Starcraft Adjutant AI by yvesvidal - 1/6 - Multi Media

[yvesvidal]

Another crazy project that I have always admired: the Starcraft Adjutant Artificial Intelligence from the video game Starcraft. I have never played the game and never will, but I find this creature interesting. It is basically some kind of very powerful artificial intelligence capable of predicting and strategizing events.

 

 

The original model is located on CGTrader and is a real masterpiece. The designer spent an enormous amount of time creating a very large number of parts and making sure they fit perfectly, requiring very little glue or filing.

 

The AI creature is ominous in itself, but the "Hangar" or structure to hold it, is almost nightmarish in its conception. One may wonder why such a large structure and so many pipes are necessary to hold a thinking head computer.... But the whole interest of the model resides there.

 

For me, the challenge was printing large parts with filaments and small parts with resin, which I have never used before. The learning curve is quite steep but that is what makes it interesting. The "Hangar" is pretty much entirely printed with filament and the hoses, tubes and AI will be printed in resin, for ultimate details.

 

The original kit comes in the scale of 1/5th and makes it for something quite large. I decided to reduce it to 1/6th which is a standard scale for resin figures of girls and other famous and fiction  characters. Each part is reduced to 85% of its original size for Filament and 89% for Resin. Yes, I am finding out that resin shrinks and parts printed at 85% are too small to match their equivalent printed in filament. A lot to learn and adjust.....

 

 

Above are all the parts required to build one side of the "Hangar".

 

 

The hangar is starting to be erected:

 

 

All the parts are sprayed with a mix of Tamiya acrylic Royal Blue and Matte Black. The white is the flat white from Tamiya.

 

 

 

In the picture above, you can see the back of the AI creature attached to its holder.

 

 

 

I printed a "Stargate" circle for the base, where all the hoses and wires will go, but I may change that. I do not think it matches the cybernetic look of the entity.

 

 

 

Upper side of the "Hangar". I will keep that large bundles, disconnected from the legs, for as long as I can.

 

 

 

The two following pictures are giving you an idea of the humongous size of that structure:

 

 

 

 

As I mentioned, I recently acquired a resin printer, an Elegoo Saturn 4 16K and its washing/curing station. Elegoo was having a special deal for the Black Friday and I decided to jump on the crazy bandwagon of resin printing (which so far is working like a champ).

 

 

On the picture above, you can see three attempts I did for printing the back of the AI creature: On the right is a resin print at 85%. In the middle is a filament print at 85% and to the left if a resin print at 90% of the original size. I think the sweet spot is at 89%.

 

Yves

Edited November 28 by yvesvidal
corrected log title

[Canute]

Robo Cop and Terminators popped into my noggin viewing your handiwork, Yves. I like it. A number of model railroad rolling stock developers are going the 3D print route for being able to design kits of short runs for one off models. here's a link to one outlet. https://3dcentraltrains.com/collections/ho-scale

[GrandpaPhil]

Yves,

  That is awesome!  I’m greatly looking forward to seeing this build!

[Old Collingwood]

This will be great   - I love sci fi stuff.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

This will be a magnificent project Yves. I look forward very much to seeing it develop. The combination of filament and resin printing should make for great detail and integrity.

alan

[yvesvidal]

I started printing some resin parts and I am extremely pleased by the easiness of the printing process (not the cleaning 😞 ) and the quality of the results. For example, you can see below a filament and resin prints of the same part: 

 

 

This side of the parts (above) would be acceptable after placing some putty and a lot of sanding. But the other side (below) is horrible due to the supports that are required when printing with filaments (at least with my old printer).

 

 

Resin is definitely the way to go for small and complex parts.

 

Yves

[LoydB]

Following, very cool project. I need to install a new extruder & hot end on my PLA printer, this is motivating.

[yvesvidal]

Moving along with this crazy project. The Hydraulic pistons providing some kind of motion to the AI creature: 

 

 

They actually stiffen very well the structure. I will paint them and glue them, later on.

 

We have seen the back of the AI creature in a previous post. I printed three versions and will retain the 90% resin printed. The back is inserted into the main crane protruding from the hangar, but is also held by a long and massive set of hoses, wires and other cylindrical pipes. That enormous set creates a "robe", re-enforcing the feminine aspect of the creature. That part is massive and I cut it into two pieces using Meshmixer, as it does not fit into my resin printer in one part.

 

 

 

It took 11 hours of printing and represents some 17,000 layers. After removing all the supports under scalding hot water, I place the part into the curing station for a few minutes: 

 

 

The result is quite impressive and very tall: 

 

 

You can see at the bottom, the second part that was glued using CA gel glue.

 

 

 

 

On the last two pictures, the back has been set on top of the robe: 

 

 

You can almost guess the feminine appearance of that creature: 

 

 

Many more tubes, hoses and pipes will be added to the "robe".

 

Yves

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:36 PM by yvesvidal

[yvesvidal]

And here is part of the AI creature in situ, within its "Hangar". Please forgive the mess in the room. I have too many projects going on....

 

 

 

 

 

I am currently waiting for some resin before being able to print other parts. 

 

Yves

[RGL]

This looks amazeballs!