Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[Cajonpassfan]

You do not always need to have photos from the correct location. Not if the scenes are "generic" enough. This is supposed to be somwehere in the US midwest but the backdrop photos are taken in my neighbourhood here in Sweden.

That looks like Sweden to me
Just kidding, looks great! And for generic scenery, that works really well.
For modeling actual places, especially ones that are well known and much photographed, not so much. Mike, having an in-house artist should be of great advantage. Sometimes, photorealistic backdrops can be a little too, well, realistic, and take away from the 3D modeling. Ultimately, the the modeled 3D scene and the 2D backdrop should blend seamlessly and too much detail on the backdrop can work against that. People like Dean and Gary (and apparently, Lennart) have conquered that challenge, but it takes an effort; there's a lot more to it that snapping a photo and having it blown up. Lighting, colors, shadows, saturation, depth of field, blending....etc etc.
The Strauss theme was fine, did you know he wrote the "Brown Mojave" as well?
Following with much interest,
Otto K.

[C855B]

Not a valid vimeo URL
Now with music!... Gary...

[C855B]

... Sometimes, photorealistic backdrops can be a little too, well, realistic, and take away from the 3D modeling. ...
The Strauss theme was fine, did you know he wrote the "Brown Mojave" as well?

Thank you for saying that, Otto. This is my main concern. Photo backgrounds work best when what is being represented is off in the hazy distance, although I truly admire what @coldriver has done with scene blending. Robyn and I discussed this over lunch today, she is also concerned with transitions between vignettes.

The Strauss happened to be An Alpine Symphony. I like to play it mostly when Robyn's not there, it can get fairly bombastic and is usually a little "too much" for her. "Brown Mojave"? You have me curious now - can't find any reference to it.

[GaryHinshaw]

Love the turbine video! Eine Alpensinfonie, less so.

[C855B]

Love the turbine video! Eine Alpensinfonie, less so.

Added new music, just for you. ^^^^^

(Actually, was toying with iMovie for the first time. Thought I'd drop in an appropriate excerpt from one of my wind symphony favorites.)

[GaryHinshaw]

Great - even epic!! 

Speaking of wind bands, my favourite Strauss pieces are his chamber works for winds (e.g. his serenade, op.7), in a league with Mozart and Dvorak.  But I'm more of a chamber music guy.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thank you for saying that, Otto. This is my main concern. Photo backgrounds work best when what is being represented is off in the hazy distance, although I truly admire what @coldriver has done with scene blending. Robyn and I discussed this over lunch today, she is also concerned with transitions between vignettes.

"Brown Mojave"? You have me curious now - can't find any reference to it.

Mike, that was my poor attempt at humor One of my coworkers went on a "Blue Danube" river cruise recently and was disappointed that the river color was more like the Mojave after a storm....

As to the backdrop transitions between scenes, I would think you will need some kind of a 3D visual block, like a cut through a perpendicular ridge against the backdrop....perhaps the sky is continuous, but the land contours die into each side of the 3D block...? But yea, it will be a challenge because the scenes will be so dissimilar.
Otto

[C855B]

OK... now I understand... it was the other Strauss! You're talking about Johann Jr. (1825-1899), "The Waltz King", I'm referencing Richard (1864-1949), "The King of All Things Bombastic, and Hater of Trombones*".
* - Not really. He scored extensively for trombones. My sig line quote is real, however. It references conducting, where making eye contact with members of a section is usually a cue to emphasize their parts. With trombones, this often has consequences.

Fortunately, there are areas of the layout that are planned for natural geographic boundaries between scenes. I would suppose I'm focused on what I'm working on now, my biggest geo head scratcher, the area starting roughly around Riverside Jct., going through Colton (Slover Mountain!), skipping Berdoo and Cajon entirely, then V'ville to Oro Grande, ignoring Barstow and landing in Daggett. There's a whole lot of relative horizon flatness in there, although thinking through it I could do enough 3D to imply the pass and B-Hill.

Thanks for making me think!

... chamber works for winds (e.g. his serenade, op.7), in a league with Mozart and Dvorak.  But I'm more of a chamber music guy.

Say, f'rinstance, Dvorak's Op. 44? A perennial fave. The rest of you need'n't worry too much, however, I also have a few Big Band licks on tap for future clips.

(EDIT: Strauss Op. 7... did not immediately recall it, but now that I have, I am quite surprised I have never performed this work. But also not surprised. Getting five double-reeds in one place at one time - 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon; especially the contra - is all but an impossible task outside of major symphony orchestras and universities with top-notch music schools. I haven't played with a full symphony for 35 years and my last 20 years of school-affiliated work has been with community colleges, not a contrabassoon to be found at any of them.

"Contrabassoon" is another story related to the layout, BTW. We more or less had a cookie jar of change set aside to eventually buy a contrabassoon, since I would then be the only go-to in a 50-mile radius for the infrequent scores requiring one. New contrabassoons run ~$35K, and after many years we made the goal. I had already visited the factory, decided options, was only a couple of days away from placing the order... and then we see the "For Sale!" sign on this dog-eared red pole barn next to the tracks. The rest of the history you know.)

[GaryHinshaw]

[drift]

Say, f'rinstance, Dvorak's Op. 44? A perennial fave.

Yes!  And Mozart's Gran Partita, K.361.  I can't decide which one I like more.
[/drift]

Really great to see the layout progress.

[coldriver]

Photo backgrounds work best when what is being represented is off in the hazy distance,

Well (apologies given up front because I totally respect what you're doing on your layout) having gone down the path a ways of what is possible, I'll call this statement total bulsch.  We're really talking about two things here - if you're modeling eastern Colorado and want to show the Front Range off in the hazy distance I completely agree.  But if you're modeling a mountain mainline and you're in the thick of it, I don't see any reason to not make the backdrop part of the immediate scenery. 

[coosvalley]

I prefer a less detailed backdrop in most cases. If they are too "sharp" or "detailed", the backdrop starts to attract the eye. I prefer the backdrop to give a sense of distance, without attracting the eye. Let the layout and models be the stars of the show....

But then there's that INRAIL layout with those awesome backdrops that do attract the eye, and yet still look great..

To each their own!

[C855B]

I am mulling all the inputs here, so heartfelt thanks to everybody.

One thing I'm fretting over at the moment is what is turning into a signature scene, the junction at Daggett. This was a favorite railfan haunt of mine back in the day, parking the VW in the sandy expanse south of the signal bridge, occasionally moving over to the shade of the patch of scrubby trees for relief from the heat, cold Orange Crush in hand, bought from the general store across the tracks with the squeaky screen door and the swamp cooler with its distinctive squee-squee-squee. What I have done on the layout is paint myself into a corner, with track too close to the background for much other than the background. If it were a perfect world, I would find a panoramic photo of the stores, shops and houses on the north side of Santa Fe St. east of taken circa 1970, fix any distortions in Photoshop, apply a wee bit of blur/haze to it, and call it done. Of course, any photography I have or my friends have from the time are focused on the trains, with no clear views of what's behind.

Thinking momentarily is there might be just enough room for building flats if I skootched the scene over a smidge. Background becomes less important, as it can then be just the sky and a wispy silhouette of the hills around Calico.

[GaryHinshaw]

Thinking momentarily is there might be just enough room for building flats if I skootched the scene over a smidge. Background becomes less important, as it can then be just the sky and a wispy silhouette of the hills around Calico.

Flats would make a lot of sense in this context.   Sounds like good memories. 

[Scottl]

I love those turbines leading the freight in that video.  This is going to be epic when it is operational and sceniced!

[coldriver]

please forgive my previous bluntness...      Perhaps I can sum up my most important lessons learned in my experimentation with photo backdrops.  If you've got a flat scene and want to convey distant hills by all means a certain amount of haze is appropriate.  You will see this exact thing on my layout when I hang my 25 footer in a few weeks behind Monument Yard - I want to convey the feeling of continued flat area (farmland) behind the yard leading to distant hills.  But where you're building 3d mountains and hills up against the backdrop which abruptly give way to distant haze the transition is often lacking.

 Think about Mike Danneman's awesome Rio Grande layout (yes - I realize it's a painted backdrop, but it will illustrate my point).  I doubt few of us would argue that Mike's scenery isn't some of the best ever produced in the model railroad world.  And I'd say a large part of that is his effective backdrop transitions.  Consider his amazing snow scene.  It appears completely seemless in transition from model to backdrop.  Think how much less effective it would have been if the 3d mountains abruptly ended with just a distant hazy backdrop behind it.  The key for this to be effective is careful color and texture matching.   In my case when I first started building scenery around 8 years ago I took some photos of the area I was looking to model down to Home Depot and had them mix up a gallon of paint to match the base color for the prevalent grassy hills.  So when I started experimenting with photo backdrops I already had a close match to the scenery and with further adjustments in photoshop I was able to match it even better.  If you're modeling well known mountain scenes and your scenery doesn't match photo backdrops taken of those well known mountain scenes does that indicate there's an issue with the backdrop photo or the scenery?