The pricing model we’ve gone with is a flat $1.00 USD for each unique Tile.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve made a super-simple one, or something extremely elaborate; its all the same price. This way you get to concentrate on making the Tile you want, rather than getting distracted by increased prices.
In any case the prices are quite low; we certainly didn’t want cost to be a barrier to using the service.
The price is ultimately up to you though; I mean you could get away with re-using the same Tiles over and over to make your Assembly and wind up paying just a few dollars. Or you may be someone who will tinker and refine to get their optimal Assembly, and that could cost substantially more.
Tiles are composed of Elements (floors, doors, walls, props, etc; whatever you decide to place).
In your Assembly (environment) you’ll likely have multiple Tiles.
In the Builder Tool we compare Tiles to each other; those that have the same Elements, in the same number, are NOT considered unique. Everything else IS unique.
For example, let’s say you make a Tile using Floor A, and Wall B, and you compare it with another Tile using Floor A and Wall B; those are identical Tiles and are therefore NOT unique. If the second Tile had Floor A and 2x Wall B, then they would be unique Tiles.
Your purchase will let you download a .zip file with all the unique Tiles you’ve purchased plus a few items that get bundled with every purchase.
All files are digital, and are in .stl format. These .stl files are what 3d printers use as instructions for what to print.
The additional files include Risers (which allow you to increase the elevation of any Tile), and three different types of Connectors (which allow you to fasten Tiles together)
Your downloaded .zip file you can keep and print off the digital files as often as you want pretty much (read Terms and Conditions if you’re planning on selling them)
There will be a record of your transaction that you can access on the website, and if you go to My Account/Orders you’ll be able to download it again if need be.
Yeah, that’s something that’s on the radar. We’ll definitely want to find an affordable and reliable solution.
I’m not sure if the answer is to establish a network of trusted vendors that we can recommend for people to send their prints to, or whether its better to set up our own build farm and ship the prints out from here.
This project has been built by a skeleton crew; me on the art side and Yaro and his team at Ternala on the website development side.
I’m looking forward to the day when that number grows; where there’s a small team of people who can work on this with me.
I need marketers, writers, painters, 3d print techs, and who knows what else. I’m not in a position to pay anyone yet though. We’ll need to see how quickly this project catches on, and hopefully its successful enough that I can hire people.
If you really want to help out anyways, pay or not, then reach out to me and we’ll see what we can work out.
For the time being I’m all there is for Customer Support; hope to grow that number in the future of course.
I think a lot of questions will be answered if you first go through the How to Get Started section, and watch the videos and read the Quick Reference Guide.
If that doesn’t do the trick however, by all means you can reach out to me directly and I’ll help out however I can.
email: support@crackpotassembly.com
There’s also a #support channel in Discord
discord: https://discord.gg/Qz9FhgYrFc
For the time being I’m all there is for Customer Support; hope to grow that number in the future of course.
I think a lot of questions will be answered if you first go through the How to Get Started section, and watch the videos and read the Quick Reference Guide.
If that doesn’t do the trick however, by all means you can reach out to me directly and I’ll help out however I can.
email: support@crackpotassembly.com
There’s also a #support channel in Discord
discord: https://discord.gg/Qz9FhgYrFc
There are quite a few nuances to the way the Builder Tool works, and I’m fully aware that the videos and documentation I’ve provided may not be sufficient for everyone.
If you find that that’s the case I’m happy to show you the ropes through a virtual meeting (Discord, Zoom, etc). Additionally, it’d probably be a good idea if I were to schedule group calls where people can join in and ask questions, I can demo my workflow, and explain things.
Ideally everything would be so intuitive that this wouldn’t be required, but we’re not there yet. That’s one of the main purposes for Early Access; to establish how to make the experience as easy and intuitive as possible.
Every Element in the library has been tested for its 3d printing integrity. I use a Blender Addon that assesses each mesh, and I’ve run this on every Element before uploading them to the website.
That being said, once the Elements are combined in the Builder, and once they get exported there are going to be rare occasions when Slicing software perceives an error.
In my experience these errors have never stopped my printer from producing a clean print.
Rest assured that we’re looking into what we can do during the export process to remove errors altogether.
I have lots of ideas for new features, and I’m sure many more ideas will come from the community.
Here’s a short list of things I’d like to work towards:
- Contests for User-created Assemblies
- Contests for Painted Assemblies (it’ll be great to get some colour on the site)
- Mini-adventures with custom Assemblies (adventures that come with unique Tiles)
- Bundle purchases (so you don’t have to go through the Builder, but can buy directly)
- Polls to determine which new set of Elements will be built (Dark Fantasy, Gondorian, and any number of other possibilities)
The Builder tool is a work in progress, and will probably continually be tinkered with to improve ease of use.
Potential features:
- 1×2 or 2×2 Tiles rather than being restricted to 1×1
- Custom placement for props (so you can make micro adjustments)
- Translation of Tiles on the Grid (right now you need to delete and place again in a different spot)
- Group selection of Tiles (lets say you want to move everything over 1 square, or raise your group selection in elevation)
Join me for an online meeting where you can ask me questions directly, and where I can demo the site.
Meetings will be held virtually every Saturday from 10-11 PST.
Join the Crackpot Assembly Discord channel http://Discord https://discord.gg/Qz9FhgYrFc, then navigate to Voice Channels/General and I’ll be there along with some others hopefully. I’ll share my screen and it should be an easy way to clear up any confusion.
If that time doesn’t work for you, message me directly and we’ll see what we can work out.