The Old Dog noted the articles that may be available in the hobby in the future. One item was a back drop where lights could be used to control the color of the sky an hence the time of day.
The Old Dog must ask, with the price of large screen HD TV’s dropping all the time, why not wait a year or two and put a cheap TV back there with a feed from a VCR or DVD?
Have fun
Somehow “future” and “VCR” don’t seem to belong in the same sentence.
Dear Old Dog,
It’s an interesting idea, and one that I’ve given some thought to as well. You could use a flat-screen TV for the backdrop and sky both, but you’d have a reflection from the screen that might be distracting. It may be possible to place an LCD or DLP projector behind a translucent backdrop or to use an older rear-projection TV, but both of those solutions would take more space.
Keep the ideas coming, though, and thanks for reading MR!
Terry
An interesting idea, and appealing to some, no doubt. I can hear the anti-RTR guys foaming at the mouth, though. What? Another thing to just plug and play?! Might as well just by videos of the trains and a layout and play that as do any work at all!
…or words to that effect.
Constructively, though, a cotton sheet is not refletive, and if enought were to be stretched tightly to form a projecting surface, maybe two or three such projectors would work.
And, Simon. You had to say it, right?[:-,]
I have seen layouts both in person and in photos where the backdrop is lit by hidden footlights – the effect is dramatic. And it tends to keep shadows off the backdrop which aids realism.
When I was a boy – let’s say around 1962 – my dad would take me along to a local tavern while we waited for our fish fry (a Friday tradition here in Milwaukee) to be ready. Behind the bar was a lighted Hamm’s Beer sign that had water that looked like it was actually moving. I was just hypnotized. I do not know how they did it but it would be a tremendous effect on a model railroad. I could imagine a backdrop with what looks like moving water, breezes in the leaves and branches of trees, moving grasses, and other repetitive motions. It might make my mouth water for one of those wonderful fish fries however.
“From the Land of Sky Blue Waters (Waters),
From the land of pines, lofty balsam,
Comes the beer refreshing,
Hamm’s the Beer Refreshing”.
Dave Nelson
I saw a show where the military is working on an LCD paint for camoflauge. Paint a wall, wire it to a computer and display whatever you wanted on the wall. They said eventually you could paint a room and change the color to what you want with a computer remote. You could also “hang” different art on the walls with clip art in the computer.
You could paint your back drop and create an entire city or mountain scene in Photoshop and upload it to the back drop. (probably show videos on it too)
I distinctly remember reading about a paint that responds to a very tiny amount of electricity. If you were to paint a wall white and literally hook it up to two small wires the entire wall will give off a white light.
Or any color you choose to put on the wall. It was proclaimed as the way to the future and rendering light bulbs obslete and LED’s unnecessary.
I heard a little birdie on the wall chirp about military applications of camoflauge where a tank’s outside skin will read it’s surroundings and then compute the necessary colors and emit a overall light that should cause it to blend in just about completely at a reasonable distance.
Some of you might remember a device that had a colored plate of different colors back in the 60’s and 70’s that changed the color of whatever the light was aimed at from time to time. Perhaps the motor that controls the plate may be set up to create a afternoon to sunset effect on your backdrops.
One trick that I saw that worked quite convincingly was done by a hollywood Matte Painting Painter. He did his backdrop, on which was a fast moving stream. He then cut out all the “White Water” areas of his backdrop. So when he got done he had a beutiful back drop with funny slit shaped holes through it. He then built some rollers that looked kind of like an oversize belt sander. He then took a strip of canvase and painted it a streaky effect of various shades of white and gray in a random fashion. He then rolled the strip of canvas into a belt and streatched it over the rollers. he then mounted this contraption at the correct angle on the back drop, and when it was turned on it looked like rushing water flowing quickly over various rocks in the stream. Quite convincing indeed. Another scarey thing about his back drop was due to this gentlemens obvious talent. It was very hard to impossible to tell where the 3D scenery and the Backdrop begun at times.
James
I can imagine the wife’s reaction when she walks into the home office and discovers that it’s been converted into an animated “gentlemen’s club.” [(-D]
As for backdrops and scenery, I’m holding out for full holography (look, Ma, no more plaster and ground foam!) [:-^]
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
For the future…lets see some have mentioned holography.
How about this future article: one could have a “trains holo room”, about 6’x6’, so one did not get claustrophobic. One could sit in an easy chair and one could call up any MR railroad featured (and some standard- like Atlas plans) OR OR OR any segment of REAL railroad anytime from 1829-present, [with a “into the (imagined) future” segment] from 2x4’ to 100x1000’!!! Select any real train/s to operate, zoom in on certain parts of the layout, and “pop” into the engineer’s chair, caboose or conductor’s “hat”, maybe even passenger, for a real view (like the current computer train operating programs).!!![;)]
And for the so-called rivet counters, and/or scratch builders, there is a virtual warehouse with all kinds of everything, supply and tools possible to build any scenery, train, rolling stock, structure you want!!![8D]
Some of us would never come out of there so there would have to be an auto shut-off (with resume feature)!!![wow][yeah]
Whew! I’m exhausted thinking about it!! I have broken out in a sweat!!! I have aquired engineer’s elbow and fireman’s back!! I have scratch builder’s x-acto knife-itis!!! SOmebody help me please!!![swg]
This could be a great layout extender. Your train leaves a town and before entering another town 10 feet down the track the train runs onto a set of free spinning rotors. The train looks like it’s moving, rods in action, chuffing sound from the speaker. The LCD TV is the background and displays a moving set of scenery that makes the train look like it’s running through miles of countryside. After the train runs enough miles the rotors lock and the train rolls into the next town for switching or whatever. With 3 or 4 tv screens the layout has a realistic number of miles between the towns.
Next of course is to have one scene that has small LCD screens in the front for building/fore ground scenery pictures and a large one in the back for background scene. By changing the pictures the train never actually moves as it rolls along. As you slow down, speed up, reverse, all your displays react accordingly as your train rolls through an endless supply of towns and countryside. Now guys with only 8 feet of space can have a huge layout.
Then you replace the train with a long short LCD screen for the train. Now you can drop off and pick up cars. You can have an endless supply of cars and every locomotive your favorite railroad had - all stored on your computer.
And then you go to one large screen with the train super imposed on the foreground superimposed on the background and you run the whole thing with a joystick.
Wait, wait, we have that now!! the future is here already.
[(-D] [(-D] [(-D] [(-D]
Enjoy
Paul
I favorited this on YouTube about a year ago, but haven’t heard anything about it since.
If Philips develops this technology, it could be just what the Old Dog ordered. Holodeck, here we come! [:)]
The technology already exists for having a changing sky for your layout.
It’s called building in front of a window.
This approach has the added bonus of providing natural weathering through fading paint!
[;)]
c
I’d like to paint my car with that stuff…then, if I had an accident, there would be conflicting eyewitness reports.