I need help with modifiers and printing terrain

[Scratch_Moded]

I am trying to print some terrain for my Tabletop war game and am pulling my hair out fighting Bambu Studio.
Terrain takes an unholy amount of filament so I am satisfying my needs with a single wall loop and lightning infill. This is proving to be rigid enough on sides with details, but on the two flat sides it is just leaving a wobbly single wall that is less great.
The goal is simple, I would like the two flat sides of this object to have two layers thick of filament and the rest of the object to have 1 layer.
I feel like I’ve almost accomplished this with a modifier , but it leaves awful seams.

(Black is the flat side)
(Yellow is a modifier to drop the Wall Loops from 2 down to 1)

I’ve gotten it to create that extra loop to make the wall thicker, but instead of continuing the the outside layer as one single line it has split the the loops , and made a seam on the outside.

When trying the same settings on a basic primitive I can see what’s happening, the application seems to think I want to add geometry with the modifier. So it added a box inside the primitive, that seems to have confused the software greatly because that inside box has 3 walls on inside of the primitive but successfully modified the outside wall of the primitive to the expected 1 wall.
But it also left that seam on the outside.

So now I am lost. Does anyone know how to choose a single side of object and give with extra loops to make it rigid?

If I could get the modifier to just continue the outer wall without creating the seam I could live with the extra pointless geometry inside the object.

Thanks!

[Olias]

I think you were on the right t rack and really close to achieving your objective. However, I think where you may have made a wrong term was to use the entire primitive. I might consider this approach which uses two primitives to assemble an ‘L-shaped’ or it could easily be a ‘U-shaped’ bracket which could then be assembled onto the structure you are trying to manage.

This is tricky but these principles should give you some ideas.

NOTE: In my example I am using two different could filaments for illustration even though I don’t own an AMS.

Sorry for the length but there are a lot of steps.

The model I am using for this example is a section of Denali National Park found on printables. Why? For no other reason than because it was there and looked like a good example.

https://www.printables.com/model/315384-3d-topographic-map-of-denali-mount-mckinley-alaska/files

I first use the size tool to determine the Scale of the model.

I then create a primitive of the same footprint but scale the wall to the size I need, in this example, 10mm.

I clone the cube CTRL-K making a copy and for illustration purposes I use red filament. This second copy is my “Cut Tool” and I scale the height to be just a little bit larger than the original block and a little bit smaller in LxW. You’ll have to be careful and I find it’s best to use the object menu to select the object you want to shrink.

Red cuts yellow.

Assemble the two blocks into one assembly so we can apply the Boolean tool next.

Use the Boolean “Difference” Tool to cut block from the other.

IMPORTANT: You have to do this in sequence, if you mess up, the tool does not let you CTRL-Z to undo, you have to start over. Very annoying!!! but be warned.

Select both the object you want to cut and the tool you are going to use to cut it from the object menu.

Then select Mesh Boolean. The Boolean tool ONLY works when you select two objects from the assembly in the “Objects” menu.

This part is self explanatory but it’s important to get the sequence right AND check the “delete input” to get rid of the tool when you’re done with the operation.

The Boolean tool is “tricky”. Remember I just said you have to pick the objects from the menu in order to get the Boolean tool to activate. Now it’s the opposite, you have to chose the objects from the plate, not the menu. This means you’ll likely have to pivot the plate to get access to the sides of the tool and the object you want to us as the cut tool.

If you did this correctly, it will look like this:

In this example, I positioned the cut tool to deliberately show that I can control each wall separately by simply positioning the cut tool. In this case, one wall on the long side and three on the short side for dramatic affect. You of course would only want one wall which we will add to the main model.

Now that you have you’re “wall tool” in the shape you want, you can move it up against the object you want to increase the wall thickness. Using the (M) tool and typing in the numbers will allow you get submillimeter granularity of positioning.

Next, use the Assembly tool to make these two object one.

Now all you need to do now is go back into the object menu and select only the model. Then select wall-width to 1. Also, You will find that Grid infill works the best as the slicer has to anchor the wall to something and Grid is the least use of filament.

If all went well at this point, the slice should look like this:

As I mentioned, this used an L-shape but you can alter the geometry to be a U-Shape or even an irregular shape using a clone of an existing model and then Boolean that.

[Scratch_Moded]

That was an interesting thought , and I really appreciate you putting some time into this.
First, a question: Is this outer wall creating a seam at that white edge?

Second, a monkey Wrench: The flat walls of my part are on opposite sides of my model.

[Olias]

The seams are the defaults. If they get in your way simply move them, randomize them or as I prefer these days, use scarf joints in Orca Slicer.

For your latest example. That’s much easier if I understand you correctly. The process is still the same. The difference here is that you would duplicate the model, then cut the copy of the model so that only one slice of the vertical remains, then scale the model in that vector and then assemble. If you can cite a model I can download, I can do a quick tutorial demonstrating this.

[Scratch_Moded]

I’m afraid I’ve mispoken, I do not mean the seams like the start and stop point of a layer (white dots in image) , i mean the awful joining section of intersecting geometry. The function of randomizing, aligning or scarf joints has no effect on this, and I am at a complete loss of finding a way to make that outer wall coherent.

[user_3026326371]

I can only guess here…
But it looks like two individual objects in the pic.
The thick walled one and the single wall one.
If that is the case try to combine the two into a single model.

I don’t print terrain, never had to anyway…
But I sometimes have to print things with severe surface features.
Similar to your mountains but less pointy.
While basically hollow prints are great they also means they can be rather flimsy and fragile.
The print time and amount of retractions and z-hops is also a real killer…
Here is how I compensate when possible:

I cut the model for the feature rich part only, like in the example above.
But then I turn it vertical…
The extrusion width is usually 0.42mm or more for a 0.4mm nozzle…
With finer layer heights the overall resolution is nice too, especially if you print in x OR y direction and not and an angle.
Just two walls and layer heights matching the detail need of the model result in a surprisingly rigid model.
One that can be easily be glued onto the matching base from the initial cut.
As long as this won’t result in too severe overhangs you should be fine…

[Olias]

Ok. Just to be clear now.

You are getting this:

But you want this?

Did I get this right?

So that we don’t leave anything else out. Can you articulate once again, why the first slice example doesn’t work for you?

[Scratch_Moded]

You are clearly a wizard, that looks great. I really want you to know that I think you’re doing a wonderful job with my unreasonable request.

Now question is this, Is there a way to make it not take on the new geometry inside of the part ?(red arrows)

For the sake of saving every inch of filament printing 3 random walls within the part isn’t very economic.

Also, your corner appears to have done the same thing mine did, It’s like it created a New outer wall in front of the original outer wall creating a wrinkle on the corner

Which became visible on the print

[Olias]

When you say “Not take on the geometry” what do you mean?

As far as the second wall goes. Take a look at this modifier. I set the walls of the model to 0 and in the modifier I used an assembled series of primitives with one wall. I deliberately left the other two walls off the modifier to show you what is happening.

I had set the sparse infill zero for illustration purposes but this is what it looks like at 10% which I don’t think is what you’re asking.

[user_3026326371]

I don’t know if it can be applied to your models but for rather simple structures there might be an easier way.
That is if you can make the changes using a modelling program.

I use this cheat to print ‘double walled’ in vase mode.
Let me give you the theory behind first, hopefully someone more skilled in Studio manipulation can chip in later…

The slicer interprets a wall by the settings we use, like overall thickness, number of wall loops.
For a thin walled object we can set manual supports inside the model, so we have to cheat around this.
Thankfully our slicer can do missing things just fine

I am not used to Bambu manipulations, so I can’t do nice screenshots - sorry!
Take your base with these green primitives to add strength.
Now think the other way around!
Create a THIN walled primitive - for these boxes a rectangle with one side missing - the side of you existing wall on the model.
Make it as tall as the base then subtract the bottom layers or a few more.
The tricky part is the placement - I could not figure it out in Studio

You want to use this primitive to cut a part of your model, just above the bottom layers.
And you want this placed close enough to the outer wall of the model.
Around 1mm works fine but you can go quite a bit lower = do some small scale tests, I can do gaps of around 0.2mm if need be.

Ok, what’s the benefit you wonder?
The cut out primitive forced the slicer to create walls around it.
So you end with two wall loops for this addition if the gap is extra tiny.
You can also create this cut out let’s say with 10mm wide sides and then get two single wall at quite some distance.
If the gap to the outer wall is not too much it will cause to fuse those walls while still getting one continuous outer wall.
Of course you can abuse any shape for this, I just went with rectangle as it seemed the easiest.