I’m making a 20” head to sit on a mannequin for Halloween. I used Meshy 6 to create the file and took it to Meshmaker to make it hollow. When I bring it over to bambu, I set the infill to 0 but it’s not hollow. I tried using ChatGPT and it left me with the same thing. I searched previous topics but didn’t see anything relevant. Any help is appreciated.
I assume that it being 20” in size you cutting it into parts? Are you making hollow before you cut it into pieces?
Yes, I’m using mesh maker and hollowing the whole image. Then sending to Bambu to scale and cut.
If infill is generating in the “headspace” that means that your cuts and hollowing didnt quite work. Infill should generate in the helmet’s shell, assuming there is space.
I’d try to do one operation at a time IMO especially if being guided by AI. Get it to hollow it out right first. Then scale it to desired and do cuts.
I don’t know if this applies to the model in question, but in general one cannot hollow-out the inside of a complete mesh body, like a sphere. Because meshes are already essentially hollow inside. For something like that to work there needs to be a connection between the outside surface and the inner hollowed area, like the neck opening in Bullocks’ screenshot. Or a hollow can be added in the slicer by using a “negative” type part/modifier. Or multiple bodies/parts can be embedded inside each other, with inner body having different print properties for example, or converted to negative type.
Also in general, setting a 0 infill for something like a sphere should produce a hollow sphere, but this can change drastically if any painting is being applied to the model.
To get more specific advice here, post your model/project file if you can.
Cheers,
-Max
Objects can’t actually be hollow, but if you make a hole to the outside the slicer views the inside surface as part of the exterior of the object. My base here has a small pinhole at the top that makes the inside of the ball, the outside of the walls. You can do this in the slicer by adding a negative space cylinder that ‘punctures’ the skin of your mannequin. Good Luck
https://makerworld.com/en/models/105489-starkiller-base#profileId-112582
Slice this sphere and see if it is hollow. It is when I slice it. I made it using TinkerCad.
Sphere.3mf (434.4 KB)
I used blender and duplicated the file and reduced it by 4% (recommendation by ChatGPT. ). I boolean the bottom to create an opening to give it a defined interior and exterior that were connected. I printed it @ 50% and it’s supper thin and a good portion didn’t print. I can try again and reduce the size of the duplicated one and see if that works. Any thoughts?
This is the one I made from a file that was on Maker that i’m tyring to replicate with other characters.
Thank you for all the help!
That is basically how I made the sphere example above. I made a sphere the made a smaller version (-4mm in x, y, z) as a negative part. I centered both in x, y, z and merged.
The 4% thing is where it went wrong, and it’s the trap everyone falls into first. Scaling an inner copy makes the gap proportional to the size in each direction, so 4% of a 500 mm head is something like 20 mm across the cheeks and near zero at the nose tip and the ears. That’s why parts didn’t print, there was nothing there to print.
What you want is an offset rather than a scale, meaning an inner surface that sits exactly N millimetres inside the outer one everywhere regardless of shape. In Blender that’s the Solidify modifier on the outer mesh, thickness 3 mm, offset -1, instead of a duplicated and scaled copy. In Meshmixer it’s Hollow with an offset distance. Either way the neck opening you already cut connects inside to outside, and the slicer reads the inner surface as a real wall.
For a 20 inch head, 3 mm walls with zero infill, and split it into three or four pieces at the neck and behind the ears where the seams sit in creases anyway.
One thing to check before you commit to a print that size: Meshy output usually has more than one shell in it. Right click in Studio and Split to Objects, and if it comes apart, hollowing will offset each shell separately and you’ll get walls inside walls.
(For context, I work on PHORM. Everything above is Blender or Meshmixer, not us.)