I am building a large urban scene on my layout and needed a way to create a backdrop to fill in the rear of the scene. However, I have been unable to find commercially produced backdrops that resemble the area I'm modeling (Santa Ana, CA). Using an idea I found through Model Railroader, I decided to photograph the back side of several of the buildings on my layout and assemble those photos on the backdrop to fill in the scene. The result was shockingly convincing!
Below is a shot of the various building photos assembled against the backdrop. The buildings to the extreme left and right are 3D structures each made from two walls of the same DPM kit.
I tried to arrange the building photos so they were oriented to resemble the back sides of buildings on the next block. I also tried to arrange the photos so that any darker shadows appear on the same side of each building so that it looks as though the sun is shining from a single point in the sky. It would have been easier without any shadows but I used what I had. Below is the partially finished scene with the foreground structures in place. As you can see, the assembled photo backdrop fills in the holes and adds a lot of depth to the scene which is still missing a structure on the right side. It took a couple of tries to get my photos to look right. The first thing I discovered was that close-up shots of the buildings were out as they distorted the vertical lines of the walls at the left and right extremes of each photo. Getting a good focus in the close-up shots was also difficult. I tried again using zoomed shots from a distance of about 4 feet away from the buildings. This not only minimize the distortion but made it very easy to get sharp focus. If you look closely, several of my background photos are shots of the backsides of the buidlings in the foreground. However, if I didn't tell a layout viewer that, they'd probably never notice! Not counting the first batch of unsatisfactory close-up photos, this whole project took me a single afternoon shooting the zoom length photos, cropping, printing and cutting out the photos, mounting two of the photos on foam core for added depth, then assembling the photos against the backdrop. I still need to permanently mount photos on the backdrop but that shouldn't be too much trouble. This was a very easy way to fill in the rear of my scene. If you have a similar scene that needs a convincing backdrop, give this technique a try.
I tried to arrange the building photos so they were oriented to resemble the back sides of buildings on the next block. I also tried to arrange the photos so that any darker shadows appear on the same side of each building so that it looks as though the sun is shining from a single point in the sky. It would have been easier without any shadows but I used what I had.
Below is the partially finished scene with the foreground structures in place.
As you can see, the assembled photo backdrop fills in the holes and adds a lot of depth to the scene which is still missing a structure on the right side.
It took a couple of tries to get my photos to look right. The first thing I discovered was that close-up shots of the buildings were out as they distorted the vertical lines of the walls at the left and right extremes of each photo. Getting a good focus in the close-up shots was also difficult.
I tried again using zoomed shots from a distance of about 4 feet away from the buildings. This not only minimize the distortion but made it very easy to get sharp focus.
If you look closely, several of my background photos are shots of the backsides of the buidlings in the foreground. However, if I didn't tell a layout viewer that, they'd probably never notice!
Not counting the first batch of unsatisfactory close-up photos, this whole project took me a single afternoon shooting the zoom length photos, cropping, printing and cutting out the photos, mounting two of the photos on foam core for added depth, then assembling the photos against the backdrop. I still need to permanently mount photos on the backdrop but that shouldn't be too much trouble.
This was a very easy way to fill in the rear of my scene. If you have a similar scene that needs a convincing backdrop, give this technique a try.
Hornblower
hornblower Not counting the first batch of unsatisfactory close-up photos, this whole project took me a single afternoon shooting the zoom length photos, cropping, printing and cutting out the photos, mounting two of the photos on foam core for added depth, then assembling the photos against the backdrop. I still need to permanently mount photos on the backdrop but that shouldn't be too much trouble. This was a very easy way to fill in the rear of my scene. If you have a similar scene that needs a convincing backdrop, give this technique a try.
This illustrates one of the great things about this hobby. There are a lot of different aspects and a lot of different ways to enjoy it.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
A technique I used was putting the backside of my buildings on a copy machine and printing in color. They came out great for building flats.
Frank
Good results, Hornblower.
A friend sent me a couple of photos which he had taken of real structures. After correcting them for keystoning and cropping out extraneous details, he scaled them to print-out at slightly under HO scale and sent them to me as a printable file.I altered the colour and brightness slightly to suit their intended locale, then printed them.
At eye level, both convey the look I wanted, which is that of a cross street at the backdrop:
Wayne
Hornblower:
Your technique works very well!
I would make one suggestion. I am assuming that your camera angle reflects the normal view that an observer would be seeing the layout from. With your current juxtaposition the backdrop buildings actually appear to me to be on lower ground. I think if you raised them a bit the scene would be even more convincing than it already is.
The view point in this picture is a bit higher in elevation than your photographs, but I think it will illustrate my point. You can see a fair bit of the buildings further back in the picture. If the picture had been taken from ground level you wouldn't see much of the background buildings at all. What you need to do is try to imagine the view if all your buildings were three dimensional and were all sitting at the same ground level. The higher your point of view, the more you will see of the background buildings.
Does that make any sense?
Please understand that I think that what you have done already is really good. I just think the scene may benefit a bit from some tweaking. Might be worth a try before you glue them in place.
Regards,
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Thanks for all your responses.
Since I haven't gotten that far with this project (the printed images are just leaning against the the backdrop), I will experiment with different viewing angles. I agree with Dave that a higher photo angle might make the photo buildings blend better with the 3D buildings.
I considered using photos of real buildings but you can't always shoot them from the desired angle, the lighting (and shadows) can't be adjusted as easily, and there is additional work correcting distortion and touching out unwanted images. It was a breeze shooting the model buildings and the resulting photos readily match the look, coloring and weathering of the 3D model buildings. Shooting from a distance minimized any distortion and adjusting the lighting and shadows was done by simply turing the model in relation to the light source.
Interesting never thought of shooting model buildings for an urban background.
Joe Staten Island West
This should have been the accepted standard for creating an urban backdrop for a long time. Heck, use the four walls of a typical DPM kit, and paint each a different color to represent the sides of four different buildings.
Also, OPs photgraph replicates the angle of view the 3D structures are viewed, slightly looking DOWN on the building with the roofs showing. So many commercially available backdrops have the angle all wrong, taken from the street so you are looking UP at the building. Hardly any layout is built with the modeler looking up at their 3D structure.
But layouts are created with more photography in mind, and its important to get the perspective correct depending upon what you're going for.
Good job.
- Douglas
hon30critter Hornblower: Your technique works very well! I would make one suggestion. I am assuming that your camera angle reflects the normal view that an observer would be seeing the layout from. With your current juxtaposition the backdrop buildings actually appear to me to be on lower ground. I think if you raised them a bit the scene would be even more convincing than it already is. The view point in this picture is a bit higher in elevation than your photographs, but I think it will illustrate my point. You can see a fair bit of the buildings further back in the picture. If the picture had been taken from ground level you wouldn't see much of the background buildings at all. What you need to do is try to imagine the view if all your buildings were three dimensional and were all sitting at the same ground level. The higher your point of view, the more you will see of the background buildings. Does that make any sense? Please understand that I think that what you have done already is really good. I just think the scene may benefit a bit from some tweaking. Might be worth a try before you glue them in place. Regards, Dave
Dave, I think your technique is applicable when trying to create extreme depth to a scene, and its effective.
I think OP is trying to create the effect of a few buildings being separated by only a few feet, not tremendous depth, but enough to make the layout look a bit deeper. As he tries to create more depth...if he wants...then moving up the wall with smaller buildings is probably the way to go.
hornblower and Doughless:
The picture I used wasn't a particularly good example but it was the best I could come up with, and I could have been more precise in my suggestions.
When you look at the OPs picture with the 3D buildings in place, you are actually seeing three layers of buildings. There is a foreground layer which is fully visible. Then there is a second 'row' of two storey buildings, but you can only see the top floor of the buildings in that layer. Then there are the photo backdrop buildings which hardly show at all above the second row the way the OP posed them. My thinking is that, from that perspective, you should be able to see more of the top stories in the photo backdrop even though they are only two stories too. I would try raising the photos but only by about 1" or maybe a bit more so you can see more of the second stories. I don't think you want to expose the entire second story of the backdrop.
One way to check the effect out might be to temporarily put a third 2 storey building behind the first and second layers and then see how much of the building you can see from the same camera angle. I think that at least half of the second story will be visible in the third building back. I could be wrong. I don't have enough built two storey buildings to test my theory.
hon30critter hornblower and Doughless: The picture I used wasn't a particularly good example but it was the best I could come up with, and I could have been more precise in my suggestions. When you look at the OPs picture with the 3D buildings in place, you are actually seeing three layers of buildings. There is a foreground layer which is fully visible. Then there is a second 'row' of two storey buildings, but you can only see the top floor of the buildings in that layer. Then there are the photo backdrop buildings which hardly show at all above the second row the way the OP posed them. My thinking is that, from that perspective, you should be able to see more of the top stories in the photo backdrop even though they are only two stories too. I would try raising the photos but only by about 1" or maybe a bit more so you can see more of the second stories. I don't think you want to expose the entire second story of the backdrop. One way to check the effect out might be to temporarily put a third 2 storey building behind the first and second layers and then see how much of the building you can see from the same camera angle. I think that at least half of the second story will be visible in the third building back. I could be wrong. I don't have enough built two storey buildings to test my theory. Dave
Ok, I see your point and agree.
The problem with backdrops is that the perfect viewing angle is usually only at one specific point. So a backrop can look great when designed to view from that point...like when photographing the scene.....but in the flesh, once you move off of that point, the realism of the backdrop diminishes becasue the angles are off.
Its unavoidable, but its often a difference between what we see in magazines and what we might see on our layout considering we move around. Soething to keep in mind, that the backdrop will always look off most of the time because we view it not from the optimum point most of the time.
Mountains and sky backdrops are less specific, and probably easier to pull off, than urban backdrops because buildings and street angles have to align.