Studio Scale 3D Model / Print Millennium Falcon

barryashcroft

New Member
Hi all!

I've been thinking about my next project and I want to build a studio scale Millennium Falcon but I want to approach it from perhaps(?) a different angle. My thoughts are to build the model virtually and then 3d print it... but rather than taking a complete model and breaking it up into sections that can be 3d printed I want to model all the greeblies, 3d print those and then construct the physical model by hand. I also understand that there will be people who do not want the tedious nature of combining all the greeblies by hand so there will be versions where multipart components are pre-built.

Is this something that has been attempted and completed before? I have done some research into this and found some threads but I am sure that there will be something that I have missed. The last thing I want to do is 'reinvent the wheel'

The project itself will obviously be a labour of love and it will be something I want to share. Assuming I proceed I'll create a build log and associated content but I want to make the files themselves available. I'll open source the project on a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA basis.

Thoughts please?
 
I would think that one would use different types of printers as well. FDM would be fine for larger parts, but I'm sure most of the greebles would need to be done on an SLA style printer. I have made many greebles for a falcon of my own, but never thought of doing something so hardcore. What modeling software will you be using? I'll definitely be watching!
 
Most of my experience has been using blender in recent years, but the skills are obviously transferable. I also moved over to fusion 360 from 123 Design, so these will probably be the tools of choice.

As for different printers for different tasks, most definitly true. SLA / DLP tech for fine detail and probably most greeblies ad I was thinking FDM for structural / frame and building out the main body. I think there is a lot of scope to build a strong but llight form to build upon making use of the advantages of 3D printing.

Next steps will be to go through all the reference material I have so far and pull together a parts list. Find reference photos, schematics and preferably the actual physical greeblies and go from there.
 
Sounds like an awesome project! I can't imagine how long it'd take to do, though. I modelled all the sidewalls and circular maintenance pits for the Bandai 1:144 Falcon, and at a really low resolution (since they'd be printed so small anyway). And that took forever! I based my models off photographs, not off the original parts, which would add an additional layer of complexity and expensive - though it'd be a bazillion times more accurate, of course. Also, I presume you're talking about the five foot Falcon. The 32" Falcon, while visually not as cool as the five footer (in my opinion of course - I'm sure many people prefer the 32"!) would be a bit easier as it had fewer greeblies.

Joshua Maruska has assembled the basic build geometry of the five foot Falcon, sans greeblies, and has published a number of very useful files. And has, in fact, been working on a digital library of donor parts.

ILM digital artist Jay Machado has also built up a massive collection of digitized model parts, and created some amazingly realistic digital five foot Falcon models. His site, Falcon A, also contains a bunch of awesomely detailed parts maps, listing tons of known components.

Stinson Lenz has cast his net pretty wide - he's done a ton of 3D modelling projects of various Star Wars props, sets, and ships, though the Falcon is of course a big focus. He's also done some 3D walkthroughs of the ship.

In terms of physical models, I think Lee Malone (Rogue Studios) was the first person to achieve that incredible holy grail of creating a perfect full-sized replica of the five foot Falcon. There have been similarly large models built in the past, but none as accurate as Lee's, judging by the photos I've seen.

t2sides is working on a replica of the ANH-era five foot model, and posts regularly to the RPF with his progress.

All are amazingly talented guys and have been working for some time - it's a heavy duty project. :)

- nkg
 
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Is this something that has been attempted and completed before? I have done some research into this and found some threads but I am sure that there will be something that I have missed. The last thing I want to do is 'reinvent the wheel'

Actually, Bandai has done that very task of digitally modelling all the greeblies of the 5 foot Falcon and making it into a physical model kit, ready to be hand-constructed; i.e. the Perfect Grade Millennium Falcon. Having built the kit, I would say that such endeavour would take more than several years to accomplish in a private garage. The problem is that with the rapid pace that 3D printing technology is advancing, the method of optimizing the model to be printed may also rapidly change during that period of near-endless effort.

I think the easiest way to go about is to 3D scan all the parts (or entire sprues) of the PG Falcon, blow it up to studio-scale, and manually digitally remaster the parts as much as your realistic time-frame and 'love' allows.

I am not intending to discourage you. I would love to see creative ways of accomplishing this project.
 
No discouragement there at all, this is a massive undertaking. The Bandai kit is awesome and a feat all on it's own but correct me if I'm wrong, are a lot of the greeblies already built into the main panels? I'm not sure how much of the original greeblies are present in the kit and how they were adapted for the different scale. Worth looking at as a reference thought for sure, as is the article by Hiroshi Sumi on the Bandai Hobby site - Bandai Hobby - The Ultimate Millennium Falcon

I've followed the progress of many of the builds here and elsewhere on the web and they are amazing - it is what has inspired me to investigate this approach. One of my goals is to create an open database of greeblies used not just on the Falcon but also other ships from both Star Wars and elsewhere. In theory once the basic form has been created then it should be relatively easy for someone to take the greeblie resources available and create digital replicas. Of course it takes skill to assemble both digitally and physically, especially when 3D printing - you really have to know the medium to get the best out of your designs. I am in no way saying this is an easy task.

One thing I would love to see is studio scale with interiors... But that may be a job for somebody else to tackle....
 
The Bandai kit is awesome and a feat all on it's own but correct me if I'm wrong, are a lot of the greeblies already built into the main panels? I'm not sure how much of the original greeblies are present in the kit and how they were adapted for the different scale.

The photos here might give you some idea.

https://wivern.exblog.jp/27092610/

Most of the greeblies are combined with other parts, but once 3D scanned, I think it would be much easier to 'reverse engineer' from those combined parts than to model each greebly from scratch. The point is that you have the option to reverse engineer, or to replace parts of the 3D scan with greeblies modeled from scratch, or to leave it combined, and regardless of the way you go, shall always have a full set of parts ready to be printed for the entire Falcon.

Making an open database of 3D files of greeblies would be a great platform for many Star Wars modellers.
 
I think this is an awesome and ambitious project idea. I'm sure with some collaboration perhaps the time to accomplish would be cut down, but still a LOT of work. I'd suggest trying to get as many sources for the greebly parts from their origins as opposed to back engineering from a kit. Just my 2-cents, that is IF you're going for as much accuracy as possible. Too bad you can't get a hold of the ILM 3-d model library of greeblies that have been assembled to create the Falcon (and other ships) for the newer movies. I understand their library of part files is incredible!

Good luck, following for certain.

Bill
 
whoa, tremendous!
definitely check out
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=199048
and
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=168520
The first is 25 pages long and worth every post!
maruska does some fancy stuff, he has put some files on his homepage, too! I once grabbed that wankel engine and scaled it down for a mpc falcon and print it. One day I‘ll REALLY gonna finish that model, hehe.

This place keeeps getting better and better!

EDIT: this info was already given by nkg, sorry for the redundancy! somehow missed it in the first fast read.
 
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Forgive the hiatus, I had a few real life things come up and I'm looking to get something rolling on this shortly. I'll get up to speed with all the threads given and see where things lie and the best steps forward.

Watch this space.
 
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