Thanks for your kind comments, Ed.
cnjman721....How long is your factory building in actual feet & inches?..../
The Languay factory is 40.5" long, but not very deep: just 6" where it fronts on the street and about 4.5" at the far end. Apparently it was photobucket having some issues, and I was able to add the rest of the photos and comments to my original post.
cnjman721...Frankly, my compression to make it work is more about figuring out how to fit the trackwork so that I can do a reasonable job of representing those facility and industry elements in 11-12 feet x about 3 feet.
Once you get the track in place, the structures around them can fill-in the available space, just like they do in real life. If you make it "busy" enough, the buildings to the rear of the tracks won't need to be too deep, and you can also add partially-modelled structures at the front of the layout - these can work well for photos with the camera on the layout, either looking along the tracks or looking outward, towards the aisle.This photo below....
...was taken with the camera on the layout approximately where the red bus is in the photo below...
In the photo below, the red bus was on the portion of the layout to the right, while the two structures in the distance of the original photo, just beyond the front end of the 2747 in the first picture, were on the part of the layout to the left...
Admittedly, there are other issues which makes the first photo not all that useful, other than to illustrate that there are many possibilities to explore.
While it's not so much compression, I also find it useful to create items in the foreground which interfere with the view of what's beyond the tracks or even of what's on the tracks. It could be something as simple as a train in front of the scene, showing some of what's beyond, but still hiding the rest...
...or simply a slight distraction to help frame the subject...
...or maybe it's just something in the way, ruining an otherwise nice shot or just spoiling the view...
Wayne
Mike --
Lots of great ideas and modeling there! Thanks!
Ed
Wayne -- Wow, thanks for taking the time and effort for all those photos. You've created a lot of great scenes. Your pump and compressor factory is quite long and as such, probably minimally compressed. The engine servicing and coach yard switching layout I'd like to create has a printing plant at the rear (against the wall) edge that's very, very similar to your factory. How long is your factory building in actual feet & inches?
Ideally, my 1940's- 50's diorama would include the prototype's roundhouse and 70 scale foot turntable close to the linear center of the layout with a lumber yard, coal trestle, water tank and bulk oil depot at opposite ends with that printing plant up against the backdrop. On the prototype, the main line has several crossovers to facillitate entry to the yard and engine facility. Trouble is I barely have 12 linear feet.
Frankly, my compression to make it work is more about figuring out how to fit the trackwork so that I can do a reasonable job of representing those facility and industry elements in 11-12 feet x about 3 feet.
Thanks for taking time to respond!
cnjman721..."compressing" a structure or a scene to account for a relative lack of space on a layout....
In most cases, the "compressing" of things is less noticeable as such when viewed from "eye-level". You can, of course, control the point of view when taking photos of your layout, but in-person, the ruse is otherwise usually very obvious.A few examples...
...and the same area as seen from the air...
Here's a train about to cross the bridge over Negro Creek...
...but from the air, even in an out-of-focus view, there's not a whole lot of country scenery "stretching off into the distance"....
This scene has lots of depth...
...but would be impossible to see in-person, as it was taken, below, roughly from the left side of the small section shed (across the tracks from the white sprayer near the bottom left of the photo), with the camera on the layout, facing along the track...
This view fares quite well, with N scale cattle across the tracks in the distance...
...but not so good here (I need to improve those background "trees")....
...while this looks pretty good, I think....
...but from above, it's the road to nowhere...
Of course, the distances between my towns are compressed to an even greater degree, with two pairs of towns literally next-door-neighbours, even though they're supposed to represent ones 15 or 20 miles apart.I'm not so inclined to compress structures in the same manner, although most are undersize even when built with all of their long walls facing the aisle, the backs done with blank walls made from .060" sheet styrene...
Background structure "flats" can be useful in suggesting that scenes appear deeper than they actually are...
...but viewed from the wrong angle, the effect is ruined...
...while these are difficult to see from a wrong angle...
There have been many articles, through the years that deal with, talk about, and show examples of selective compression.
It's all in the eye of the modeler. I don't think there are any cut and dried rules.
Here are a few threads, in here, that talk about selective compression.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/275272.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/230955.aspx
There are many others. A search for selective compression for model railroads brings up many links, topics, and ideas.
It's how you feel a scene should look, to give the feeling of space and distance in what your modeling, beit a building, landscape, etc.
Mike.
My You Tube
Very often I see references to "compressing" a structure or a scene to account for a relative lack of space on a layout.
1. Does anyone know of a book or a magazine article that describes/educates how to approach scenery compression in general, not just a specific article on compressing a single building?
2. I'm not aware of MRR doing any such article and if they haven't, wouldn't that be a helpful how-to for a whole lost of us scenery modelers?
Thanks,