Is there a single comment of yours that isn’t insulting and arrogant? I respond to the OP. No, I don’t spend an hour or more reading 200 personal-opinion comments (like yours). If the OP isn’t clear in the point he’s trying to get across, that’s going to make replies obscure. If you don’t like my comments, don’t read them. Your rant posts against me adding my opinion to the barrel is a little silly, yes? If you fail to understand the points my comments are making, that’s not my problem. There was nothing in the OP that mentioned photos or presentation. Whatever turn the forum made post-OP, I don’t really care. I don’t have all day long (as you seem to have) to read every post on every forum. I respond to the OP that catches my attention. And the occasional goofball who thinks he’s the forum police.
I agree that seems to be the crux of the issue. Inconsistent messages (or non-messages) from the company seems to be the core of a great number of complaints we read on these forums.
Everyone thought AI would either solve world hunger, cure cancer, or go full Skynet.
Instead, it seems to be like a helpful yet benign neighbour that gradually moves into your house one borrowed appliance at a time. Then one day you wake up and realize they’ve taken over your job, locked your appliances behind paywalls, and are side-eyeing you as a skin suit.
Speaking of appliances…
Zojirushi if you can afford it. I bought a mid-priced one ten years ago and it’s still going strong. Makes the best rice and has so many little engineering quality of life features like the fact the cord winds into the base like a vacuum cleaner.
I really miss the “old” internet. I’ve been researching the history of medieval castles and have had to wade through way too much AI-generated content in the search results. I want to read the actual source of whatever AI used to generate the content because AI still gets stuff wrong. Even YouTube has these dodgy “history” channels that at first glance look legit until you start watching. It’s exhausting trying to find the real history buffs and not AI Indiana Jones.
Same here but more from needing executive functioning support. I have ADHD and AI has been invaluable by helping me with things that otherwise would be impossible, daunting, or flat out painful for me to do with my brain type. Just yesterday, I had it run math calculations on merlon/crenel pairs to tower width ratio. Then how many corbel/gap pairs that would fit underneath the battlements, calculating the optimal gap depending on tower width and with a few other variables thrown in. Before AI, I would’ve given up and said “whelp, not making a castle today….or ever.”
It very much reminds me of the Junk Lady from Labyrinth. Yes, there is likely some good stuff in there that can be used or re-used. But a lot of it is masquerading as reality.
JUNKLADY: What’s the matter, my dear? Don’t you like your toys?
SARAH: It’s all junk!
JUNKLADY: Well, what about this? This is not junk, hmm?
SARAH: Yes, it is!
I appreciate that may be what you’re discussing… and in that point I would agree. I appreciate the posts that show the actual model in the machine that printed it. ANY AND ALL A.I. photos should be labeled as such. The final results of the print should be shown from at least 4 sides so people can see what they’re downloading. (Even so, I can download a .3mf or .stl and find out in a minute or two if it’s a valid build, so that doesn’t really ruin my day.)
However none of this was mentioned in the OP… to which I was replying. As I told another user, I don’t have time to read through hundreds of posts a day to see what direction a thread is taking and what numerous opinionated statements are made in a forum. I reply to the OP. And the OP post was this:
I don’t know what I was expecting, given the fact the contest description was just a massive piece of AI generated slop, but as a dungeon master I was quietly excited about the latest MW contest. That excitement was quickly dashed when I saw it as 90% AI generated slop. The same homogenous looking, low effort crap.
I get that MW doesn’t object about AI generated content given they have a vested interest in it via their makerlabs tools. I just want some reliable way of filtering it out. Like, tag your models as AI so the people who don’t want to see it, don’t. This benefits everyone—the slop peddlers and second-hand thinkers don’t get the negative comments and the like, and the rest of us can get away from being deluged with procedural garbage.
I don’t see a word in the OP about presentation. He wants a way to filter out A.I. “slop” (which means of course his MakerWorld would instantly become vastly smaller). This seems to be a user upset with a contest not following or enforcing proper rules… and he’s basically labeling A.I. submissions as “slop and garbage”. That’s what I replied to, because I’ve read far too many such statements.
Maybe the OP didn’t get across the point he was trying to make… or maybe he did. The OP may be right and the contest may not have been handled correctly. If that’s the problem, address the problem, not the tools that are being widely used today on an ever-increasing basis. A.I. will continue to be used unless BL sets down the law and enforces it. And good luck to them on that, because I’ve been in this field for decades and it’s gotten to the point that I have difficulty differentiating AI from non-AI creations. (With the one exception that A.I. is quite often very well done.)
If people are posting actual slop on Maker World, then other users should report that… and Bambu Labs should start restricting uploads by those who regularly abuse not only the contests… but the Maker World platform itself. One thing I see regularly on Maker World are duplicate uploads that are obviously not original and have either been stolen from another user or downloaded from some other site and uploaded here with no personal effort– not even printing out the model as a test.
One 3D company I know requires users to register as “authorized uploaders”… they have to sign an agreement to follow specific rules… and if they break those rules they can lose uploading privileges for a month, three months, six months, a year, or forever. Of course then they just us a new email and a new account and it all becomes a vicious circle.
In the end game, it would seem it falls to the downloader to check every file before printing. The downloads are free, so it’s not a huge hassle to simply click a button and instantly download a file to Bambu Studio. Myself, I spent a few hours designing a custom print “model” that I use as a foundation for all my prints. It works every time. Then all I have to do is add the STL and tell it to print… thus bypassing whatever chunk of questionable .3MF code someone decided to include with a build.
Regarding contests, if BL is holding contests where the rules aren’t enforced, I agree with what one user wisely stated above: don’t enter their contests. (Of if a person decides to enter, do so with eyes wide open.) Will company policy be shaped by a forum post? Hard to say there. But as far as my reply– I reply to what the OP seems to be saying (often it’s hard to tell when someone is angry and ranting). The rest of the forum I simply do not have enough hours in the day to read. I’ve better things to do– like actually creating and printing 3D objects… both downloaded and original, hand-created and A.I. I really don’t care about the origin so long as its legal and not ripped from another user.
I have to agree with you there. These days going through MakerWorld to find a new thing to print seems like wading through a salvage yard to find a good-condition part for my car. It takes ages… and we see duplicates that make us wonder where the project came from. There’s no doubt BL really needs to tighten its MW requirements for uploaders– with stern consequences for those who abuse the system– like making tiny, pointless alterations to someone else’s work to swipe the lion’s share of the credits– a bad policy from day 1. And yes… abuses like people using unlabeled AI photos to represent a work rather than actual 3D prints they have made themselves. BL really really needs to put their foot down on that practice. But will they? Do they have the time and manpower do to so?
So yeah, MakerWorld is a mixture of a treasure trove and a mess. So chances are their “contests” are just as messy (which is why I ignore them).
And what would you call that behaviour? Trolling.
That’s why you keep racking up those downvotes. Don’t worry - this isn’t me being arrogant; it’s something that anyone can see for themselves. A rant post of mine looks completely different from a simple observation I have done.
However, I could also call it something else. What would you call it when you don’t read through the topic? Disrespectful, perhaps? 
I don’t even have permission to do that. 
Nobody is forcing you to participate in any thread. If it’s too much trouble for you to read a little bit, you can also choose not to say anything. The thread really isn’t that long. You’re acting as if we’re forcing you to write something.
But what’s the point in me explaining this to you if you don’t understand how a forum works? This isn’t Twitter/X, which serves as a dumping ground for comments.
oh baby, now we’re getting it
“I’ll do it, but I’m billing for those hours” - practice that phrase for interacting with businesses 
Well, giving our own time away is all of our rights to do, but I’m not gonna do it in service of someone else’s profit based business, in the direct role and function that they would hire out to do.
Yeah, have to agree. What I try to keep in mind is that most of the stuff on MakerWorld is free… which is a great incentive for buying a Bambu printer of course. I already have so much stuff bookmarked to print that I’ll never get it all printed, so it doesn’t bother me much. And to eliminate stress, I stay away from contests.
I do agree with you that there seems something messed up with the token system. Supposed to receive free tokens each month and when we review items… but that’s simply not happening. I even reported it to MakerWorld and got a “we checked. Nothing wrong with the system”. At that point my solution is to “stop caring”. There are enough stresses in this world to worry about Bambu. In the same manner I’ve stopped caring about their company policies and ethics… because it’s obvious they’re not gonna change. (And frankly when it comes to ethics this society comes up a whole lot short in that department, everywhere.) This is the world we live in: a species that is destroying the very planet we live on… and now adding A.I. originated energy depletion to the mix. One can only wonder what mankind is going to mess up next.
Wow interesting insults, you must feel your on shaky ground.
I’m sorry but your guide on how to spot AI is not only dated but overly simplistic.
Today some Hunyuan3D 2.1 and Tripo models can pass as human generated, they can have very clean mesh details. But that’s not the real problem.
Here is the real problem and I’ll present it in a tutorial even you can understand.
When models are created with code-based modeling systems such as OpenSCAD, CadQuery, build123d, JSCAD, or Blender Python, the geometry is defined programmatically and then generated as a 3D model. Once the geometry exists, there is no inherent difference between a model produced from code written by a human and a model produced from code written by AI. The final object is determined by the instructions in the code, not by who or what wrote them.
You should really educate yourself on this premise, and then you may realize having a judge look at 200+ entries and trying to determine if it is ai generated is futile.
You may be able to eliminate the real junk AI, but it’s a naive and dangerous assumption you can eliminate all AI entries.
Im still here, reading every comment. That fact that your insinuating that i would be wasting my time creating fake profiles to write on a forum thread says more about you, than about me 
But to be honest, its very clear that people have different views on this matter - and people are entitled to this. But people seem to avoid the fact that the following quote is 100% correct:
This thread is very discouraging, from what i thought would be a fun experience hosting a contest. Remember, this is my hobby aswell, people are not paying to enter the competition, people are not paying to download my models.
I agree completely and I think you described it so well. There is something about the beautiful imperfections and diversity in wood that remind us of humanity. I spent my whole working career on front of screens and computers and what kept me sane was working with hand tools and physical Materials.
That’s not quite right – you’re glorifying AI. I have both of the AI generators mentioned here on my PC, and neither of them understands FDM. Besides, my question about whether you lacked that knowledge wasn’t an insult; it was sincere. It has now turned out that you do lack that knowledge. But that’s not a problem, because it’s something you can learn.
You also completely misunderstood the purpose of the guide: It’s aimed at beginners; it’s not a guide for experts - it’s a guide that anyone can use. Although I have been writing expert guides on this topic for decades, there is no point in publishing them here. There are other places that are better suited for that.
I think you’re underestimating me. I’ve trained quite a few AIs myself. I know the process. I use AI regularly for personal purposes. That’s why I know AI has no idea how to optimise models for FDM.
The problem is that you don’t know what defines an FDM-optimised print, which is why we’re not seeing eye to eye. The issue is whether an object can be printed on an FDM printer, not details or aesthetics.
Both Hunyuan3D 2.1 and Tripo are absolutely terrible at generating a 3D object that is appropriate for FDM. Try telling that AI you want a 3D model without support structures - in other words, ‘print in place’.
Designers can do it, but the AIs you mentioned are terrible at it. Really, give it a try.
You certainly have a lot of experience with AI - I’m not denying that - but you’re currently failing spectacularly to understand that AI isn’t trained at all to optimize for FDM printing - nor do you understand what that even means?
A designer knows what an overhang is - to give just one example - but an AI does not. The same applies to orientation. A designer will have in mind the orientation in which the print should be produced. An AI has no concept of orientation in FDM!
That’s what this has been all about the whole time - nothing else.
If AI were used as a sensible tool rather than a thoughtless shortcut, all this fuss would be unnecessary. You’re adopting a black-and-white way of thinking. No matter how often the idea comes up in this discussion, it’s not about eliminating AI;
To mention something positive for a change, here’s some example of what a professional designer does when they incorporate FDM printing from the start. Because I’ve noticed that, of course, everyone here has a different definition of “quality” or “FDM-friendly.”
Here is a paid model: This character has a bow; the designer knew that this would cause problems with FDM printing, so he split it professionally. Not the bow itself, but almost imperceptibly at the hands. Pay special attention to the joints.
After printing, the bow can then be attached to the actual character. (For illustration purposes, the lower body is not visible)
Here’s an example: Some models that doesn’t require supports - it’s “print in place.” The designer specializes in this: supportless, FDM-friendly
Here’s another example of supportless, FDM-friendly, this time painted:
As I said, anyone who has an AI on their computer can try to implement the “supportless, FDM-friendly” instruction - the AI won’t be able to do it.
Here’s another example of a model that cost me $10: The designer took the time to split the figure perfectly, and notice how each object was oriented for the FDM print. It might be a little hard to see, but I think you can see the principle that each object is printed in the optimal orientation. Also, what steps were taken to make the cut on the figure as unnoticeable as possible.
The ultimate challenge is manually setting up supports, which some designers do. This is something that an AI simply can’t do. Yes, at first glance it looks like resin support, but no, it’s actually the king of the hill in this field: customized FDM support.
What I’m showing here is simply in a whole different league. Something AI cannot do - at least not yet. In the bigger picture, by the way, this is also one of the reasons why people tend to avoid MakerWorld when it comes to miniatures.
Every true D&D fan laughs at the junk found on MakerWorld, though there are of course exceptions! They want quality because they’re passionate about it - they want to paint the figures and so on.
An AI can’t do any of the things I listed in this comment yet. Companies have absolutely no reason to optimize their AI for FDM - it’s still too much of a niche hobby.
I think that people that just blindly argue about how amazing the mesh generation tools are, aren’t actually that good of artist. Even as advanced as they’ve gotten, they’re still… not the perfection some like to make them out to be.
Even if the meshes are somewhat decent, they are not tailored towards FDM printing at all. For any number of reasons.
It’s also obvious from contest like this DnD one that people are dumping models with little thought, clean up, whatever. From when I looked, it was just, ugh. Like little kiddies with their first printer thinking they’re a big boy artist now because AI created all this stuff for them.
I was talking to one of my friends from the industry that does sculpting, and about what the tools can do these days. I was showing him how stupid (stupid good) these can be. How they essentially wreck the value of sculpting. This is one of the examples, ran this through Meshy6. first image is the original. Second image is they Meshy6 output.
I think a lot of people would be like cool, and roll with this, but there are issues. For one, the AI software can’t fully understand that it’s a corpse under his feet. We get a corpse like blob, but we also loose a lot of definition in the corpse.
The software can’t logically think through this stuff. You can’t just turn art into algorithms. Something is lost. Some level of human soul, emotion, the part of the artist that becomes the art.
Here’s the back side of the mesh. It looks surprisingly good, at glance. It doesn’t fully make sense though if you stop and look at it. The details feel right, but don’t actually show anything, like buckles, or how the bag opens. its vague mush that looks mostly like a bag
It also got the hand wrong in a bad way.
I could pull examples all day of the ways these tools mess little details like this up. Most people just gloss over this stuff. I think the people creating models that they’re sharing on Makerworld should be smart enough not to gloss over these kinds of things though and should at least make some effort into fixing these things.
I think the people that sit there and blindly defend AI just don’t get it, aren’t artist. They obviously don’t see the faults, or they willfully take a blind eye to them. This stuff is great, amazing, but it’s not perfect. It’s counter productive to sit there and act like we should all just give in and accept it, that we should accept the garbage being constantly shoveled at us.
I don’t care how close it is. These issues are still issues. In any real production environment where money exchanges hands, this would never be acceptable. In the game industry, you could never get away with just passing a mesh off straight like that. You’d get ripped apart.
The tools CAN be good, CAN produce good results, but the people that use them are not good artist, they don’t know what they’re doing. All they seek is attention, and they are taking the quickest and easiest path to it.
You can see it even in the way people act in that DnD contest. I remember a guy on there spamming “SHould I make this?!” "Should I make it multi-color?! “SHould I make it into a pen holder?!”
You look at the model he did generate though and it’s obvious that the dude understands nothing, and is just dumping models from whatever mesh generation tool he’s using. The tools aren’t making him a better artist. They’re just making it so he can pretend like he is.
You summed it up perfectly. That’s exactly it:
At the end of the day, AI is just a tool. A real artist can even edit an AI mesh to make it look good. For an artist, it’s just a tool.
For most people, though, it’s just a shortcut to points and attention. Back in the day, it was “script kiddies” who considered themselves professional hackers. Today, it’s “AI slop” they think they’re artists or FDM experts.
The problem is that these people are so convinced of themselves that they never learn what, for example, “FDM-friendly” means, or how a printer actually works - such as limitations, etc..
A little slice of life: I’ve already spoken to a few 3D artists who are open to the idea, and I asked them if it would make their work easier. The answer was:
“Well, not really. The models have so many flaws that it’s often not worth the effort. Besides, the rigging is missing, which accounts for most of the work.”
While rigging isn’t as much of an issue for us right now, it’s understandable that an artist would want to be able to move their characters into different positions.
That’s why most 3D artists avoid these AIs - because it’s an absolute nightmare to add rigging (skeleton) to them retroactively. That’s just something that no AI can do. But I think that goes a little too deep into the subject, but it’s exactly that knowledge that sets an artist apart.
That’s why, for example, I started learning Blender, but also training AI on my own. I mean, that’s what some people here are even calling for, but they fail at it themselves because it takes a ton of a lot of work to learn, years. Blender, in particular, is a real Pandora’s box.
In te context ot this topic: AI is useless without Blender - that’s just the way it is. Anyone who claims otherwise, I consider a “wannabe.” …and this time, people can really judge me arrogant on this this sentence: Because I have more respect for anyone who models a sphere in Blender and is willing to learn - than I do for AI slop spam.
They respect the medium. I love minis like this. They’re so well sculpted for FMD printing, the details, the shapes. You don’t have tiny little fiddly details that would be difficult to print, or support (if it did require it).
This is what a real “artist” is, does. This is what a real “designer” does, thinks about. It’s a respect for the work you’re creating, and the people you’re creating it for. A lot of these ai “artist” lack both of those things.
Even outside of AI, I see “designers” all the time that put no thought into how FMD actually works, how things are printed. Sometimes I see models with crazy supports, and it’s just like no. A few small adjustments, and you could have a much easier print, it’d be stronger, cleaner.
In my own design work, I avoid supports like the plague. I put a lot of thought into how I can construct things in a way to maximize part orientation for strength, and how I can break up parts in a way that makes sense, but maximizes strength and ease of print.
It’s not all just about making something pretty, especially if you’re a working artist. I want people to be able to print my stuff easily, I want them to have fun with it, I want them to feel confident with the models.
Let me quickly quote that sentence - I think it’s the best one that has described this whole topic for years. Not just when it comes to AI, but what 3D printing is all about. Even a beginner can tell from this whether a designer has put some thought into it.
I am so sorry you are angry, and frustrated about this conversation and that it’s making you so antagonistic. I am going to stop responding to this thread because it’s turning into a “I know more than you do” banter and really provides nobody with any enlightenment or greater understanding. I really hope you meet whatever goals you are trying to achieve and wish you the greatest success in trying to filter out AI submissions if that’s your immediate concern.
I’m not angry or frustrated - about what? Have you read my posts where I mention that I also use AI for private purposes, including the ones you suggested yourself?
I have no idea why you keep trying to make this personal and read emotions into it where there aren’t any. In fact, I backed up my point with a whole novel’s worth of facts, completely without emotion. Maybe it’s my emotionless writing that’s causing you problems, because it’s just so factual?
I’m just not the type to sugarcoat my writing.
You didn’t even understand what my goals are, even though I specifically wrote it in bold - how could you miss that? Although “goals” is the wrong word in this context - they’re more like wishes - everyone knows that Bambu is all about AI anyway, and that’s not going to change.
I imagine you were surprised to find out that people aren’t as universally opposed to AI as you thought. They even use it in their personal lives. However, they do have respect for 3D printing and are passionate aboutit, too.
Passion and dedication make the difference.
You should actually know that, since you call yourself an artist*. 
*Source your profil:
Beside: Whatever floats your boat.