Above: Movie scene of the Kingdom of Mahishmati/Image Credit: Sahas Softech
The grand set showcased in SS Rajamouli’s Bahubali – one of the greatest movies of Indian cinema, was recently immortalised through 3D printing technology. The project conceptualised by Celebcity Indoor Attraction LLP was designed, printed, painted and assembled by Mumbai-based 3D printing service provider, Sahas Softech LLP. The 3D printed structure is being displayed in one of India’s largest theme parks, Adlabs Imagica, in Maharashtra.
Never ever before, a movie, in the history of Indian cinema created so much craze as SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus ‘Bahubali’. Both the movies – Bahubali – The Beginning and Bahubaili – The Conclusion broke all box-office records and captured the imagination of the masses all over the world.
One of the main attractions of the movie was its larger-than-life kingdom of Mahishmati, The grandeur of the movie rested mostly on the shoulder of the kingdom and it was a crucial element in the movie.
The Kingdom of Mahishmati was completely visualised through special effects and was never in a physical form. Thus an idea struck the team of Celebcity Indoor Attraction LLP that a model of the Kingdom would be a perfect way for people to experience the movie in a completely new way. Celebcity Indoor Attraction was already planning to start an experience centre of Bollywood celebrities with the iconic movie sets. They got the space at Adlabs Imagica, a theme park located in Khopoli, 70 kms from Mumbai, Maharashtra. One of the attractions ‘House of Stars’ has references to the movie and it seemed a perfect fit in such an existing set-up.
After the conceptualization and ideation part, now came the important part of recreating the complete set. This is when Celebcity Indoor Attraction LLP approached Sahas Softech, a Mumbai-based 3D printing service provider. Sahas Softech has an extensive experience in model-making. This helped them secure the order and they immediately started working on the job at hand.
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Recreating Mahishmati Kingdom
Above: Fully Assembled Bahubali’s Mahishmati Kingdom 3D Printed Structure/Image Credit: Sahas Softech
Building a structure so complex is a difficult task even in 3D printing unless it is carefully planned. Apart from 3D printing, the designing also played an important part of the model creation. The complete model was required to be 10x16x5ft or 1:100 scale for the attraction. The initial drawings for the model were received from ARKA media works for making the CAD Model in 3DSMAX. A team from Sahas Softech started designing and completed the designing for 3D printing in one month.
Above: CAD models of the different pieces of the Bahubali 3D Printed Structure/Image Credit: Sahas Softech
Once the designs were complete, the next step was to 3D print it in appropriate technology. They chose Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) technology as it gives the maximum printing freedom in terms of complexity of the design. Since the technology uses a powdered material which eliminates the use of support structures, the model was easy to post-process. Sahas Softech used EOS P396 for the 3D printing.
Another important part of the process is that the material used in SLS 3D printing is nylon and nylon is highly hygroscopic. This property of nylon helps during colouring the printed part as it uniformly absorbs the dyes. Since such post-processing was an essential part of building the model, it was highly beneficial that the team chose SLS technology for 3D printing the parts.
Upon 3D printing the parts were painted in the required colours and shades and made ready-to-assembled.
Above: Team from Sahas Softech work to assemble the 5000+ pieces for the Bahubali Mahishmati Kingdom 3D Printed Structure/Image Credit: Sahas Softech
Assembly is always the tricky part. To make the model 3D printable and easy to paint, and assemble, the design was divided into as many as 5000+ pieces. The huge number of separate pieces were a jigsaw puzzle in itself and took a lot of eye-straining work from the team members.
But with experience by their side, the 15-member team successfully completed the project in two months to assemble the grand 3D printed structure.
Speaking to Manufactur3D Magazine, Sohrab Kothari, Founder of Sahas Softech said, “Our team has always believed in taking such challenging projects and executing it with full dedication.”
Above: Bahubali Structure with night lighting/Image Credit: Sahas Softech
To make the 3D printed structure more real, the team also installed special lighting in the structure. This lighting has been installed to illuminate the set in complete darkness and to give the audience a feel of the set during night time.
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About Manufactur3D Magazine: Manufactur3D is an online magazine on 3D Printing which publishes the latest 3D printing news, insights and analysis from all around the world. Check out our Indian Scenario page for more 3D printing news from India. To stay up-to-date about the latest happenings in the 3D printing world, like us on Facebook or follow us on Google+.
