: that is a violent choice, please do not do that

It is however exactly what I did to validate my Armosmith mannequin. Once I confirmed the mannequin was right I dropped the 3d scan out since it won't articulate.

That's the biggest issue I learned the hard way - Everything looks great in a static pose on any of the free ways: 3d builder, Meshmixer, whatever.
Here's 3d Builder doing it all.

But in the end it was a size XL armor on a size L body. Lessons learned.

The features I use the most in Armorsmith is

• the articulation to see the conflict points,
• Free form deformation
• Quick clip plane

 

[OFiveTwo]

The features I use the most in Armorsmith is

• the articulation to see the conflict points,
• Free form deformation
• Quick clip plan

What is free form deform? Haven't played with that tool at all.

 

[SgtSaint]

What is free form deform? Haven't played with that tool at all.

Armorsmith will let you distort, not just scale. Most programs will let you scale in one direction such as needing shins shorter so you change the Z scale without altering the X & Y. That's pretty common. But in armorsmith you can do more.

In my case, as an example.
My rib cage is pretty round. In my first armor the only way to make the chest armor big enough was to stretch it in width until I could get it on, using Windows 3d Builder. But that was for the entire part. So the shoulders got wider too. In the end it severely limited my arm range of motion. When I started my second armor I learned that Armorsmith had this 'Free Form Deformation' ability. It gives you a bounding box of corners and edges that can be grabbed and moved. For me, I was now able to pull the bottom of the torso parts at the ribs a few cm without having to make the shoulders wider.

 

[TheDarkSpartan]

Looks awesome. Literally only want to make the helmet at this time though. Will post pic when done. He has taken all the advice I passed to him from all of you. Thanks again