Hi All,
I’m modelling a trex and really want to get scale detail like this in blender… the output will be a 3D print…
At the moment I have this but prefer the above. Any pointers on how to achieve this would be much appreciated…
Cheers 
Free up your next few days and get sculpting.
Also, keep in mind that unless you’re printing a rather large (and expensive) maquette, it’s likely that all of that scale information will be lost anyway.
you could add some voronoi proc text with bumps
but for the big bumps need to sculpt I guess
happy bl
In other software you can load greyscale images as pencils. A greyscale image in shape of a scale for example. Even Sculptris has it.
Not sure about Blender though. Manual doesn’t even mention the load image as brush button at the bottom of the sculpt toolset. And this button doesn’t load my brush image. No error message or something, but it doesn’t arrive.
Thanks guys … the sls print material will show 0.4mm surface detail so a lot of this will show… The resolution on that trex example must be 6 + subdivisions for that kind of detail 
?
I don’t mind doing the work if that’s the correct method…
do a voronoi texture, then bake that to an image file, then modify it in an external painting program like gimp to get the big ones, or sculpt those areas in and leave the normal map neutral in those areas.
Just seen your post Tiles… that’s what i was hoping that there was some way of making a scale texture brush within blender… if anyone knows it’ll be someone on here
do a test first with proc texture and show us how it looks
then you might do some sculpting
happy bl
Will look into proc text although i have no idea what that is right now… also where is the voronoi texture option I couldn’t find it…
Also i tried upping the resolution to sculpt better scales by the shapes are not very natural using the dots tool…
A voronoi based texture for the brushes should make wonders too as mentionned before.
Here’s a screenshot on an example on how to set one as a brush for a sculpt , after that you can play with the settings to see if the result could be better :
edit : too slow
Wow! Thanks all… Richard/Santuary that looks spot on… - Ricky thank you for that node diagram i’ll give that a go too - Cheers lads will post the results asap… The texture brush is done in sculpt mode or presumably texture paint mode? also I’ve got the voroni texture up on screen but how to you apply it to the model? sorry for the newbie questions
edit: just re-read properly and its a brush in sculpt mode - doh! - will give it a play
You can assign the texture brush in sculpt mode.
Then for the brush you have selected, in the toolshelf panel (left of 3dview) , scroll down until the Texture tab, click on the big square and select the brush you defined (you can define several brush textures if you want)
Thanks dude! - a very quick test came up with this so i’m definitely on the right track - much appreciated, i’ll post the results up once i’ve had a proper go…
Clearly it is doable with sculpting, but a texture based solution ( bump map ) combined with a little sculpting, would look smoother without adding millions of polys. You can also use textures as a brush in texture paint mode.
But will the texture method work with 3d printing? I thought the point was to print the detail, so sculpting is the method that I would think would work.
As for the method - setting up procedural brushes for different size scales, starting with the smaller ones and then increasing up will help make sure you have total coverage and are not stuck trying to fill spaces later.
Ive just started an internship at a 3D print company so it’s a test project for me to see exactly what comes out. As the head is almost finished i might ask them to do a test print with it. With regards to the detail - I was going to ask that myself about whether the sculpting will translate well in the print… I’ve printed an character before and a lot of detail is lost especially if the printer has to wrap the stl first (as they need one shell) to make the model print ready.
will look into bump maps to find out what that doesn’t different to the texture brush?
Thanks for the tip Craig - The problem I’m having is trying the get the texture to ‘stamp’ on evenly (sometimes its higher contrasts other times subtle) as I can’t drag the pointer because it drags the texture.
Yes, bumps, textures and all visual stuff that is only in render result, not real geometry, are useless and waisting time (including shading smooth) when 3d-printing.
My advice is, don’t rely on the 3D printer software to make your mesh watertight. It rarely (if ever) does an acceptable job. Grab a copy of ZBrush, or the free trial, merge all of your objects into a single subtool, dynamesh at a level that retains your details, and then hit it with decimation master to get it to a level that isn’t a nightmare to work with in terms of file size.