Game tiles, or dungeon tiles, are a good way to add interest and immersion to a tabletop game. They give players an accurate three dimensional view of encounters and battles. Although miniature in scale, they make it easier for them to understand and imagine the environment that they’re in. They also let them see details that might be difficult to explain with just words.
There are many different systems of 3D printable dungeon tiles that you can use, each with their own style and flavor. No matter which one you choose, there are some things that you should know in order to successfully print them without issues.
This article is mostly intended for people who are new to 3D printing, or who haven’t printed anything like dungeon tiles before. Because of their shape, they can present some problems that you might not expect, like warping. I’ll go over what settings you should use to avoid any problems, as well as share some tips that will help you later when you eventually paint your tiles.
How To Avoid Warping
Most of the popular 3D printing filaments, including PLA, ABS, and PETG, can all warp if they’re not printed with the right settings. For this article I’ll focus on PLA, because it’s by far the most popular filament for 3D printing, and the one that most of you reading this article will probably use.
While different brands of PLA filament will have different optimal settings, they all usually require a heated bed of at least 40 degrees Celsius. Some print better at around 60 or even 70 degrees Celsius, like the kind that I use.
If the bed isn’t hot enough, then the plastic can lift off of the print bed as it cools. This is especially noticeable with objects that are longer, or have a lot of surface area, like dungeon tiles and walls. In the picture above you can see that the walls I printed have a distinctly bowed shape on the bottom. Those were printed with the print bed at 40 degrees Celsius, which was the recommended temperature for that type of filament, and they still warped.
I increased the bed temperature to 60 degrees Celsius, and it eliminated almost all of the warp. The slight warp is negligible for me, but if you really wanted to get it perfectly flat, you could increase the bed temperature to maybe 65 or 70 degrees Celsius. Again, these settings are for the specific type of filament that I used, which was Hatchbox PLA. If you use a different kind, your settings might need to be different, but I recommend that you start somewhere around 60 degrees Celsius just to be safe.
Layer Height And Detail
In most cases, a layer height of 0.2 millimeters is considered a normal resolution for 3D prints. Anything smaller is considered finer detail, and anything greater is considered rougher detail. Dungeon tiles and walls don’t usually have a huge amount of detail, so a fine resolution isn’t really necessary. A normal 0.2 mm layer height is just fine for both the floor tiles and walls.
If you’re worried about layer lines, then you could print it at a higher resolution, but as you can see in the pictures above, the layer lines aren’t terrible. They actually help to give the stones a rougher texture. If they were perfectly smooth, there wouldn’t be as much for the paint to catch on. Especially on the floor tiles, this helps to highlight the patterns on the tops of the stones.
The walls might benefit a bit more from an increase in detail. Because they’re printed vertically, the bricks show the layer lines a lot more than the floor tiles. In my opinion it’s not so bad, but I know that some people are very particular about layer lines and would like to avoid them if they can. Just be aware that increasing the detail will also increase the print time significantly.
Infill Percentage
For the first few tiles I printed, I used a 20 percent infill. I realized afterwards that was probably a bit excessive. Because these are game tiles that are meant to just sit on a table, they don’t need to be extremely dense or durable. A 10 percent infill percentage was good enough, and it didn’t cause any loss of detail or any other negative effects. A lower infill percentage will also reduce the time that it takes to print the pieces, as well as save your filament.
If you’re worried at all about strength or durability, then you might want to just change the infill pattern instead of increasing the density. A honeycomb or hexagonal pattern is a bit stronger than the default rectilinear pattern of infill. That way you can save on plastic and print time, and still have very strong pieces.
Print Speed
Speaking of saving print time, let’s go over print speed. A lot of times when people start out with 3D printing, they print a lot slower than they need to. The default is usually around 20 millimeters per second for the outer shells. This is fine in the beginning when you’re getting to know your 3D printer, but most printers can handle faster speeds.
For dungeon tiles and walls specifically, there isn’t a lot of intricacy, like bridges or overhangs. You can safely print the outer perimeters, or the outer surface, at around 30 millimeters per second. For the inner perimeter, or the part of the shell that is just behind the surface layer, I safely print them at 48 millimeters per second. You can experiment with these settings as you like to see what works best for your printer, but the main point is that you can print safely at faster than 20 millimeters per second. It will save you a lot of time if you plan on printing a lot of these.
Why Filament Color Matters
The color of plastic that you print these dungeon tiles and walls in kind of depends on what color you want to paint them. For regular stone or dirt type dungeon tiles and walls, you’ll probably coat them with either a gray, brown, or black primer. If you print your pieces with a black plastic and then spray it with black primer, it can be very difficult to see if you’ve coated the entire surface. This is especially true in the crevices between the tile squares. A lot of PLA plastics will have a shiny surface after printing, which isn’t usually what you want to see in areas like between the bricks on your walls, or between the floor tiles.
In general, it makes sense to print with a plastic that contrasts with the primer that you’re going to use. Bright colors tend to work well for this, or even clear filament. Anything that will let you easily see where you’ve painted and where you haven’t. This will help to make sure that you have good coverage even in places where it might be hard to see otherwise.
You might want to avoid colorful filaments for this, just because any unpainted surfaces will usually clash with the painted ones. This might not be a big deal for some people, but I personally wouldn’t want to have the undersides of my floor tiles and walls be a something like a bright purple color. You could always paint over the bottoms, but to me that’s an unnecessary use of paint. Something like a white or clear filament won’t contrast too much with the finished paint job.