How do you model night?

[vw-bug]

My father was telling me of a fella who had done his whole layout based on nights scene. I figured the guy used millions of mini bulbs but my old man explained that he had used glow in the dark paints of all colors then lit the layout with Black light to really mak'em glow. Has anyone tried this technique? If so what was your out come.

Has any one modeled a layout with night in mind or even better a 24 lighting concept?

[Anonymous]

One of our club members does a pretty neat technique. He uses blue light blubs, that are placed on the ceiling all over his train room. When night ops start, he dims down the regular lights and brings up the blue lights.

Works out VERY well. So well.......all the train crews need to use flash lights to couple/uncouple :)

[Anonymous]

Right now, I don't. I keep looking for information that I can use. These two have given me some ideas to begin to apprach it.

[Anonymous]

vw - John Allen used the technique you described. He would fill in the windows of city buildings with black-light reactive papers, so they would all glow.

The problem with this technique is that some paints are also black-light reactive. You might have something painted a nice, pleasing shade in regular light that glows like neon under a black-light. Kind of weird, unless you're modeling a nuclear power plant ;)

I used to use a string of the larger X-mas bulbs - with all blue lights. It gave enough light to see generally what was going on, but was nice and "night-y", if you know what I mean.

It gives a nice approximation of a night with a full moon.

You could turn out ALL the lights and just use layout lights (building lights, streetlights, etc.) but that tends to be TOO dark.

Rob

[vw-bug]

I've always contested the idea of getting a pair of nite-vision goggles and going at like that

[Anonymous]

My new layout is being built in a very dark basement so I figured on a night scheme right from the beginning. My towns all have street lights, every building has some sort of lighting in it. It took a lot of underneath wiring but it is worth it to see the glow of a little town at night. I even bought a bunch of Brawa autos with working tail and headlights. To get around I have one small overhead lamp to represent the moon.

[aiireland]

i've seen the blue christmas lights done. i think it works pretty good too. i bought a string last christmas, still in the box.
ai

[eastcoast]

YES, definately the blue blue party bulbs from wal-mart are my choice.
I can turn the ugly whites off and GO BLUE.
It also helps to have lights inside your buildings.

[Anonymous]

Maybe try having very dim back lights (such as maybe behind the backdrop or something). But personaly I super dim the lights and let the lights from the layout buildings and locomotives take over.

[Anonymous]

I usually turn off all the regular lights and let headlights, streetlights and structure lights do the rest. All of the structures on my layout have interior lighting (a good way to show of interior detail) and I plan to add an iluminated backdrop, that is cut holes where the windows are and add light (and have everything else covered in black paper so the light wont go through the "walls"). I also plan to add several neon signs, a camp fire, and a figure holding a flashlight.
Passenger car lighting is a must.

[Jetrock]

John Allen's layout, the Gorre & Daphetid, had a 24-hour cycle, automated, in the 60's--as this was before the era of cheap integrated circuits, it was mostly done electro-mechancally, with timers based around electric motors and revolving drums. It included a lighting system that dimmed at pre-set intervals, the aforementioned black-light setup, interior lighting, and even a "moon" that rose at night (also coated with fluorescent paint) and traversed through the sky. Nowadays with cheap IC's and off-the-shelf control equipment it's do-able but still a little work.

I'm probably going to create some sort of "night mode" for my layout, as most of its operations were at night. It won't be too complex--interior lighting in some buildings, streetlights on the street, naturally lighting on the locomotives, and maybe a few "color" details--there will be a tavern somewhere on the street, which would be a perfect place for interior details and some revelers--perhaps a small speaker with party sounds and some Forties-appropriate big-band music would be a fun special effect!

[Anonymous]

You know people have done seasons forever in model railroads, but it would be interesting to see someone concentrate on doing night time in broad daylight.

perhaps you could hue all the train set up with very muted colors and and a blue wa***int to everthing that gives the feeling of night even with all the rooms lights on. a backdrop with a moon and dark sky... again not going for just black but that blue that falls over everything.

I'm not sure if I'd want to try it, because personally I hate even the snow scenes for their lack of bright colors, but it would be neat to see one where someone really thought outside the box.

as others said about the blacklights be real careful with what colors do. Like if you have a cat and he ever has a "moment" where he sprays your set-up the whole thing will glow. (that's a trick to find cat's marks using blacklights)

[Anonymous]

the problem wuth john allens set up with glow in the dark paint etc was that you could get red paint (for rear lights in cars etc.) but there is not glow in the dark paint that glows white or yellow!

as a result all the windows were illuminated with a bluey-green glow which looked a bit odd when compared with the lightblubs that were there that gave off white-yellow light.

I don't know if there is a way around this but i have never seen glow in the dark paint that is close to the colours that you get from lightbulbs which obviously we are trying to imitate.

neil

[GerFust]

Don't forget that what happens at night is different than during the day. That extends beyond building lighting.

You may want to have more figures/people sitting on their porches rather than having picnics, more people at the movie theatre than at the beach, etc. You might see more families together than in daytime scenes, etc. Cars will need headlights, and they might be in different places - at home or downtown rather than at work (the local industries).

-Jer

[Jetrock]

Of course, we have a lot more options for non-fluorescent-paint lighing options, and most of us don't have to light up as many windows as John Allen did. We also have electroluminescent panels and wire and other options for modeling neon signs., low-voltage LED's in many colors, fiberoptics, HO scale automobiles with working headlights thanks to fiberoptics and lithium batteries, off-the-shelf grade crossing and streetlight kits, etcetera.

The (relatively) simple way to model a night scene--in a rural setting, not much besides the headlights and marker lights on the train is necessary. One of the strongest memories of my cross-country train trips through places like Utah is looking out the window of the train at night and seeing nothing except the stars and the train's headlight (when turning) lancing out into the night.

Other things that you might want to light for a night scene: grade crossing signals, the railroad's signaling system, and any incidental structures--stations with a light on in the office and/or waiting room and a couple lonely lights on the platform with a handful of late-night passengers, or an industry like a grain elevator with a few illuminating marker lights, or maybe interior lights to indicate the "night shift".

City scenes are a lot more involved, if it's the sort of city that is open late--one of the most interesting articles about lighting in MR I recall was a fellow who modeled an O scale diorama version of the classic Winslow Homer painting "Night Hawks." A late-night diner, cars prowling the streets, streetlights, flashing neon signs, and so on, the possibilities are endless. On my prototype, the trolleys ran through the "red light district" and prostitutes actually rode the trolleys to work, so a few ladies of the evening near streetlamps wouldn't be out of line--or, if I wanted to go crazy with miniatures, a "dime-a-dance" taxi dance hall complete with dancers and a swing band is at least feasible, if time-consuming...

[leighant]

I have THOUGHT about night scenes and lighting, especially since I want to model some nighttime operation, 24 hour railroading cycle. Or at least 18 hours, with mostly day but some night running. Haven't done much except light a few buildings, so these are mostly untried thoughts.
GerFust mentioned that night activity is different than day activity, and I thought about that. How do I get around something that doesn't look right for night? Maybe one way would be to make sure that scene stays in the DARK. Conversely, an interior scene could be modeled in a building that is dark during the daytime cycle, but shows up in the window when the lights come on at night.
Another consideration is that night is not all alike. There is a difference between evening when people are going to the movies, shopping, hanging out at the ice house or going to the evening prayer meeting at church -AND- the 11am to 5am scene when most activity is gone except for the overnight express office and the redeye cafe that serves the shift workers and newspaper delivery people etc. I have heard of people planning things with all sorts of automatic timed on and off cycles, but I would just want to have TWO circuits for night lighting, as background for operations. One the evening cycle, a background for the passenger train that arrives or leaves after dark but not necessarily in the middle of the night. And the "dead of night" cycle, as background for the through freights passing through town in the night, and the switch crews that switch tracks in the streets and the warehouse district on the graveyard shift.

Two ideas from motion picture lighting that might be applicable. I have used them widely in cinematography but haven't tried them on a model railroad. One is night-for-night with BACKLIGHTING. Night-for-night means your scene (or train room) is actually pretty dark, and you have a light or lights high up, above the backdrop, shining more or less toward the camera (or viewer) so that the front of actors (or trains or structures) is not lit, but there is a rim of dim lighting around the EDGE of people or objects that lets you see their shape, while they remain generally dark. The impression of darkness with some visibility. This seems much more like darkness than simply using dim blue lights from the front. Dim blue lights from the front look like day-for-night scenes, the ones where it is supposed to be night in the story but it is obvious that they actually filmed it in the daylight and darkened the picture. This could probably be made to work on a model railroad scene that is primarily viewed from one direction, such as a linear layout on a two-foot deep shelf against a backdrop. Arrange or mask the backlight so it does NOT fall onto the backdrop!

The other motion picture lighting trick is the pattern spotlight. Movies and live theater use spotlights with a metal slide cut with patterns to project an image that represents city lights, or dappled light coming through trees or venetian blinds. Use the same principle to create little pools of light to let people see what you WANT them to see, or a create a light effect where it would be hard to do with "practical" lights. (That's a movie terms that means the lights shown in the scene. For instance, a scene is supposed to be lighted with torches or candles or whatever and they're not making enough light to really light the scene, and you use out-of-camera lighting to supplement it, but try to control it so it suggests it is coming from the light source shown in the picture. In model terms, "practical" lights are the little bulbs you place in the scene. Sometimes, it is not easy to make the minature light and fixture look right, and also get them to make just the light pattern you way. So you cheat.)
Be very aware of the light that falls on the backdrop. A pattern spot might be good to project star patterns or dim blue light on sky. The spot for a model railroad will need to be high enough that it does not cast a shadow of the operator on the layout.

Real pattern spotlights are expensive, hot, take a lot of room, and are made to throw a beam the length of a theater or soundstage. For a model railroad, we only need to throw a beam 4 or 6 from a position probably almost overhead the operator. An inexpensive solution-- go to a garage sale where somebody is selling their obsolete slide projector for 5 or 10 bucks. A new projector bulb would cost $15 or $20 if they still make the one it needs-- but you don't necessarily need that bright a light. Rigging an ordinary small bulb into the housing might be enough. A slide for night stars can be make by punching needle holes in cardstock. Punch bigger holes for pools of light. How do you get a soft edged pool of light so it's not too conspicuous that is is artificial? Just throw it a little out of focus.

One final philosophy from motion picture lighting that applies to creating a night model scene. Don't just look at the object (model scene) that is there, be very aware of looking at the light. A motion picture camera doesn't actually photograph the object- it photographs the light falling or reflecting or transmitted from the oject.

[Anonymous]

I went aroud and added up the wattage of the bulbs I was using for daylight. It came out to 960 watts. I then divided by 87 as I'm in HO. I came out with about 11 watts. So I purchased 3 night lights which were 4 watts each and use all three for full moon nights, 2 for half moon, 1 for waining, and none for cloudy and new moon nights. Gotta stay in scale! FRED