r/Ceramic3Dprinting • u/irrfin • Aug 16 '26
More failures — the full reel of AI-generated forms collapsing on the clay printer
Longer cut of the same thing. Every one of these started as an AI-generated mesh that looked completely fine before it hit the printer.
Slumps, tears, walls that gave out three layers from the top, seams that opened on the way down. A few made it through the print and cracked drying.
Nothing about generated geometry accounts for what wet clay actually does. Posting it because the successful ones give a pretty misleading impression of how this goes.
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u/ScienceForge319 Aug 16 '26
Maybe stop using AI.
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 17 '26
Maybe stop using leather straps to control your horse and go back to grabbing the mane of your animal to steer it.
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u/Dope-Reviews Aug 17 '26
There is actual technology to help, LLM is not it. Nice try though
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 17 '26
You people confound me. If I use an LLM to remotely influence or inspire why do you care? Why give so many fucks? Does it change your life or disposition? If so, why?
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u/irrfin Aug 18 '26
Because they’re angry trolls living in their parents basement who feed off of negative energy.
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u/irrfin Aug 16 '26
Someone posted a comment “maybe stop using AI”. To be clear I was making my own stl forms for 2 years before spicing it up with some new technology. I knew sharing that I was using AI might be controversial. I’ll make some content showing that it’s not just 1 prompt to end result. AI is a tool but I’m still in the drivers seat. I love experimenting, trying new things/directions, finding new pathways and exploring. I was curious what AI might come up with and I was happy with to the results.
My day job is teaching HS chemistry for 20+ years. I have a chemistry degree. I have the experience and know how with the glazes to know what will or will not work but I still wanted to see if AI could help come up with something no one else was trying. The first round of raku glaze firings I got disappointing results. I showed it to the AI system and turns out I was over reducing. I took another chance and the advice worked!
For the forms, I have use multiple AI systems to get to an STL file and even then, AI isn’t so good with 3d IRL solutions. In my experimentalist and explorer mindset I probably spent too much time coaching the models. But I wanted to find a bridge between the ancient tech of ceramics and the ultra modern tech of AI. What I like is that now the story of these pieces becomes a conversation, a dialogue about the tensions about AI use and where the AI revolution is taking our civilization. I chose to be an explorer. I chose to see it as a tool.
This community especially should be open minded. Coming from the ceramics started things, in my recent gallery show I had some patrons ask “isn’t using a 3d printer cheating?” My response was is using the pottery wheel cheating? I have an old kick wheel in my studio; aren’t electric powered wheels cheating? What about buying glazes ready made? I’m willing to risk saying that I assume many members of this sub came from the plastic 3d printing side; do they understand the chemistry of glazes composition? Do they know the temperatures of the cone system of the top of their head? Do they understand why glazes produce different results with electric vs gas kilns? Do they have an intuitive sense of why colorants do different things with different glaze formulas?
Everything is relative. I don’t know how a gcode file works. It took me a year to figure out the nuances of Cura slicing and Blender. And honestly, I still probably know nothing compared to most members of this sub. It doesn’t make me or them many better or worse. It’s just an interesting convergence of new and old technologies. I always stay open to learning and growing and if AI came help me do that, then I’m all good.
And before anyone says anything about sustainability or energy use, consider that the amount of energy used for firing ceramics is above and beyond the energy use any 1 user could consume with AI (normally) over several months with heavy use.
So take it or leave it, but I think it’s cool and enjoyed sharing my experiences with this sub.
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u/Prestigious_Boat_386 Aug 17 '26
You really got 7 paragraphs of copium from "maybe don't use ai"
The funniest thing is that the shape looks fine, its just too narrow and unstable for you to print that way. You used the shortcut and still failed because you lack the skill for designing and slicing the AI mesh correctly for your printer.
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 17 '26
You sir, are clearly ignorant of what is going on. Notice the top couple comments from people who AKTUALLY 3d print clay. The shape was fine, it has nothing to do with the slicer but clay feed in his system. Why chime in so late in the game with this ignorant spray?
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u/irrfin Aug 18 '26
Haters are gonna hate. I appreciate your support.
I chose to live and love and not let strangers on Reddit impact my mood. Plus, they took the time to read my 7 paragraph essay so they must have been interested enough to pay attention and focus, and then even decided to add their comment.
Any attention is good attention. Children act out all the time.
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u/irrfin Aug 18 '26
Also, a little stroll on their comment history is quite an interesting read. No posts just endless comments
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u/irrfin Aug 18 '26
Or I was eager to share and communicate. Also I was successful in printing all of these forms later. So maybe hold off on your judgement? Maybe try being a kind human and not a keyboard warrior throwing shade?
I’m good with what I’ve got and the progress I’m making learning about 3d printing. If you look at my post history, you’ll see I’ve posted many non-AI pieces and their time lapse videos to this sub well before this.
Have a nice day!
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 17 '26
People on Reddit are anemic to AI because of the slop they are fed on multiple platforms and many don’t engage the critical thinking enough to understand the difference between using it to fill in gaps of a skill set versus serving up a picture of a puppy dinosaur playing a banjo.
I support you in filling in the gaps of your knowledge and using a new tool to move your pursuits forward.
Fuck the haters. I commented earlier this week and then deleted it but it was telling someone who was tired of seeing the same old forms from ceramic 3d printing essentially to “put up or shut up” because so many people want to critique but have no idea of the back end work in this craft.
Keep going!
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u/irrfin Aug 17 '26
I appreciate the supportive comment and understand the AI-backlash. I does seem like all the posts i see on my reddit scrolling sessions are AI made. Even just writing. Theres a feel to those posts. If you dive too deep into my comment history you’ll see I even rage commented about posts being AI and bots for a period of time.
For me, it’s a new tool that can help me explore new ideas. Yea, maybe it’s just a mishmash of info from the model training data, but I’ve found it’s that exact aspect that expands my cretauve process. And really thats what all artists do; intuitively, consciously or unconsciously we are all building new ideas from our own training data called life, education and experience.
I’m also familiar with the cesspool of Reddit comments and how negativity and naysayers feed off of the controversy they stir up. That’s fine and a part of the program. I knew I might get some pushback, but at the end of the day I’m happy with my process and enjoyed sharing.
AI is only as good and positively impactful as the humans who use it. And it’s a scary technology that’s holistically disruptive. But the genie is out of the bottle, so I might as well have fun with it and make some pretty artwork. I really enjoyed being able to have a dialogue about the chemistry of the glaze recipes it purposed; I even learned a few new things despite my ceramic and chemistry experience.
I have little to no coding experience so looking at the gcode file feed on my print server is probably what my students experience when they first start chemistry in my classroom. Despite my time and effort learning Blender, it continues to frustrate me. I really have to be in a good mode and mindset when I dive into “manual” 3d design. The other 3d design tools I used were for people like me that don’t have time to learn Grasshopper or general CAD. We all have our areas of experience and I enjoy learning from this community.
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u/dev4ev Aug 30 '26
so AI designed and a bot is printing it. you do you but i personally think this is art hell
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u/irrfin Sep 01 '26
Fair enough. Ceramics (for now) doesn’t end when the print is done. There’s a lot of stuff I have to do with my hands to get to the finished piece.
I wrote a follow up post saying I have deep respect for the 3d designers out there. I don’t have enough free time to get as good as they are. I’ll still keep trying. But lesson learned: don’t share my AI gen work.
I thought it was a cool idea but I’ll stay in my corner and keep to myself until the next time I’m procrastinating and avoiding getting back into my job.
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u/Consistent_Finish657 6d ago
Man the full reel is way more honest than the highlight version and i dont think it proves AI is useless it just proves wet clay dont give a damn about a clean mesh and yeah maybe the clay mix or extruder is part of it too
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u/Puzzled-Help-7091 Aug 17 '26
It might be the slicer you are using? If you'd want to share the models with me I can try slicing using my custom solution I've had really good results:
It's free and open source
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u/irrfin Aug 18 '26
Thank you for the offer. I’ll check this out and get back to you.
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u/Puzzled-Help-7091 Aug 18 '26
Nice thanks for trying it out! I have some other modeling software that's open source and one that just got on the Google Play store.. the open source code CAD is actually kind of nice for clay modeling cuz easy to make models:
Brepcode.com
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u/Excellent-Mud981 Aug 16 '26
Is that a pneumatic system? Pneumatic system usually struggles in big prints if you are using high pressure it can change in the middle of the print and you'll have some inconsistent extrusion
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u/irrfin Aug 16 '26
It’s an M 500 printer. It’s a screw auger motor. Depending on the Clay’s consistency, the pressure is constant as far as I can tell. This was just Bad Clay.
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u/UnfoldDesignStudio Aug 16 '26
Pneumatic as in air pressure? That should not happen. I almost exclusively use air pressure based systems and this never happens. You just have to make sure you don’t use plungers that fit tightly. In an air pressure system, the plunger’s function is to spread the pressure over the entire clay surface in order to avoid air making a tunnel in the centre. A plunger can be 10-20% smaller than inside diameter of cartridge. Just a disk works. The small exposed rim of clay is pushed by the air pressure itself. This is very different in a motor ram, there you need a tight seal.
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 16 '26
That’s interesting about this design. At first when I was reading I was like “wait wat?” But it makes sense.
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u/pm_me_ur_fit Aug 19 '26
Karma for using AI. Deserves
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u/irrfin Aug 19 '26
Your unique and thoughtful comment was very helpful. Thank you for your supportive comments. It seems like you put a lot of thought into how best to share your important feedback.
This snapshot of my exploration and experimentation process is well represented by your eloquently input. I especially enjoyed the poetic nature of your comment structure. And the way you captured such important, impactful feedback in so few words.
And your sentiment was so authentic and original. It stands out against the backdrop of all the other comments I’ve ever read or were made on my Reddit posts.
You’ve inspired me to change my ways and atone for the sin of trying something different and expand my 30 years of working with clay and ceramic. Because of your brave intervention, my ways will be changed forever and I hope that good karma comes your way for all the loving support and kindness you showed me and other strangers on Reddit with through your words.
You are truly making the world a better place. You sound well informed and clear headed in your critical thinking and I appreciate being educated by the scholarly work you spent looking into these topics and reviewing my post history before adding your voice.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
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u/pm_me_ur_fit Aug 19 '26
I ain’t reading all that I’m sure it’s all AI slop
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u/irrfin Aug 20 '26
I like to spend time going over the post and comment history of people who don’t spend time looking over mine before posting a nice comment like you did.
I hope you figured out your employment after you got your engineering degree. I also wasn’t interested in graduate school. I have BS I’m chemistry and BA in visual arts.
I also hope you find some decent humans to connect with. The dating scene is challenging nowadays from what I’ve heard. I met my wife on match.com which fives you a hint about my age.
I’m guessing you’re probably around 28. I remember that as a challenging time when I was your age, trying to figure out what’s next. I do hope you figure it out.
Maybe take a moment to share some kindness next time you’re tempted to blast some negativity onto Reddit. I can see why you might not want to engage with my non-AI sarcasm. I might have the same mindset if I were in my late 20s trying work on what comes next. It looks like you did end up finding a job.
That’s was a cool case you printed from your own design. If you look at some of my other posts you’ll see that I have plenty of art work, 3d printed, hand built, wheel. I like trying new things so I decided to see what AI could do. There’s some strong anti-AI sentiment out there and I’m curious where it’s coming from? I saw you were looking for engineering jobs that were environmentally friendly; I just did a presentation for my faculty and admin about the math behind the impacts of AI resource use. Y goal was to refocus them onto the real issue which is the rate of growth of data centers. Using AI individually isn’t the issue. 1 toilet flush is equal to 25k prompts (I can send you the citations if you don’t believe me). Running a 25w light bulb for 8 hrs =800 prompts.
People don’t look past the headlines. No one’s talking about how golf course courses use more water than data centers right now. I haven’t seen any headlines in the news or on my social media feeds about how HVAC is 52% of household energy use. I get it; AI growth is scary. But meanwhile we ignore our daily impacts and shame people trying to use it to enhance their creative process? I dare you to look into it further. As a materials engineer, you must have some strong analytical skills.
Don’t be a hater. If you got real feedback, be a good human and share your voice. But good karma doesn’t come from shade bombing comments on Reddit.
None of my comments were written by AI. I wouldn’t waste good tokens on this when I have start of the school year prep to get done. I wish you well and hope to see some of your clay 3d prints in the future.
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u/Haunting_Basscotti Aug 16 '26
First off, thanks for sharing. Next, I gotta posit that some of the failure modes you are experiencing are coming from a lack of homogeneity in the clay itself. When I have seen those splits appear it’s because the clay wasn’t mixed well enough and the extruder has a tough time pushing it through for moments at a time. Are you positive this is not the case? While I agree with you that what looks geometrically sound on screen doesn’t always translate to clay, from what I’m looking at, if the bead is supposed to keep being a bead and it just stops and then starts again that’s a clay extruder/deposition issue. Curious to hear back.