Tron 1 Lightcycle model kit

Hello to the RPF forum users,

Well, it's almost a year since I became a member of the RPF community, but it's my first post here to talk about one of my humble projects.

I wanted to create a model kit of the famous Lightcycle from Tron 1. Toys were too pricy and / or not accurate enough ( when you were lucky enough to found them ), some garage kits were really good but went out of production long before I found the articles about them on the Web, and the challenge to make it myself all pushed me to try to create mine, up to the best I could. I'm not a prop genius but it's worth a try.

The whole idea was to model an accurate as possible Lightcycle in 3D parts, have those printed in hard plastic, sandpaper them, mold them, make copies in resin with clear parts and paint / glue them together with a cool base and light jetwall.

I tried to design the parts in 3DS MAX in a way that assembling, gluing and painting would be as easy as possible. It took me a long time, lots of hours, to figure out the parts because all of the details that popped here and there and the way the pieces have to be assembled, plus I had to take into account the printing process and material limitations.

Here are some renders :



A beauty render of the whole model. As you can see, I've added a plus I've never see before, which is the pilot. I can tell you, this was a pain in the *tweet* because there was a lot of tweaking to do to have a correct-sized pilot into the bike, in a believeable way. But, I think it was worth the effort.



An exploded view of the various parts, on one half, with the assembled other half. I decided to cut apart the pieces by color, so they can be painted in a group, without masking or such. The green areas are where the glue will be.



A detailled view of the pilot. Most of the details are still here on the 3.5 centimeter long real model. For practical reasons, I had to cut out the hands...

I know it's not accurate to have clear parts on the lightcycle, since general views of the lightcycles are always with black, opaque glass material ( while the closeup are with clear glass, but that was the limits of the technology back then ). Because of this, I had to design the interior of the cockpit and that gave me a hard time since I'm no Syd Mead, but I hope you'll still find this to be a good idea.

Have them printed out also took me a few trials and errors, mostly because of the thin parts. There was a 1 millimeter limit that I have to respect, and MAX is not designed to check that kind of stuff on every vertex of a model.

Here are the final parts, gathered for printing :



And... here's all the parts I received once printed out :





Here is a rough, dry-assembly of the two halves.



A detail shot of the pilot, since the translucent material make the details hard to see.

Sorry for the crappy pictures ! It's a really precise printing, the parts fit themselves almost perfectly. Once put together, the lightcycle is approximatively 16.5 centimeters long and 7 centimeters high, I thought it was a fair size.

So, that the point where I'm at right now.

Now, I'm ready to move onto the molding process and I could use some advice from you guys. The glass parts are to be made into a clear material, and I don't really know which material, whether it would be resin, or acrylic, or something else, to use to achieve that. The molds will be made with some thin silicone, of course, but would you have some tips or advice about the molded material ? That would help me a lot, 'cause I'm stuck at this.

Thanks for reading, and please don't hesitate to post any comments or questions, I'll do my best to answer !

Very cool! Resize of pics probably needs done on your computer (even standard Windows paint program can resize), I think it will only resize if posting them as attachments in your post. (rather than external Photobucket type hosting)

Tim

Where did you have the prototype parts done and what did they charge you?

@ Tim : Thank you, I'll try to find the time to resize the pics.

@ JPolacchi : I have them made at Shapeways ( shapeways.com ) for approx 366 dollars. Later on, I've been told about Moddler ( moddler.com ), didn't had the opportunity to test them yet but a quick test showed that they were cheaper than Shapeways, and their material seems smoother too - but I'm only judging that by their pics, so I'm surely wrong.

Davlin said:

I'm not a prop genius but it's worth a try.

Click to expand...

You're every bit a pro! This is amazing! Can any shape or size be printed - as long as it's rendered in 3D?

Yeah moddler.com is a great site. And in fact if you print it bigger you might be able to get it bigger for the same price you paid through shapeways.


Are you going to offer these kits?

That's really nice! Adding the figure really brings it to life.

is this really as smooth as it looks to be? I'm in for a kit too if offered

Will

Thank you guys for your enthusiastic reactions.

@ Crackerjazz : Thank you ! Yes, the thing with 3D is that there is no "size" really, just dimensions; A 3D model can be turned into whatever you want. In this case, if I wanted a 100-meters long lightcycle ( regardless of price and such ), it could be done. As for the shapes, this is where it gets exciting because 3D priting can produce shapes that would be extraordinarly difficult or impossible to do by hand. In this case, I used it to gain square angles and nice curves.

@ TxBabyHuey : Once I found about Moddler, I thought about making the Lightcycle bigger, around 20 centimeters long, which would be a really cool model. But I already got the pieces being printed by Shapeways, so... Question is, do I continue with it or do I spend another 300 dollars to have another print, I don't know.

As for offering kits, I kept in mind while creating the design that maybe one or two fellas would be interested as I was. IF I can get flawless pieces up to my standards, then yeah I'll ask around if people is interested. But before that, I prefer to make sure I can do a quality job.

@ Scott Graham : Thank you ! Now try to picture it with a blue LED inside the pilot ( the piece is actually hollow ), opaque paint on the outer surface but with the circuitry taken out the paint ( by liquid masking it, for instance ) to make it glow, like in the movie... That would be a plus, isnt'it ? ^_^

@ Firefoxm31 : It's quite smooth, but you got the printing laser that leaves marks, in order of a half millimeter ( maybe it's different with Moddler, I've seen professionnal printers that makes pieces perfectly smooth ). So, you have to water sand/white paint it, but it's quite quick and I can guarantee you the surface become totally smooth, as I already tried that on my lifesize "Batman Beyond" batarang.
Thank you for your PM, gonna reply to it.

Oh, and last detail : There will be a very small tape-masking job on the upper hull, since it's actually colored with two tones. Kinda hard to see at first, but the hupper part is colored with a slightly lighter tone than the rest. I decided to avoid making too many pieces, as the fold between the two sections makes it perfect for masking and painting.

Wow. Nice work. Even the pose on the figure. The medicom lightcycles had figures packed in. But I never bothered to use them...

That's sensationally nice. Good work!!

One vote here for the 20cm version...or heck, just go to 1/6...

That is amazing!
I have a question about 3D printing, its something I've considered for a project or two.
How do you specify the dimensions of the parts (i.e. inches/cm) when submitting them to the 3D printer?

So,were these done with that new rapid prototyping maching?I think its like a 3d printer except done with plastic.It was used to make all of the replacment faces for the Coraline puppet.This is something I'm interested in, but I don't have the 3d software capabilities to make the parts which sucks.

Wow! Thats beautiful work!

one thing i learned in my research, or at least I think i did...lol those side wings are translucent just like the windscreen makes sense if ya think about it, otherwise you can't see behind ya...you can kinda see how this would have to be the case judging by how far forward the driver is positioned, so both your windscreen and wings need to be done in clear and tinted dark with tinted future floor sealer

Will

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3ODe9mqoDE .29, .54, seconds in you can see through the wing into the driver area, there are other areas too

@ Wakeem : Thank you very much. Indeed, medicom has did some nice lightcycles... but the figures packed with them are somewhat... horrible IMHO. That's why I wanted to do try and create a better pilot.

@ Nwerke : Thank you very much. Twenty centimeters, eh ? It sure sound exciting, I would lie if I said I'm not considering it...

@ Renaissance_man : Thanks ! You define those parameters on the interface of the company, whether it's during the upload or the printing phase. Of course, your 3D software must have been correctly set up too.

@ JPolacchi : I think Shapeways's printers are middle-class. As I said above, I saw high-class printers and the cost of a part is soaring high. I think that's the printers used for Coraline. There's always a bit of work needed for Shapeways parts.
As for Shapeways, part of the genuis that is their business plan is to create a true community around their service. There are 3D modelers looking for jobs there, so maybe you should drop a line on their forum, to see what kind of feedback you got.

@ Tek2graphics : Thank you very much !

@ Firefoxm31 : Sure, the windscreens' material is supposed to be a kind of smoked-black clear glass. But, at that time, they modeled the 3D objects with primitives, that was pretty basic. Representing the pilots within would have been impossible, so they turned the windshields opaque.
Besides, for the closeup shots on the actors, it's pretty weak; Indeed, one can see the front side of the cycle, but not the rear side. The cockpit has not been drawn, and the grid's white stripes are also shown as a reflection on the windscreen's upper part, which is an error ( they should reflect the "sky" ). But, hey, it works and the sequence is epic, so who cares ?

just think it would be cool since you did a cyclist to show it off

That is undeniably sensational work! You really put the time into the 3D, and it shows. I love that you did the driver.

ah,
you mean the 57 primitives used to make the cycle, Matthew from Digital Stratum helped me figure out what I needed to know...it's great stuff. Your model is very nice indeed, and I would really like to purchase one once ready. I know i will want to light the inside with a very soft glow sp that you can see the cyclist inside

Will

My Son wants to know how: much to buy a set of parts from you?:lol
He almost fainted when I showed him this thread.:love

(Like Chuck, he loves Tron)