Tehachapi, BC

[Smike]

Oh man, that pic is starting to really put rubber to the road (visualization) of this layout. Can't wait to see more!!

[Scottl]

Looks great Gary!  I like your idea about adding some dimension to the backdrop.  Breaking that smooth backdrop is key to making the effect realistic.

I reminds me of my last layout where I tried this.  I took a series of photos, stitched them together and replaced the sky to a uniform graded color in CorelPaint, and then printed it as a 20' poster.  It was easy enough to do and looked good from some angles.  The problem is it made my 3D scenery look less realistic, but I would do things differently to minimize that problem if I were to do it again.

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Smike!

Scott, that shot looks great!  What would you do differently now?  Inquiring minds want to know. 

-gfh

[ednadolski]

Photo backdrops can be good if you can get the right photos, but the lighting, weather, season, etc. all have to cooperate.   I had kind of slapped these together from some pics I took a few years back.  It's not as apparent in this quick pic, but the mountains on the left side of my backdrop came out backlit because of the angle of the sun, so as overall they ended up looking too dark: 



Probably someone who is better at Photoshop then me could fix this, but I've never been able to figure out how to do it.   One thing I did do was filter the image with a 'drybrush' effect, which I think helps to soften the inherently stark contrast between the photo image and the model scene.

I think the idea of several layers of 2D 'cutouts' is a great way to add depth (my backdrop actually looks kinda flat in person), but you would need some really thin cardstock or photo paper to avoid showing a line where the print was trimmed, or else touch it up with some matching paint.   IIRC it was in the 2009 GMR that showed someone's Loop layout with the hills done in layers, cut from thin profile board and covered with paint and ground foam.   Overall it seemed fairly effective, and I think it would be easier to match with the model scene if you used the same color ground foam as you'll use on the scenery.  The more distant hills could be airbrushed with a thinned sky blue & white color to help push them into the distance.   It's something that I'd always wanted to try but never got around to it.

Ed

[GaryHinshaw]

That's a cool shot that I haven't seen before Ed.  Have you abandoned that backdrop, or is this photoshopped into a photo of the layout? 

[ednadolski]

That's the backdrop that's on the layout right now, I had just refurbished it little by little over the last few months.  Being over 4' deep, the scene takes a lot of light to get a uniform look:  six 32W T8 fluorescents, plus 4 more 27W spiral fluorescents in track lights.  The bulbs are all 5000k, but I wish I could have gotten them with a CRI of 90 or higher.  The sky blue is still too monochrome, but it's really hard to paint anything with a gradient that looks good.

Ed

[GaryHinshaw]

I see, thanks for posting that.  Since this is the Railwire, please allow me to offer a few comments on it.  I found a prototype photo taken from a similar angle and time of year (early May) that makes for an interesting comparison:  (I'm breaking the posting-from-other-sites rule here this time):




A few comments:

* I think you've really nailed the Loop scenery for this time of year.  My only comment about that is that the live oaks could be a deeper green.  Maybe a bit more clutter around the ranch too.    (Note also how the higher, drier Loop hill is already starting to turn brownish, but that is very seasonal.)

* I think I would have translated the whole backdrop about 1-2 feet to the left, or maybe enlarged it by ~30%?  This probably depends a lot on viewing angle though.

* The foreground hills on the backdrop match pretty well for this time of year.  The distant hills seem a bit too blue and don't contrast with the sky quite as much as in the proto shot.  Was that a feature of the photo you started with? 

* The sky color is nice, but I think it very rare to see cumulus clouds like this over the valley.  You either tend to get storm clouds, or the coastal high pressure blocks all clouds (thus producing the Golden State).  The Central Valley haze on the horizon would be a great feature to try and include.

* I think the lighting looks fantastic (as does the whole layout, of course!).

-Gary

[Scottl]

Gary,

It depends on the scene, but in my case, the high mountain backdrop was such a dominant feature, I did not realize how important it was do it right.  My photos don't show it, but the photo backdrop did not look correct in the rounded corners and the features were distorted.  I would be careful to strategically locate gaps in the mountains or horizon to minimize that effect.

Probably most importantly, the type of photographs and the lighting conditions is a key issue.  I took mine on the way back from a backpacking trip in the early afternoon in July.  The result was lighting that was too harsh, with a lot of shadow and haze.  This color pallet was nearly impossible to blend with foreground scenery materials, so the result was unrealistic color contrast. 

Like Ed, I also had an issue with the long panorama and some changes in lighting direction in the photographs.  You probably can't see it, but I pasted in other photographs taken at different times to minimize this, but the effect was still there in places.

Finally, I would do a test print with the ink jet system you are going to use.  The printer I used generated unusual color mixes in the sky that had a red tinge to them.  Again, it is not really apparent in the photo I posted, but it drove me crazy looking at it in person. 

I really like your idea about trying to bring some depth the backdrop.  Unfortunately, even the best flat backdrops fail in the illusion unless you can control the viewing angle.  With my current layout, I forced the views to avoid this issue, and it worked reasonably well.

Hope that helps.
S

[chuck geiger]

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/316619_10150395277743105_594593104_8797731_1741016916_n.jpg

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Scott, very helpful.  As with most things I try in modeling, it probably won't look nearly as good in reality as it does in my head right now, but I must try.

Chuck, the La Mesa club?  Definitely the Gold Standard that I have envied for years.

Cheers,
Gary

P.S. In rereading my comments about Ed's Loop, I think they came across as way too harsh.  My first reaction upon seeing the proto shot I posted was: My God, Ed has nailed that scene so well!  I hope that is obvious to everyone.

[chuck geiger]

Yep La Mesa

[ednadolski]

Hi Gary, I'm of course quite appreciative of your feedback, I was actually a bit reluctant to post as I didn't want to be hijacking the thread (I sure hope it didn't come across that way!).  I think your comments are quite on the mark and reflect a lot of what I think of the scene.  I had always thought of this as a kind of 'first draft' or WIP as far as the backdrop goes.

The overly-bluish mountains are a good example of something that I would like to figure out how to fix in Photoshop.  I also wasn't too sure about how to handle the sky.   The sky blue here is actually a second color that I painted atop a previous, much lighter blue.  In both cases these were solid colors because I've found that it's really hard (for me at least) to paint a convincingly graduated 'haze' that fades to white at the bottom.   The latex house paints simply dry way too fast, and I wasn't having very satisfying results from any kind of drybrushed blending.  I found it pretty hard to get an even gradient over any kind of width, or around corners, and working wet-in-wet is also tricky because as you know the latex paint turns a bit darker as it dries.  (Even Mike Danneman referred to this sort of blending as an 'exercise in frustration').   The other thing with this second color is that when I painted it the mountains were already pasted in place, which pretty much ruled out any sort of attempt to add a color gradient.

I would have been interested in Photoshopping a sky onto the scene since the sky in the stitched images was way unusable.  Aside from figuring out how to do it (I really need to take some time to learn Photoshop), another concern was trying to find a sky image that worked and matched the scene.  More so, this would have meant printing the whole scene on a continuous roll of paper, which gets pricey in a hurry  (this backdrop is 2x14' for 280 sq ft, and the best quote on a print was $10 per sq ft).   At that cost, it's something of a one-shot attempt, plus I had concerns about color accuracy & matching the scenery, plus fading of the ink (I have fluorescent lights), and such.  Another thing to work out was how to install a long continuous roll over a +4 foot deep scene.   In my case I can (with help) detach the whole backdrop and move it aside to work on it, but if you're going to have a basically immovable backdrop then a photo scene probably wants to go on before any scenery is in place.

So going with a painted sky I could then print out the mountains on individual pages on a color printer and paste them on as cutouts, but this too introduces a few drawbacks.  The main thing was the height was limited to the 11" of a single page (larger == more seams), which in turn limited the overall size of the print, as well as the placement.  It doesn't show in this image, but there are a number of seams that I am not happy with, and I also had some problems with peeling on a few of the pages.   Also, gluing everything with the 3M spray adhesive was pretty messy.

You're right too about the clouds, <sheepish on> I think by the time I had gotten to this point I was just looking for something that would break up the solid blue and hopefully be passable.  These are a few examples of what I was trying for:

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/4/8/0/7480.1218223353.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/8/7/8/5878.1222666605.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/7/0/3970.1290707002.jpg

Still tho overall I think it really misses the color gradient, but if I had that then I could be happy with a cloudless day 

So overall if I had it to do over again (and I might one day )  I think my first preference would be for the seamless, continuous printout, if (a pretty big if) I could find a decent sky and also be relatively confident of resolving the color match and lighting issues.  I'd also try to find a more cost-effective method, for example I recall seeing recently some prices around $6 per sq ft.  I'd also consider doing something like you mention with the 2D profiles, as that's really rather like just extending the scenery, with a kind of forced-perspective depth compression in mind.   I don't think I have what it takes to produce a fully painted scene that would be convincing, and I think that is harder to do in smaller scales esp. in cases where the overall scene is not very deep.

Anyways sorry for that somewhat long-winded digression, but hopefully there is some info in there that will be useful

Ed

[Scottl]

Ed,  I went through many of those issues with a photo backdrop too.  I was able to print it out (2X 20') for free courtesy of a friend with access to the printer, but the cost is not trivial.  I was able to replace the sky in the stitched photographs and even splice in a few other pictures from other sites using Corel Photopaint, but it took a little fooling,and the image size was an issue (something like 400 Mb) that kept crashing my computer.  I ended up replacing the sky with a slight gradient towards the horizon, but the colour of blue I used had a red tinge when printed.

For removing the blue tinge to the photos, I use Adobe Lightroom which is a photo post-processing package.  I wish I knew about Lightroom when I did my backdrop!

One thought that has emerged this week as I thought about this was some kind of hybrid between what you did and I did.  I can see the benefits of editing the photos together to get a consistent tone, colour, etc., but I think I would seriously consider cutting out the mountains in sections (with irregular edges) and paste them to a painted backdrop surface.  It is more complicated, but might be a solution if someone was contemplating this approach.

Cheers,
Scott

[James Costello]

Gary - I took quite a few scenery photos when I was there in late April. I'll get them online asap for you to have a look at. Might help....

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks for the dos and don'ts here guys, it's much appreciated.  I guess for now I'm happy just to have the backdrop boards up.  I think it will be a while before I try any permanent photo mounting so I'll be coming back to these notes then. In the meantime I'd happily browse your collection, James.

I spent most of my train time this weekend "underground".  The cross-beam directly under the Loop in this recycled shot was temporary since it interferes with the staging helix to come:



so it was time to figure out a permanent solution.  I'm not sure if I have it yet, but here is what I came up with so far:




I basically cut the beam short and replaced the last foot or so with a 3/4 plywood extension that both clears and supports the planned subterranean tracks.  The top two roadbed layers are the over & under Loop tracks, the next one is the entrance to the south staging helix from the Cameron/Monolith shelf, which sneak around the far right and back of the shelf.  The lowest one is the track coming up from the 1st deck, about to enter the Loop shelf at the right rear.

This is by far the most intricate section of track in the current plan, so I want to make sure it actually fits before I forge ahead with the easier sections.  It looks like a freeway interchange...
-gfh

P.S.

These are a few examples of what I was trying for:

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/4/8/0/7480.1218223353.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/8/7/8/5878.1222666605.jpg
http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/7/0/3970.1290707002.jpg

Touche!