I have an 8 foot background board behind my downtown Vancouver, BC VIA passenter station. Tyring to be protypical as possible, I've used Google Earth to identify the specfic structures that would go on this board. But as I move down a street at the "street level view" the vanishing point is always moving. So should be the vanishing point for an 8 foot wide city scape scene? Do I just view each structure as if I were looking at it straight on or do I pick one viewing point from which I use one vanishing point for all structures? Perhaps there is an architect out there that knows how to handle this situation.
Thanks in advance for your replies. Ken
The problem with background scenes is they need to move with the viewer's location in relation to the foreground buildings.
So yes, the vanishing point is always moving.
If you have tall buildings in front of the backdrop with streets leading to the backdrop, you could have multiple vanishing points appropriate to each street. Or you could break up the scene with tall buildings, then choose an appropriate vanishing point for each segment.
Usually, people decide what the primary viewing point will be, then set the vanishing point accordingly.
Until someone invents the home-holograph, there's always going to be a compromise.
Eric
Generally speaking, backdrops and low relief buildings are only going to look right when viewed from straight ahead. When looked at from an angle it becomes fairly obvious what they are. Vanishing points are just one problem.
My own opinion is people fret too much about making their backdrops as realistic looking as possible. To me the purpose of a backdrop is allow the focus to be on the foreground scenery. I don't want my backdrops to draw the viewer's eye. A plain wall is going to be distracting so something is needed but it doesn't need to be so perfect it steals the scene. I just want my backdrop to suggest the world goes beyond the foreground scene so the eye is not drawn away from it.
jecorbettMy own opinion is people fret too much about making their backdrops as realistic looking as possible. To me the purpose of a backdrop is allow the focus to be on the foreground scenery. I don't want my backdrops to the viewer's eye.
je,
I hear what you're saying here, as that's a good choice in a lot of cases and certainly simplifies things in terms of dealing with the backdrop.
However, it's often the case that you've needed to compress a lot of scenery onto the backdrop because of various reasons. Then you may want to use paint instead of 3D scenery - or are forced to. That's the case with Silverton on my layout. Sure, you could get away with nothing much back there, as the townsite itself is relatively level. But ohhh, those mountains in the errr, background. They're staring you in the face in real life, so hard to treat them as less than they are in terms of their presence.
Eric has some fine points on why the vanishing point is so problematic for model RR layouts. They represent a series of subtly strung together vanishing points, and you can never exactly cover them all.
In doing my backdrops, what I found most crucial is to determine a good spot for the horizon through an area. This is to make your eye see a compromise through these scenes, as having a significant discrepancy easily visible as your eye flows over a scene is what tends to be jarring. Avoid that and the smaller discrepancies tend to take care of themselves, i.e. all those individual vanishing points flow together in a way that is greater than the sum of the parts.
Of course, the height of this depends on what the builder considers ideal. This may be what they're prefer, but visitors should be taken into consideration if one wants to let them enjoy the full experience.
Double-decking in all its forms tends to reduce the overall height available for backdrops, but also encourages this trend toward less detail on backdrops. This complicates things further by throwing an even bigger monkey wrench into things by requiring the designer/builder to figure out two seperate cases, then somehow make them work together. Keeping things simple here also helps as there is much less to distract the eye about the difference best angles to view each from.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
There is a painting at the Naval Air Museum in Pensaclola. It is a rear view of a WW2 plane approaching the carrier from the rear. The painting is about six feet wide. The plane is on the left of the picture with the ship from the right. As you move from left to right. it appears that you are first on the left side of the plane with the ship far to the right, seeing the left side of the ship. When you get to the right side of the painting, it appears that you are now viewing the right side of the ship. This may be irrelevant to your question, but they said that is due to an optical illusion, a technique used by many artists. I thought that just maybe I could use this same technique in painting my backdrop. More research to do. Landscapes are easy to do on backdrops as you run into none of the perspective problems with buildings. I have found that any detailed images such as buildings and roadways take careful consideration in being viewed in the way I wish and blocked from view from other angles that make them appear unrealistic, with taller buildings, trees etc, This is just something we learn to live with due to space restraints.
Because of the problems noted above, I believe your backdrop images should be "2D" with no attempt to introduce perspective; therefore, no vanishing point or points (unless, of course, the backdrop can only be viewed from one location). All the attempts to compromise and introduce perspectives of some kind always look phony (which they are).
Dante
dante Because of the problems noted above, I believe your backdrop images should be "2D" with no attempt to introduce perspective; therefore, no vanishing point or points (unless, of course, the backdrop can only be viewed from one location). All the attempts to compromise and introduce perspectives of some kind always look phony (which they are). Dante
One of my printed backdrops has buildings with that kind of perspective but it's positioned close enough to a corner that it can only be viewed from one side.
I find that backdrops are most convincing when fronted with low relief buildings and flats so there isn't an abrupt transition from 3D to 2D scenery. I've also found that layering backdrops is also very effective at creating the illusion of depth.
Four years of drafting with a great drafting instructor and I never, ever, did figure out all the different computations where the vanishing point is constantly in a different position with every situation, I think Frank Lloyd Wright actually figured it out, but I never did, good luck, hope the other posters can be of some help.
jecorbettI find that backdrops are most convincing when fronted with low relief buildings and flats so there isn't an abrupt transition from 3D to 2D scenery. I've also found that layering backdrops is also very effective at creating the illusion of depth.
Another terrific point by jecorbett. This thread needs more pics, though. I'll start with layering. Here's a very early pic of Rockwood right after I painted in the distant mountains "further up the valley."
This is also a good example of "keep it simple" and "don't overthink this." Basically, all layers painted on (2 or 3) needed no detail, maybe I just didn't cover things evenly is all. The line right at the bottom are some tree stickers I found at HL that are realistic and help add that first background layer beyond paint.
Next, a close-up with some details to help give perspective.
Next, some structures. Note how the mill is close up againt where the backdrop is painted on, helping block that vital line where 3D becomes 2D. However, you do it, this is essential IMO to making this work.
Yes, a little peeks through at the loading dock area on the right end of the mill. However, once I get a stiff-leg derrick and a bunch of lumber and barrels stacked in there, it will block the 3D/2D transition for this area.
Next, how that horizon line helps. Note how the building's roofline stands in relation to the painted backdrop and versus the 3D scenery that surrounds the mill. Higher or lower through here and it just wouldn't work as well, no matter what your artistic skills are. And this is also where you can see a good example of where all this works together to be convincing.
Yes, the mountains behind seem higher in this pic, but the overall effect works well. This angle is one the camera caught, not the human eye, because it would be difficult to get your face down on the track level here, unlike for the camera.
There isn't a single vanishing point that allows moving the head from one position to another. Each is head-location unique.
There IS a single vanishing line for each viewer. It's called the horizon and is at eye level. Right. So my standing eye level is about 65 inches, my wife's is about 56.5 inches (no lie!) - and if I camp my keister in a kitchen chair that level drops to 42 inches...
Maybe it's a good thing that my semi-modeled mountainsides all rise to a height well above my eye level.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The technical term for this is orthographic projection (as opposed to perspective view) in which all vertical lines are vertical and all horizontal lines are horizontal and all oblique lines are at a fixed angle instead of aiming at a vanishing point. Not that this info really adds anything meaningful to our discussion or that such an image looks any better . . . I just thought I'd chime in case such a question pops up on Jeopardy or something.
Carry on.
LINK to SNSR Blog
It can't be faked. If I stand in front of my backdrop and paint a reasonable approximation of a 'Christmas tree' spruce or pine, it will have a certain appealing symmetry to it, but only if I look at it between about 25 degrees from either side of a centerline. Once I get my camera lens or my eyes to either side of the tree depiction, on a flat surface, by more than about 30 degrees, the tree will have thinned noticeably. The further away from that centerline, the worse it gets. This is also true for painted buildings and even mountains. Suddenly, well to the side, those nice hills look more like improbably tall cinder cones, or worse.
I think that's why it is important to have the 3-D layer in front of the backdrop where at least a few model trees are in front of the supposed more distant backdrop.
mlehman Yes, the mountains behind seem higher in this pic, but the overall effect works well. This angle is one the camera caught, not the human eye, because it would be difficult to get your face down on the track level here, unlike for the camera.
On my own layout, the layering of backdrops was done in my cities and towns. In the main city of Franklinton, I used a long Sceniking mural for the base of backdrop. There were two things I wanted to include in my urban area, an arena and a ballpark but both would have taken far too much real estate to do them justice in 3D so I found a couple online pictures, scaled them to the size I needed and pasted them in front of the Sceniking backdrop. In front of them I placed low relief buildings and flats with a few gaps in between and it does a real nice job of creating the illusion that the sports venues are several blocks away with the buildings on the mural even farther away.
In the towns I did similar things on a smaller scale. My rural scenery depicts the Appalachians with 3D foothills with backdrop mountains poking through in the gaps between the hills, similar to what you have done.
I wish I could upload some pictures but I have issues with my digital camera. Might have to replace it.
Sounds similar to how I dealt with Silverton. There's the backdrop, with a rising branchline up against it with a line of trees squeezed in between. This pic is of the left end, where the branch (to Eureka and Animas Forks as the old Silverton Northern) joins with the main just south of Silverton.
Just about where the train goes out of sight is where the track turns to parallel the wall. The backdrop may be 2D, but still it works even at this oblique angle. I suspect having a lot of sky helps here, another argument about taking care to get that horizon at the right height to help blend the 3D and 2D together.
This one is a high angle view of the location.
The next pic is from the right end of Silverton, about 12' to the north of the last pic.
Note another trick that helps, the coving in the corner that carries the backdrop on around the bend. Sure, it's not 3D, but it comes across pretty well here. You can also see most of the "town" which is a self-standing flat that goes right in front of the track behind town.
The next one is about halway in between the other two. Here, the transition between 2D and 3D is a little trickier, as I needed to help conceal a reinforcing column that just out from the wall. You can see the town flat better. It works, despite some of the elements having different perspectives. Blending it together isn't perfect, but it is a reminder to NOT let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
People often write off doing something because it's technically "not right" but this often overlooks the fact that it can still be convincing scenery even if your art instructor isn't happy with it.
Here's the high angle view where the town flat reveals its shallowness.
This pic is from when I was working on lighting, but gives a good long perspective from straight on from across the room. Note again how important choosing the right horizon line is to making this all work.
Finally, Before and After pics of what you see as you walk the aisle towards Silverton.
[way] Before
After
Sure, I "broke" a lot of absolute-type rules, but do NOT be afaid to do that. You might be pretty darn happy with how things come out. I'm not an artist most of the time, yet this came out well with coaching from the Green Frog video by Greg Gray, "Painting Backdrops."