The paper provides a selection of manifold results and findings gained within a national research and leader project, called "addmanu" , which has motivated a lot of other researchers and companies to go into this interesting field of metallic additive manufacturing. New material developments, lightweight AM-concepts, hybrids, components having a very complex geometry, production of very small channels, reduction of surface roughness, and the production of a series of parts in high-tech application areas are demonstrated.