Clever solution

what he said!

I was going to say the same thing - Super Clever! and great looking scene too.

Very nice!

Cool

I like seeing clever solutions like this.

Can you come over

Thanks all

Thanks for the kind comments.

This was one of those experiments that just kinda' worked. It was bound to happen sooner or later   ; )

Very nice work. Had you

Very nice work. Had you considered moving the light source. A high noon light source would not throw shadows on your back drop. If the source of light was closer to the backdrop the shadows would be much closer to underneath the objects and not on the back drop. That sure is a big tree, nicely done, as it actually looks smaller than it is at first, due to the nice detail.

Rob in Texas

Rob in Texas

Thanks Rob.

Can't really move the light to much. The ceiling is very low in my basement, not much higher that the top of the tree really. To cope with this I've coved the corners between the wall and ceiling and painted the sky all the way around to the lighting valance. This works well for drawing your eye away from the ceiling but means any "high noon" lights would be floating out in the middle of the sky. The joys of living in a small old house.

My next layout will have 20 ft. ceilings!!!

BTW the tree is about 17" high and the ceiling not much more that 24"

Love the backdrop

Thanks for sharing your shadow solution.

Just love the backdrop, mine looks like that in my mind, but the paintbrushes have different ideas, and it never comes out that good.

Great looking scene.

Your background and trees are

Your background and trees are beautiful!  The solution you came up with may be helping, but you still have the problem that the tree is in a bit of shadow.  You had the right concept, but I believe you can have a better outcome by using diffusion material in front of you lights.  This, depending on the thickness of the material, will soften your shadow on the background without taking light away from the tree.  In the film industry, we have diffusion material called tough spun and tough frost.  It comes in a few different diffusion weights.  Full, Half, Quarter and Eighth.  It is normally sold in rolls, which is very expensive or you can buy it in sheets.  The tough spun is a spun glass material that is very light and can be easily cut to the size of the front of your light.  The tough frost is like a white acetate material that you can cut as well.  A good example of tough spun is;  look under the box spring of your bed.  The material that is covering the bottom of your box spring is the same type of material as tough spun.  It is a heat ad flame resistant material so you can put it right on the light without it burning.  I believe, from what I can see, you are using LED lights.  If that is the case, you don't have to worry about the heat given off by your lights.  You can tape it right on to the fixture.  If they are par lights or Quartz halogen lights, you can still put the diffusion material on that acrylic holder you used for your scrim.  You will probably have to experiment with the diffusion thickness to see which one will best eliminate the shadows.  A couple of good sources for this material would be Film tools in Ca. , Barbizon lighting and B&H photo in NY.  Hope this helps,  Rick

Fresnel?

How about a fresnel lens? Plastic ones can be had for $1.

http://www.3dlens.com/shop/full-page-magnifier-lens.php

In the shadows

Just have some O scale lumberjacks remove the tree!  ( I like to keep things simple )

Diffussion

Thanks rickdiaz.

I know the materials you are talking about. Dale, one of the fellows that plays trains with me, has been in the theatre biz for many years so I have one of the Rossco Gel swatch books.

I've tried various diffusion materials before but didn't like the look that it gave me. Fading the shadows on the backdrop fades all the shadows and I lose the direct sunlight effect I'm going for. But, I was diffusing the whole light; I think I'll try a small patch of it in lieu of the black paint on the acrylic "gobo" and just soften the one area. worth a try, anyway.

JohnAsklar,

The day hostler likes to sit on the front porch of his little storage shed after work and enjoy a beer or two in the shade of "his" tree. He'd be some POed if we cut it down.

Blacking out vs. diffusion

I took down the piece of acrylic, washed the black paint off it and experimented with some diffusion materials. My initial fears regarding the amount of diffusion needed to soften the shadow were, perhaps, well founded. After playing with several materials I eventually ended up using a piece of white tissue paper. Anything less that that and the shadow re-appeared. Admittedly the tissue paper blocks a great deal of light but nowhere near as much as a layer of black paint.

So, in conclusion, my spruce tree is a tad brighter than it was, there is still no shadow and the day hostler seems to know that something is afoot. He goes about his tasks now with one eye always on "his" tree.

Final Photo?

Can you post a final set of photos showing the setup and the result?

"masking" shadows

This is why professional photographers use a sheet of material over their lamps--to prevent harsh shadows. By painting that area of the white, you diffuse the light, almost completely eliminating the shadows. This is also why many modelers use fluorescent lamps instead of direct lamps.

A much simpler fix would be to aim the lamps at the ceiling and let the reflected light shine down on the scene.

Lighting

It all comes back to lighting and how important it is. Lighting is one of the first things you need to work out before starting construction. Very nice tree. Bob Ross would be proud of you

Simple suggestion #2

Maybe trim down the tree so the shadow is below the sky?  A figure of the hostler relaxing in the shade underneath  would add a focal point.   Your  landscape backdrop is very convincing.        John Asklar, of the Central Niagara Railway  (CN subsidiary)

Rick

As Dan suggested

Thanks all

The lighting on my layout has evolved over time. When I first started building it I looked into LED lighting but that was new technology then and the costs were ridiculous, to say the least. I settled for CFL bulbs at about a three foot spacing and yes, Art, I had all the lighting installed in an area before I even started the backdrop or bench work.

If you look closely at the "masked" hills in the first photo you can see that they stand proud of the sky a bit. I was originally going to set them away from the sky and put some lighting behind them but the hills themselves cast shadows on the sky and getting any back lighting to wash evenly across the sky and eliminate those shadows was pretty much impossible with the technology and funds I had at my disposal So I eventually gave up and just glued the hills right to the sky. I think it could be done now with LED strip lighting, but I'm not going to rip everything out and start again!

When LED technology became bright enough and affordable I ripped out all the old lights and replaced them with the LED strips. certainly not a fun job but the results were worth it. The LEDs are great in that they don't really cast any shadows, good for the backdrop but It made the layout look like the weather was always over cast. Hence the LED spots to to get some nice sunny shadows on things.

Here is an example of what I mean. the first picture is with LED strips only:

Nice even lighting but a bit dreary. Now, you pop the spots on and presto... It's a bright, bright sun shiny day.

I like this effect enough that I'll put up with any shadow situations and deal with them as the come up.

Here is the final outcome oft the experiment:

The Spruce is still a bit darker than the rest of the scene but not as much as it was with the black paint mask. I'm happy with it now.

Incidentally, this is how the mask looks now:

I had to turn off the spot light to take the picture. I found some material that I had lying around that I think is pretty similar to tough spun and simply scotch taped it to the plastic.

Paint the Tree

Rick,

You could paint the tree with a lighter highlight colour to make it look brighter and more sunlit.

I have had similar problems, but my trees are much closer to the backdrop. I painted dark green shadows on the backdrop so it looks a little like a thick forest. Doesn't always work when you move around and view from different angles. I may change to LED strip lighting when the fluorescents burn out.

Brent

Calgary

I agree with Brent

Painted highlights

Thanks guys. I was actually thinking of doing that. I've got a rattle can of a very bright yellow, green colour that I've used for just that purpose on other trees. The big question is "can I get the tree out of there easily?" It's been glued in and the diluted white glue can really lock those suckers in, and I'm certainly not going to water down a finished scene just for one tree. I suppose just giving it a tug and seeing what happens is worth a try.

I do figure, however, that If I masked the tree so I could re spray the backdrop there is probably a way to mask everything around the tree to spray it in place

something to ponder anyway.