Of course, the folks at Disney have used forced perspective in front of live viewers with great success at their theme parks for 50+ years.
I tend to agree here. I think that a good force perspective would be incredibly hard to pull off except in pictures. Art, yours in among the better I’ve seen, but I think that other reference points in the room, will keep the mind from accepting the illusion.
In order to pull it off even for a picture, everything has to change size: roads, plants, rocks, trees, fences.
As I said in the previous post, I prefer other ways to create illusion.
The difference is that at Disney, the whole room is in the forced-perspective modality. With our models, it is necessary that most of the layout be 1:87. Its hard to fool the mind if it is only half-done forced perspective or less.
Unfortunately, you seem to lack a reasonable understanding of the function of binocular vision or perhaps the physical relationships involved in creating large scale dioramas (as with Disney) and this prevents you from understanding what I said.
It is indeed possible to create scenes using forced perspective that give the illusion of distance to a viewer but it requires a setting far larger in scope and scale than is possible on a layout. The effect simply can not be achieved when applied to model railroading when the viewer is always within a few feet of the scene being viewed.
CNJ831
I work the forced perspective, either up to the back drop, where it can be continued to a horizon, or in a hole, where there is a bottom to fool the eye. It seems to work the best going into a horizon.
The other secret may be the attitude of the viewer. If they want to be fooled, they will be if everything in the scene carries the illusion as Chip has suggested. Even with Disney, if you do not want to be fooled, and are looking for the tricks, you can see them.
My very limited experience is that non-model railroaders want to enter the illusion when they visit and help the perspective with their desire to see a large scene.
I like your answer. Don’t be surprised it I pop in one day and ask to see what you’ve done.
In the meantime, I have a better grasp of light and color (plus I have a professional artist for a wife) than I do of 3d interpretation. Therefore, I choose to create my illusion with the backdrop and paint.
This is actually one of the most used ideas out there. I’ve seen at least three attempts at this on different layouts. None of them had the desired effect. I think mostly because they didn’t have enough real distance to trick the eye. On one of them, I think it would have worked OK had the N-scale train been 12-15 feet away rather than 4. At only four feet, a human’s depth perception is good enough for the brain to get an accurate size of a 3D object.
The other thing people who try this often forget is that a train in the distance would appear to be moving very slow compared to one close up. On the ones I mentioned above, the “distance” trains were moving about the same speed as the “real” one had been as it passed the scene.
What seems to be emerging in this discussion is not what is in the foregriund, or what scale is in the back, but the need to deal with the transition scenery. In one of the mag articles, the writer used four different sizes of house to force the perspective. In my best scene, I do that with 50 cactuses that lead one up and back in the perspective. I also used a switchback road that reduced scale as it went up. It works best when I have a pickup truck at the top and the bottom. I also have some pine trees of diminishing scale to help the illusion.
My opinion is that it is these intermediary events that make a scene work, not just the foreground and the back.
In general, forced perspective in model railroad layouts seems to me to work better for photos than in-person. i.e. works best when the vantage point is controlled, and the image is two-dimensional. This observation is based upon viewing several layouts that used it, also some modules at train shows that used it. The two biggest problems when applying it to layouts are (1) insufficient physical distance to make the change in perspective believable; (2) sharp discontinuity in scales. In terms of the latter point, I mean going from 1:87 to 1:144 with nothing in between that is in an in-between scale. I have seen a number of professional dioramas in museums (not railroad scenes, BTW) that have used changes in scale very effectively to create the illusion of greater distance, but the changes in scale were GRADUAL; for example, 1:24 scale figures in foreground, then 1:36, etc. ending up with perhaps 1:64 in background. Obviously this requires hand-sculpted figures, scratch-built scenery, etc. They also were presented as shadow boxes (in some instances very LARGE shadow boxes) so the viewer’s vantage point was controlled almost as effectively as with a photograph.
Years ago, I saw a really neat attempt at creating this illusion on a whole layout scale. It was a LHS window layout with a mountain theme, where they had gone to the lengths of somehow automating and synchronizing matching consists in HO and N scales. the HO consist would disappear into a tunnel nearer the foreground, and after a pause, the identical N scale consist woul emerge from a tunnel much farther back and up the mountain. Near the summit, the N would disappear behind a peak, and reappear again in the foreground as HO. There were at least 3 or more scale shifts to make the trip up the mountains, the cycling was totally automated, and it would run like this for hours unattended. Though it was by no means convincingly realistic, it still was neat. When asked about it, all the owner would say was “Those little trains have big magic.”.
Unfortunately, you seem to lack the ability to post without attempting to parade your presumed intellectual superiority.
You might have posted only the second paragraph of your reply. But, no, it wouldn’t have the same impact without your effort to beliitle me.
Your patonizing tone–which you employ frequently–doesn’t make your point any more valid.
I have a track dead-ending at a painted backdrop where my layout ends.
To create an illusion, I painted a black tunnel, with a ‘N’ scale tunnel portal, and put an HO Searchlight red signal in ftont. Talk about perspective. It works!
For kicks, I added a BI-Colored LED with DPDT switch, so I can toggle it to green.
Depends a lot on the distance, height, and how much smaller structure you use. tends to work better with structures that are a bit smaller like using TT 1:120 for HO 1:87 or S 1:64 for O 1:48. I think if you go smaller you need more distance and/or height variation.
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Midnight, that situation arises from the fact that all too often folks here have an excessive need to post when, in fact, they have no firsthand knowledge regarding the subject under discussion and would be far better off being quiet and reading what those that actually understand the matter have to say, thereby learning something. Instead, more often than not, if corrected or advised of the real nature of the situation, they will balk and post either something inane or totally baseless that only further serves to demonstrate how extremely shallow their comprehension of the subject really is. Pointing that out is all that I’m actually doing.
CNJ831
CNJ,
You have a lot of knowledge and you do great work. However, your beside manor has a lot to be desired. You think it might be possible that more people might learn from you if you didn’t call them an idiot every chance you get. I’ve become pretty immune to it and in fact, I like pushing your buttons from time to time–but that doesn’t stop me from learning from you. But I don’t figure you are right 100% of the time–even with your vast amount of experience.
This is an open forum and the way people learn is by speaking their minds–and yet people make mistakes, and yes some people don’t know what they are talking about and yes there is more than one idiot here, and yes there are several kinds of idiot here–some that know what they are talking about.
The point is you can help without condescending. People will know if you are right by wh
Yeah, a much simpler idea. On a much smaller scale (no pun intended). I would expect that to work much better than some of the elaborate things some have tried. More like a “normal” 2D optical illusion.
Chip, I’ve been in this hobby a very long time. Outside of it, I’ve managed to gain a knowledge of a wide diversity of subjects as well. In the days before the Internet, I held my fellow hobbyists in great esteem, finding virtually all that I encountered to be highly accomplished as modelers and with equally broad backgrounds in all manner of subjects.
However, with the rise of hobby forums on the Internet, I’ve come to realize that for many of them their primary function seems to be to give a voice to every uninformed and misinformed individual out there. Fully 50% of what is posted on forums I find to be misinformation, nonsense, or totally irrelevant B.S. How one can possibly learn much of any real value under such a handicap, escapes me. Even more irksome is to find that when someone who honestly does know facts about an unusual or complex subject presents the correct answer to a situation, he is likely to be assailed or contradicted by a host of posters who obviously have no familiarity whatever regarding it. I have to liken much of forum participation to attempting to carry on a learned discussion with a room full of ten year olds! Repeated attempts to enlighten posters with facts, only to be contradicted by people whose breadth of knowledge, hobby or otherwise, is extremely limited, grows rapidly tiresome and in the longrun is not conducive to endless “politically correct” replies and pleasantries.
You’ll notice that I normally only interject myself into discussions where it is apparent that I have some background worth sharing. I h
CNJ,
Great response.
I can see where it must be frustrating for you. Consider this, please. As older people learn a new endeavor, they are starting from scratch on the schema of say, model railroading, but are bringing to the floor other schema from which to draw on–construction, art, photography, their life experiences, etc. They have have other less recognized skills such as the ability to visualize 3D from 2D drawings, or they have a natural insight into human nature. There’s a lot that people may be bringing to the table.
There may be other things they are bringing to the table as well–the inability to communicate–for instance, they think they communicated something completely, but in fact they left holes in what they said to the point they are misunderstood. Sometimes, great modelers can be poor communicators.
Another problem with the Internet is that you can’t tell the age of people here. You could be talking to a very good communicating 10-12 year-old or a poor communicating 40 year-old. One person might take being come down upon by an old pro with a grain of salt, the other might leave the hobby forever.
The overall atmosphere of this site is people helping people. As new people come aboard, they see this and want to do their part. When the see another newbee with a problem, they want to go, “Ooh, Ooh, I know this” And tell the other newbee, that it looks more real to paint the plywood green than to leave it bare. Obviously, this is a time to correct the situation, but you don’t want to crush newbee in the process.
But the same goes with all levels. Certainly, you don’t want to drive from the board, the guy who has been modeling 5-10 years because he is telling someone what he was taught. He may have a plywood central with unweathered structures and he may think he knows the answer to a question. He will state it like as the way it is. But he is trying to help. There may be a better answer, but no one like
Just because a person has knowledge doesn’t mean that he is necessarily wise.
There is learning, and then there is meta-learning. The meta-learner knows how to educate and to correct; that is, to impart his knowledge in such a way that it serves its intended purpose without unnecessary distractions. One doesn’t educate by being patronizing, lording one’s lofty achievements and experience over the less accomplished, belittling, humiliating, and castigating.
CNJ, I am surprised that Chip has taken so long to say this to you, but his response to you was a masterful and carefully scripted rebuke that you would do well to heed. You really should learn to object without being objectionable. This is one place where many of us can teach you something.
Just as important as what you say is how you say it.
And, for what it is worth, I, too admire your abilities immensely. I just wish they generalized into the real world of interpersonal communications.
-Crandell
If you find it untenable to be in a situation that allows participation by everyone, not just those you deem to be worthy of such participation, then perhaps instead of subjecting yourself to the frustration of dealing with those beneath you, you might consider absenting yourself from said situation.