Military Modeling and 3D-Printing: an Amazing Copy of the Soviet Tank T80

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If you do not know what to do during the long evenings and you have a modeling skills, then this project is for you. This artist devoted nine months to the creation of a miniature model of the Russian tank T80. If you don’t want to spend so much time working on the military 3D models you can just buy them on https://www.flatpyramid.com/military-3d-models/ . You will find different types of vehicles, tanks, weapons and more!

About the tank. T80 – is a main tank, created in order to be constantly in the thick of the battle. It was designed and built in the USSR in 1976.

tank

To begin with, the author studied the photos of T80. After viewing dozens of photographs, he found the orthographic projections of the tank and printed them out on a scale corresponding to the size of the future model. As the author himself notes, at this stage “it is very important to find such projections, because they are as close to the drawings as you will collect the model.”

In addition to 3D-printer you will need the following:

  • digital calipers
  • glue (rigid fixation, epoxy)
  • plastic for 3D printing
  • knives, saws, tongs, sandpaper (anything that can come in handy during the assembly of the model)

All parts of this military vehicle were modeled in 3DS Max (Autodesk). Then they are printed separately and glued together.

3Ds Max is good to work with as it has lots of pros. The reason for the popularity of this application is its huge toolkit, and the lack of a specific but necessary tool is easily compensated by the widest base of plug-ins – these remarkable additions that can extend the standard capabilities of Autodesk 3ds Max are infinitely many.

For example, the Afterburn module allows you to create realistic explosions, and by installing Dreamscape, you can easily model beautiful natural landscapes, in particular water bodies. Armed with additional rendering engines, say Maxwellrender, V-ray or Finalrender, the 3D Max program is quite capable of competing with the same Autodesk Maya, considered to be more advanced in the animation capabilities.