White painted rails

[Reorte]

Isint it amazing what you need to know when modelling railways. Regards - E

If you want to include realistic direction lighting it could be. It's not something I've seen attempted very often (anyone ever done moving lighting for the time of day, working with a timetable to go with it?)

[Edwin_m]

Pretty difficult to avoid multiple shadows I would think, unless you have a small enough layout to be lit by a single spotlight that can swivel around on a long pole.  And if it goes more than 180 degrees the backscene will start casting a shadow! 

[Ian J.]

To do 'realistic' daylight, you'd need some kind of diffuse lighting source which could be gradient obscured. Could using multiple LED sources with a 'centre' one for the sun's actual position, and the others radiating out in gradually diminishing levels? That would also allow the sun source to move across the LED sources. Might take a computer program to do it in a realistic fashion.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

The technology is well proven - I saw Light Stage 2 demonstrated when I visited the ICT in Santa Monica a few years ago.  Originally designed to precisely replicate location lighting for replacement studio/CGI shots.

 

The Light Stage

[96701]

So, what do the last 4 posts have to do with white painted rails?

[Ian J.]

So, what do the last 4 posts have to do with white painted rails?

 

They're a bit tenuous, but it's to do with direction of sunlight (which is why rails sometimes get painted white), leading to whether a layout could be modelled with realistic moving light as per the way the sun moves throughout the day.