How to smooth a mesh for 3D printing (subdivide introduces ugly ripples and kinks) so I've done a few days of research and tried a bunch of things and I'm at a loss.
I'm trying to fix up this mesh for 3D printing:

In Blender, the highlighted mesh on her body looks smooth. But once exported to STL and in the slicer, the edges are sharp along the mesh edges. So I want to smooth it out. I looked up online, and people say to subdivide with (smooth: 1.0). I tried that, from subdividing once to 10 times.


Some others say to use alt-J and then subdivide the quad mesh. I did that and got similar results, except the ripples/kinks are now along quad edges.
Does anyone know how I could preserve the shape and make it smooth? When you hide the mesh in object mode, the character looks pretty smooth without these artifacts.
Ok I figured it out!

Alt-J to make your mesh Quad
Instead of using &quot;subdivide&quot;, use the modifier &quot;subdivision surface&quot;!

This is pretty basic but this was really confusing to a beginner like me. Hope it helps!