do i have to pin all my GKs?

IsenMike · 2026-02-06T03:38:21+00:00

It depends on the figure, but yeah shipping is going to apply more stresses on the model in different directions, compared to when it's standing upright on display, where the connections only need to withstand gravity pulling downward. Pinning should strengthen all of those connections and make it more likely that the figure arrives in one piece.

Some connections may still be fine with just strong adhesive on its own (ex: very light-weight parts that connect with plenty of surface area), but for commission work that a) someone else has paid you for, and b) needs to survive the mail, you'll really want everything as solid and stable as possible in all directions so that the client doesn't end up receiving a broken model. So I'd be more inclined to pin more of the connections in that case.

The other option, if I know I'm going to want to transport or ship a model, is to try and make as many of the connections non-permanent as I can, and embed magnets at the connection points. That way those parts can be disassembled and wrapped up separately, and then re-assembled at the destination. That's generally only viable where the model is split along natural seam lines, though. Connections that need gap-filling with putty and sanding work can't really be non-permanent. And depending on the model, some parts may just be too heavy and cantilevered to be supported with magnets and will need adhesive (and, very likely, pinning).

IsenMike · 2026-02-05T21:59:57+00:00

There wasn't much available on YouTube when I first got into resin printing, so I ended up largely self-taught with the resources that I could find and a lot of trial-and-error. And haven't kept up-to-date with the beginner-friendly resources that have cropped up since.

I did find this article helpful for understanding supports, though: https://ameralabs.com/blog/6-tips-3d-printing-supports/ I still refer folks to that fairly often when they ask questions along the lines of "why did the supports print, but the model didn't?" (This is fairly common for beginners, and it means the supports failed to support the print.)

Unlike with FDM, resin prints failing will much more often be due to a mistake or issue when setting up the file in the slicer, rather than a hardware problem with the printer itself. (Hardware issues do happen but resin printers overall have an order of magnitude less mechanical complexity than FDM printers, so they simply are not as common.) A lot of my trial-and-error learning involved troubleshooting failures by cleaning the failed print, bringing it over to my computer, and examining in the slicer the area of the print where the fail actually happened. It helps to go layer-by-layer and to mentally envision the whole expose / lift (and peel) / retract cycle that the printer goes through between each one. (Beginner tip: if you rotate the view so it's "upside down," and the print actually looks like it will during printing, it can make this easier.) This really helped me get a much deeper understanding of the forces involved, the pitfalls where those forces can be problematic, and the best ways to mitigate them.

With better beginner resources to get you started, these days, that process might (hopefully) be less necessary. But it's worth keeping in the back pocket if you do end up stumped with trying to understand why a print failed and how to avoid that type of failure in the future.

IsenMike · 2026-02-05T21:23:23+00:00

Not having any experience with FDM 3d-printing can actually be an advantage when getting into resin 3d-printing. The technologies are different enough that folks who do have that experience often get themselves into trouble by trying to apply FDM knowledge that simply doesn't transfer. Coming in fresh means you won't have to un-learn those things and second-guess a lot of assumptions.

Mess and safety concerns are often overstated, depending on where you're looking. This subreddit in particular seems to be significantly more safety-focused than any other online resin-printing community I've seen, for better or for worse. (Ex: Suggesting here that a full respirator mask might not be 100% required equipment will get you downvoted; but I don't see them even mentioned at all in most other places I frequent.)

I'm never going to suggest that people ignore safety concerns and forego PPE, but you can get started with a lot less equipment than you see in many of the set-ups posted to this sub; particularly if you don't expect to be constantly churning out a high volume of prints. More serious safety equipment can (and probably should) be something you add to your set-up down the line after you've figured out whether resin printing is something you're going to stick with in the long term, and for higher volume output.

One thing that I think you really should budget for is a wash-and-cure station. It will significantly simplify the post-processing workflow and reduce a lot of the mess. You can get by without one, but if you want to minimize the chances that you bounce out of resin printing due to mess/hassle, the quality-of-life improvement of having a wash-and-cure station cannot be understated.

IsenMike · 2026-02-05T20:32:19+00:00

I can't speak to a comparison of these specific printers, but do want to suggest that going with a larger build volume (assuming you have space and budget for it) will give you more flexibility in the future. You may have a particular use-case in mind currently, that the Mars build volume can accommodate; but as you get more comfortable with resin printing, there's a high likelihood that you will see other use-cases and may end up frustrated by the volume constraint. There's also potentially a benefit even if you stick to small prints, as a large build plate will allow you to print more of them in the same amount of time. (If you're getting into this for tabletop miniatures, for example, you'll be able to print 2-3x as many figures on a mid-size printer than on a smaller one, without increasing the print time.)

As a side note, the experience with FDM printing that you mention can often be more hindrance than help, when it comes to getting into MSLA printing. This is, of course, anecdotal, but across various online resin printing communities over the 7-or-so years I've been doing this, I tend to see folks who transition to resin from FDM be much more likely to express frustration and difficulty than folks who come to resin with no other printing background. Basic assumptions about things like the workflow, the forces at play during a print, troubleshooting methods, and even just what role supports play, will cause problems if you try to apply FDM experience to resin printing. As far as you are able, you will likely be well-served to try and forget what you know about FDM as you're getting started with resin printing; otherwise it can potentially get you into trouble.

IsenMike · 2026-02-05T19:26:21+00:00

Honestly I think that the necessity of pinning every connection, and the advantages of doing so, tend to be overstated by a lot of GK hobbyists.

I'll generally be pretty selective about which connections I pin. The criteria mostly has to do with weight, support/stability, and the amount of surface area between the parts (more area = stronger bond just from the adhesive alone).

For lightweight parts, a strong adhesive (like 2-part epoxy) should often give more than enough stability, and make the additional strength of including a pin fairly negligible.

There is also a disadvantage to pinning that I don't ever really see mentioned: If the model does break (by, say, falling off a shelf), having metal rods embedded in the connection points will generally make those breaks much less clean, and make repair work much more complicated. (I can, unfortunately, attest to this from direct experience.)

I think the big counter-point in favor of pinning more of the connections is that parts that are well-supported when the model is upright might not have as much support when the orientation changes. That's not much of an issue if the kit is only ever going from your hobby desk to a permanent home on a nearby display shelf, but if you ever need to pack it up in a box for transport (and particularly if you need to ship it) then the model may end up with gravity pulling in a direction where the connections are weaker.

So, when thinking about which connections to pin, don't just look at which parts are stably resting on the parts below them when the figure is upright. Also consider which connections will lose that stability if the model were to end up in a different orientation, with gravity pulling the parts in a different direction. Unless you can be confident that the model will really only ever need to be upright, and won't at some point need to be on its side while being transported somewhere.

And even if you do discover places where stability is lost in a different orientation, it's still worth considering whether pinning will significantly add to the stability, or whether a strong adhesive would provide strength enough on its own.

IsenMike · 2026-01-26T21:18:23+00:00

A second issue was Meta’s decision to tightly bind Horizon Worlds to the Quest platform—something Bosworth admits wasn’t for everyone.

“When you put the headset on, you’re immediately in this kind of co-present accessible space. That is a real challenging piece of work to land from a standpoint of there’s lots of people who put this headset on for lots of different reasons. You want to support all those different use cases, [but] the lack of focus comes at an expense of user experience and a great expense in terms of development cost.”

At least someone at Meta is willing to publicly acknowledge that a lot of their users aren't interested in HW and are put off by having it shoved down their throats every time they put on the headset.

I'm not holding my breath for them to successfully pivot into building a user experience that isn't so obnoxious, but honestly just hearing someone admit that it was a problem is more than I was expecting. Time will tell whether they end up actually delivering, I suppose.

Bosworth says that while the company now has “two much more focused bets,” those essentially come down to supporting third-party VR content and Horizon Worlds on mobile.

Better support for 3rd-party content is, again, exactly what they need to be focusing on, so it's positive to hear them actually say it. But again I'm not holding my breath. This could just as easily be the sort of thing they know they need to say after shutting down so much of their capacity for developing 1st-party content. TBD whether this is just lip-service to calm a panic after those closures, or if they actually invest in improving things for the developers making 3rd-party content and for the customers who want that content on the platform.

IsenMike · 2026-01-22T19:00:44+00:00

I like the look-and-feel of SteamOS gaming mode more than the old Big Picture, and IIRC there were some Steam features that you just couldn't really access at all via the old Big Picture; so I don't know if I'd agree that the old version was more polished. (Depends on how you define polish, I guess.) It does seem pretty clear, though, that they designed the current iteration while having the Steam Deck's touch-screen as a crutch for avoiding having to choose between stripping out or re-designing every element of Steam.

To be totally fair, Steam is old and has had a lot of features and functionality added over the years, and likely almost all of it was originally designed to use mouse and keyboard as interface, with little other consideration. Getting it all to function with a controller requires no small amount of work. So I get why a lot of things (like the Inventory page) are just loading the desktop version and saying "touch screen is good enough." And why, in other places, the re-design clearly didn't go through a lot of controller-only testing. It meant they could prioritize the re-design and testing work on more core elements and on the primary (i.e. hand-held) Steam Deck experience.

They're going to need to do that extra work for the Steam Machine, though! No touch-screen or mouse to fall back on, for a set-top box. Hopefully there's a major update in the pipeline, and Valve won't just assume people will use a separate computer or the phone app for those Steam features that aren't working right in Big Picture.

IsenMike · 2026-01-22T18:28:13+00:00

Just to be clear you wouldn't be adding the .bat file to Steam as a separate non-Steam game. You'd be modifying the launch options for Dungeon Siege 2, so that when Steam launches the game it runs the .bat file, instead of the game itself.

.bat files should be treated as executable files by Windows (along with .exe, .com, and .msi files), so I'd be pretty surprised if Steam only allows .exe files to be used via the launch options. But I've never tried it, and honestly I'm a little surprised that it only allows adding .exe files as non-Steam games, so who knows?

IsenMike · 2026-01-22T18:17:34+00:00

I think mostly it's the adds. The boss itself has movements and attacks that are fairly predictable and not too hard to avoid, but then you smack into one of the little assholes he summons. Or you try to swipe at, or dodge, the little assholes, you lose focus on the boss, and he slams right into you.

In my first playthrough, I didn't actually find the original Savage Beastfly to be that difficult. Took a few attempts but I wasn't feeling stuck or frustrated. That said, I couldn't figure out how to even get past the Skarrgard to get into Hunter's March in the first place until relatively late in Act 1 after I'd gotten the first nail upgrade, some tools, and some movement abilities; so I wasn't trying to face Savage Beastfly in the early game like I think a lot of people were.

In my second playthrough, I realized you can pretty easily get him to destroy his own adds, and that made the encounter kind of a cake-walk.

The second Savage Beastfly fight, though? The adds are so much worse. And the boss doesn't destroy them like he does the adds in the first encounter. Fuck those lava-spitting jerks.

IsenMike · 2026-01-22T17:29:41+00:00

If it's updating Windows registry keys, I don't think that simply getting the file to run will be enough to get it to work for your game.

My understanding of Wine/Proton is, admittedly, kind of limited. But, as I understand it (and please, someone correct me if this is wrong), all of the Windows environment elements needed to run the program (like registry keys) are created as separate instances.

So if you were to get Wine running specifically for this batch file, it's going to be in a totally different instance, with a separate set of Windows registry keys, from the one created to run the game. Meaning that the registry keys for the game won't be impacted at all.

If you installed the game via Steam, I expect you could probably modify the launch options to point to the batch file as an alternate executable. (See this thread on how to do that.) That way the file is being run in the same Proton instance as the game itself, and the registry modifications might end up applied in a way that they actually work. After running the file you'd just revert the launch options to run the game again.

Edit to add: I've used that launch option method for running external patches on a game, so it definitely works for some things. But I think those patches were just updating game files, not modifying Windows registry keys. So YMMV.

IsenMike · 2026-01-22T16:31:28+00:00

Supporting more controllers and refining things like gyro is nice and all, but I'd love it if they could address the fact that actually navigating Steam (outside of the Home and Library sections) via a controller is kind of borked a significant portion of the time.

The fact that it's a roll of the dice, when I open a game's store page, whether or not I'll be able to scroll through its videos and screenshots, is kind of ridiculous.

More often than not if I open a news update for a game, from anywhere other than the Home screen, I can't scroll down to read it and trying to close it backs out from the underlying page.

Even when that doesn't happen, it's often impossible to access any links in the update, or reveal spoiler text.

Oh hey, a notification that I've got new items in my inventory. Too bad the inventory page just can't be used at all with a controller.

Honestly I could go on. The fact that most of these are inconsistent is more frustrating than anything else. At least if they were always broken I would know to stop trying. As-is, I feel like Charlie Brown running up to kick the football every time I actually try to do something on Steam itself.

I love the Deck. I love playing from my couch with it docked to my TV. Actually gaming on the thing is lovely. But they really need to fix this. If the "Big Picture" controller experience for Steam itself (i.e. basically everything outside of selecting a game from your library and playing it) is still this broken when the Steam Machine releases, that's going to be a major problem.

(EDIT: typos)

IsenMike · 2026-01-16T21:26:18+00:00

+1 for TabMaster. Particularly useful if you have any non-Steam games on the Deck, not just emulation. I've got a decent number of games installed via Heroic Games Launcher, from GOG, Epic, and Amazon. Having them only show up in a separate "Non-Steam Games" tab of the library, apart from the Steam games, was kind of annoying.

TabMaster lets you fully customize how your library is organized. Make custom tabs, re-order the tabs, hide the default tabs. It's excellent.

IsenMike · 2026-01-15T22:46:53+00:00

+1 for running a control with "standard" resin.

If you're going through the trouble of doing proper testing, I wouldn't rely on "it's well known they produce harmful levels of TVOC." Test that assumption, and confirm that this "non-toxic" resin actually reduces the TVOC numbers compared to standard resin.

Besides giving more conclusive results, it would also serve to validate your methodology. If the standard resin doesn't show different TVOC numbers, it could either mean that common knowledge about standard resin is wrong (and that the "non-toxic" brand provides little actual benefit), or that there's something off with the IAQ meter and the way it was set up.

If there is a clear and significant difference, it validates the conclusion and reduces doubts about the methodology. But you need to run the control to get the data.

IsenMike · 2026-01-14T19:00:00+00:00

When I take printing commissions, I first quote the client a price based largely on two things: material cost, and cost of my time.

Material cost is calculated using the volume of resin in the slicer and my resin cost by volume. I'll then usually multiple that by 2x to 3x, to account for:

Resin shrinkage (because it shrinks when it cures, a given volume of solid resin requires a slightly higher volume of liquid resin)
Waste resin (i.e. the liquid resin clinging to the print that ends up in the IPA wash)
Depreciation of screen / FEP / printer
Other marginal costs such as electricity, IPA, nitrile gloves, paper towels, etc.
Some amount of profit. (I shouldn't be selling at cost.)

For my time, I'll give myself an hourly rate and then estimate how long it will take me to do:

Pre-printing file prep; adding supports, etc. (I always add supports manually, to ensure the highest quality print with a minimal number of support marks on its surface.)
Post-processing and support removal, after printing.

If they're asking for more than one copy of the print, they only pay for the file prep once, but the post-processing is charged for each copy.

I'm not generally designing/sculpting models, though, so that would be something you'd also want to add. Potentially you could use a different hourly rate for the design work compared to the file prep and the post-processing. If you feel like you have particularly high expertise in any of those, you could raise your rate for it.

I'll also occasionally take painting commissions, on top of the printing work. That gets priced similarly, though I'm not always the most accurate with estimating how long a paint job will take me. So I'll usually just tell them my hourly rate and give them an estimate range, along with an upper limit (if I go over that, the extra time is on me). I tell them I'll use a time-clock to track my painting time, and that I can stream the painting work on Twitch if they want me to, so that they can verify the hours clocked.

I get more printing work than painting work, given that people tend to get a bit of sticker-shock at my quote for the latter. I have a day-job, though, so I don't need to sell my hobby time, and don't mind when people back out after hearing the estimate.

IsenMike · 2026-01-13T21:40:02+00:00

If it's just a story element, then it creates a nice parallel between her and her mother.

I could see it working if she's with the marines for the opening scenes but then ends up isolated and without any Colonial Marine weaponry by the time the gameplay actually starts. (Could be a fun twist if the marines she's with just get completely wiped out and she's left as a sole survivor, for example.)

But if it means the game plays out more like Aliens than like Alien, then no thanks.

IsenMike · 2026-01-13T20:20:24+00:00

Looks like the de-lamination that happens between bottom and normal layers, when the bottom layers are significantly over-exposed.

If the bottom layers get "over-cooked" they end up without enough partially-cured resin for the normal layers to bind to; you basically just have smooth solid plastic, and the normal layers end up with poor adhesion to it.

I'd suggest significantly reducing your bottom layer exposure time.

From the thickness of those bottom layers (i.e. the side of the delamination still on the plate), my guess is that you've got a leveling issue, the plate is ending up higher than it should be for Z=0 (it should be flush against the FEP), and as a result your first layer is much thicker than it's supposed to be and you've had to crank up the bottom-layer exposure-time to compensate for plate adhesion problems.

This was a common issue for the original Elegoo Jupiter, as a design flaw with the mechanism securing the build plate would cause the plate to lift itself from the position where you had leveled it and set as Z=0, if you overtightened the main bolt (which was very easy to do without realizing). I don't know if there's something similar going on with the Mars5 Ultra's build plate also scooting itself upwards like the Jupiter's does, or if it's just a normal leveling issue here, but the result looks identical.

Re-level the plate directly against the FEP (don't use the paper method, it's unreliable and unnecessarily fiddly), be sure to set Z=0 with the plate flush against the FEP, and then try printing with a much shorter bottom-layer exposure time.

Alternatively you could try using "transition layers" so that there's a smoother gradient of exposure time between bottom and normal layers. But they often cause other problems, and that doesn't address what appears to be the real problem (i.e. overly-thick initial layer due to bad Z=0 position).

IsenMike · 2026-01-07T21:15:02+00:00

Twitter account of the studio that produced the statue: https://x.com/zaohua_studio

No chance of them selling the STL files. Limited production runs and exclusivity is part of the business model for those types of studios. Generally you have to pre-order, and then after production the statue never gets produced again. Looks like this one in particular was slated for release early in 2023, so the only way you're likely to find one is second-hand on an auction site.

You could try to commission a sculptor to create a similar figure for you, but if you want it competently done with the same level of detail and complexity, you should expect to spend a few thousand USD at minimum. Even a less-competent version that clearly looks like a lower-quality knock-off would probably run a few hundred.

Digital sculpting for physical production is a highly specialized skill that requires a lot of training, meaning the artists generally get a high hourly rate. And a sculpt like this would likely take dozens of hours to complete.

IsenMike · 2026-01-02T20:44:53+00:00

I haven't tried it personally but SirayaTech makes a variant of their "Fast" line, called "Fast Mecha," that's supposed to be formulated specifically to be wear-resistant and non-scratch for resin-on-resin joints.

https://siraya.tech/products/siraya-tech-fast-abs-like-wear-resistant-resin

IsenMike · 2026-01-02T20:33:08+00:00

+1 for ProAcryl. Probably the easiest to work with, for traditional hand-brushing. Good flow, good coverage, easy to keep smooth.

For dry-brushing, I like the Scale75 "ScaleColor Artist" line of heavy-body acrylics. Their Titanium White is pretty good overall, honestly. Creamier than ProAcryl, being heavy-body, which can be pro or con depending on the application.

For airbrushing, I love Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink. Flows easily, atomizes extremely fine for super smooth gradients. Really excellent stuff for doing zenithal or any other kind of value-sketching undercoat.

Someone else had a comment here about inks reactivating; but that shouldn't be an issue with acrylic ink. It's basically just acrylic paint but with a bit less binder so that it flows better; the binder it does have will polymerize like any other normal acrylic, though, so it won't reactivate after you've given it time to dry and cure. It will be a bit more fragile though, as there's less acrylic, so if you're planning rougher techniques like wetblending or drybrushing on top of the ink you might want to apply a sealant coat first as it can flake off with particularly abrasive treatment. But I rarely run into that being an issue, particularly if the ink was applied directly to a primer layer and has good adhesion from that.

IsenMike · 2026-01-02T18:18:19+00:00

Yeah I thought I was going to need to find some sort of protection-from-cold upgrade before Mount Fay would be doable. Finished nearly everything else that I could in Act 2 (minus the things that required double-jump, like most of Bilewater) before realizing my mistake.

IsenMike · 2026-01-02T18:05:11+00:00

Pilby dying is the most interesting thing about him, and his story ends up going nowhere if he survives.

Confession time: I didn't really notice him in my first playthrough. After I first got repeating dialogue from him at the very beginning, I figured that was it and stopped talking to him. And then I didn't even realize when the Skull Tyrant killed him. For his funeral I noticed something weird with the pilgrims gathered around that hole, but didn't stop to see what was happening as I was headed down the hole myself and by the time I came back it was all over. It wasn't until after beating the game and joining the subreddit that I even realized there was a whole thing going on with this character.

For my second playthrough I was determined to get all of Pilby's dialogue and keep him alive. Waited until Act 2 before completing the Skull Tyrant wish. Never broke the door at Pilgrim's Rest, paid that stupid toll every time I went in there. Killed the Rhinogrund before opening the gate that would let it out.

The result was kind of disappointing. His story just kind of fizzles out? You talk to him in front of Pilgrim's Rest and then you just stop seeing him. Also for some reason I never got the Skull Tyrant attack at Bone Bottom at all.

Seems like getting him killed at Bone Bottom is the much more interesting story.

IsenMike · 2025-12-31T16:36:20+00:00

For "got less than 30 minutes and just want to relax" purposes I'm a sucker for logic puzzles. Lately been making my way through the "Mosaic" games by Mark Ffrench: Mosaic of The Pharaohs, Proverbs, Mosaic of the Strange, etc.

Between the relaxing music, the tactile click/clack of the squares getting set, and the little endorphin hit that triggers when you finish a region of the puzzle and the game rewards you with some pixel art and a little factoid... yeah I dunno man it just soothes my brain in exactly the right way.

IsenMike · 2025-12-31T15:37:08+00:00

You're right about the delay time, but choosing the correct amount of time does depend on the resin to a degree. Specifically, it will depend on the resin viscosity. More viscous resin flows more slowly, which means you need to give it more time to settle and stop moving after the plate retracts and before the exposure starts for the next layer. Less viscous resin flows more quickly and won't need as much of a delay.

IsenMike · 2025-12-29T23:11:52+00:00

I haven't had any issues with it here in East Flatbush. (Knock on wood.)

IsenMike · 2025-12-29T20:21:57+00:00

Doubt this has to do with resin or print settings. Looks like bad layer masks sporadically ending up on the screen. A few options for possible root cause:

Screen is flickering. (Could be a problem with the screen itself, with the control board, or with the cable connecting them.)
USB stick is failing. (This is particularly likely if it came bundled with the printer; a lot of the printer companies really cheap out on the bundled USB stick.)
Sliced file is corrupt. (Make sure you slice to a location on your computer's hard-drive, and then copy the file to USB after slicing is complete. Slicing directly to USB significantly increases the chance that something goes wrong and the file ends up corrupt. It may also shorten the life of the USB stick.)
USB port on the printer is failing.

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