The entertainment industry is a major user of 3D printing equipment. The latest example is Atom robot in the movie, Real Steel, an American science fiction action film based on the premise that by 2020 the sport of boxing is no longer played by humans, but robots.

To make the robots as real as possible for the film, Legacy Effects, a company that specializes in live-action effects you see in modern-day films, commercials and television, used an Objet 3D printer to produce the 1/5th scale models. Once built, hand-painted, lit, and approved, the full-scale Atom robot, Noisy Boy, and Ambush robots went into production. Motion capture technology was used to depict the fights on camera, mixed with the full scale animatronic robots.

Legacy Effects’ Senior Systems Engineer, Jason Lopes says of the Objet 3D printer, “Being able to print high resolution models on the 3D printer allowed Legacy’s designers to go from concept, to final design and into full size production in the shortest possible time.”

Legacy Effects uses Objet’s 3D printers to create a range of scale models and even functional custom parts that have been used in films such as Jurassic Park 3, Iron Man 2 and Avatar. Objet’s 3D printers have also proven instrumental in producing stop-motion animations films, such as Coraline.

Said Gilad Gans, executive vice president, Objet, “The accuracy, material versatility and surface quality of our 3D printers allow artists to capture all the nuances and fine details of their ideas and transform them into 3D models that look fully believable under the camera’s lens.”

Using 3D printing allows studios to save on reshoots, editing and post production – enabling a faster time-to-market and lower overall costs. Check out Atom robot for yourself in the Real Steel film.

Objet Ltd.
www.objet.com