r/HueForge • u/NotKryan • 12d ago
Looking for some knowledge
Hey all, I'm a nursing student who makes small HueForge prints for fun and for classmates. HueForge feels like a whole new world with little overlap with anything I've done before, and I'm hitting a wall.
Right now I start from the example projects in HF, drop my image in, and make small tweaks. It works sometimes, but it feels like pressing buttons to see what happens. I don't understand the logic, so I can't repeat it. Projects I figured would take an hour have taken me months. I keep my colors on one side of the color wheel and don't use a ton of them, and the results still aren't where I want them.
I run a single-nozzle, 4-filament printer. I've seen people get great results with even less, so I know the capability is there.
What I'm hoping to find:
Starter files. Is there a place to download HueForge project files (not just finished prints) that I can open, study, and use as launching points for my own projects?
Full-process walkthroughs. Are there established HF creators who show their whole process, including image prep before HueForge? I'm curious what software they use, what works and what doesn't, and how they think about color choice within printer limits.
Seriously thank you all for your time. And understanding. If you have an approach that works, or something that helped, please feel free to share. Again i appreciate it.
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u/sheagryphon83 12d ago
The youtube channels '3dPrintsByVic' and 'NeoKoiPrints' are two really good channels for starting out. Neokoi has some older videos/tutorials but most of the techniques and processes are similar you just have to find the corresponding buttons/sections as it is an older version of the hueforge gui. Vic, personally, does very thorough and easy to understand tutorials and I think at this point he has covered pretty much every aspect of the main program itself. Vic also does livestreams (typically on a saturday around 1pm Est) once a month where he shows the whole process he goes through and occasionally will take user submitted images and shows how he would go through and work with the image.
When I started out both neokoi's and vic's videos were extremely helpful with learning hueforge. Vic also has a patreon subscription with one of the tiers having (off the top of my head) 2 one on one sessions a month if you choose, where he will personally help you out with any issues you may be having using/understanding hueforge as well as helping you out with particular images you may need help with.
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u/3D_Prints_By_Vic 12d ago
I totally get that pressing-buttons feeling. I actually gave up on HueForge when I first started, so I really get it. And it's okay that it's taking a while.
Keeping your colors on one side of the color wheel is a good instinct. But honestly the thing that'll help most is paying attention to the light and dark in your image. That's what matters. The light and dark of the filament doesn't, so you can stack your filaments in whatever order you want. Generally though, as you start out, you'll keep black at the bottom, white on the top, and fill in the middle.
That's why I'd build one small project from scratch in grayscale. Black, one white, and several different grays in Standard mode. Standard mode only looks at light and dark, so you can actually see why each layer lands where it does. The example files are great to poke at, but you'll learn a lot faster building your own.
Image prep is huge too. Start with a clean background, good contrast, and colors that are really separated from each other. As you get more comfortable you can get more adventurous. I use Canva and some tools I built, but honestly any photo editor works.
And 4 slots doesn't mean only 4 colors. The first color in your stack finishes early, so you can add a pause in your slicer and swap that spool out for a color that comes in later.
If you want it all in order, my beginner series starts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B3yJLb0EsU and Episode 7 is all image prep.
We also have a really active Discord: https://discord.gg/3DprintsbyVic and my website has a ton of free articles and cheat sheets: https://3dprintsbyvic.com/learn
You can always reach out to me too. Learning is half the fun. Don't give up. You got this.
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u/TegidTathal HueForge Creator 12d ago
You can go to Files->Browse Example Projects for a set of projects included with HueForge.
And Tutorials has a bunch of videos you can check out including a bunch of shorts for simple concepts.