I am starting a tall building scene. I want it lighted for a night scene. I am looking for two things:
1. What lights to use and how to locate them in the building.
2. How to provide for some "black" windows. In real life the dark windows seem to have a random patern.
There must be a variety of way you guys have gone this. All suggestions will be appreciated.
I haven't done it yet with a TALL building (picture is just a computer rendering of a planned scene), but I would do it just as I have done with smaller buildings. Put cardboard baffles and boxes inside bldg. Not necessarily real "interiors" to win a contest, just something to break up emptiness. You could have just one or several lights in building. A little box open against window that shuts out everything else from the inside will look just like a dark interior when building is not lighted inside for night scene, look like darkened room with no light on, when rest of building is lighted. Some little boxes with a top or side open will let in a LITTLE light.
Easier way would be to put dark cardboard over inside of some windiows, leave others open or cover on inside with translucent plastic-- such as clear plastic with very light spray of white paint.
LION has used both of these methods. In buildings with big windows it is kinda necessary to use floors and walls as you do not want to see right through the buildings. With other buildings I put cardboard backed cutouts of window curtains or blinds; some windows had snips of cloth arranged like curtains but with light shining through them.
LION has not built a tall building yet, but will certainly need to do so. If you buy tall building kits, then I would do them the same way as smaller buildings, but if you are going to scratch build a modern glass and steel sky scraper, I'd but a single CFL in the base of the building, blank out half the windows and let light shine from the others. This of course has the major drawback of using a 110 volt light fixture on the layout, which is something to be avoided if possible. Perhaps some mini-flourscents, the sort used in computer screens may work.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
This is the rear-view of the M.T. Arms Hotel kit:
I used 3/16 foamboard to build up the floors and walls inside the building. Here, I put 6 bulbs in the building. I use Miniatronics 16-volt bulbs, but I run them at 12 volts. They should last a very long time, and they produce a warmer glow and a lot less heat, too. I wired the bulbs through holes in the foamboard, and secured the wires with Aileen's Tacky Glue. Since the building is close to the front of the layout, I printed up floor and wall covers and added that detail.
I try to position the lights so that they can't be seen directly through the windows. You can also see the Venetian blinds in the windows. I got a sheet of those from City Classics. From the front, it looks like this:
The interior wasn't complete here, and sadly it still isn't. But, I've put a lot of interior details into some of these buildings, and I think it's very effective.
This building is on a narrow shelf part of the layout, which is against the wall. The back of the building faces the wall. In that situation, it's a good idea to cover the back windows with a sheet of paper so that you won't get window-shaped beams of light on your background.
It's a small thing that no one will ever see, but the pictures on the wall of the hotel room are Dogs Playing Poker and a velvet Elvis.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
LED's work well for interior lighting. They use a fraction of the energy, they last forever, and you can buy them by the handful very affordably if you know where to look.
I'm embarking on my own cityscape shortly, and my plan is to install the lighting similar to what's been diagrammed above, with partitions to direct light to different areas. In taller background buildings you can just build a mast inside and hang the lights on it, and use the directionality of LED's to focus the light at different angles.
I also plan to build each block of the city as a "circuit" so I can work on detailing the block at the workbench, do all the wiring, then simply install it into the masonite street grid where I can wire it in. The sidewalks will form the lip that supports the block. That way, all the street lights can be included in the block circuit.
Once I start, I'll take a lot of pictures so this makes a little more sense.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
"Black windows". A friend of mine had access to "no longer required" X-rays. Randomly placed in windows and using the "box" methods the previous posters have described, it looked good.
Cheers, The Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I also have used the cardstock/ thin ply baffles as mentioned. Lee makes a great point about using LEDs. For an extremely large building, I would use sevreral bulbs w/ individual sw to control the lighting effects. I have found that when using a complicated "maze" type of baffling, it is a good idea to set wire "chases" of drinking staws or some type of tubing. This will not only guide the wires and keep them out of the way, but also allows to fish a new bulb if one goes out. Generally any structure like this will/ should have a removable roof. This can be important as you can control the lighting effects by repositioning the bulb placement to gain optimum lighting an control shadowing within the baffles. You can place a connector/ strip etc to the rear of the structure to hide wires behind some sort of solid baffle.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
There is also a product called "copper tape" sold by hobby lobby that can be used instead of wires. It has two copper strips on an adhesive backing that can be taped to one of the walls. It is sold in the doll house area of hobby lobby. I plan on using some on my buildings when I get to that part of constructing. Hope this helps