Photographic Light-Box On The Cheap

 You can get much better results when photographing models, even with a relatively mediocre camera, if you can control the lighting, and a light-box is an easy way to do that.

You can buy fancy light-boxes complete with adjustable lighting and everything, but they aren't cheap. There are ways that are much easier on the wallet.

I made this light-box from a cheap plastic storage bin, some white posterboard, and a couple of cheap clip-on lights. A cardboard box would do almost as well for the shell, but the strength of the plastic box means that if need be I can clamp lights to its edges.

You will notice that neither of the lamps is actually directed at the model — that's because I usually want a very diffuse light illuminating the scene, so the lamps are directed at the reflective arch of cardboard over the top. If some direct light is desired, it's a simple matter to add another lamp clipped to the top front edge of the box.

The piece of cardboard I used for the top arch isn't long enough to go over the whole span from bottom to bottom, and I'll probably fill those empty gaps with additional pieces of card. It doesn't matter if the join isn't seamless, as it will never be seen in a photograph.

I suppose it might do the job if I just painted the whole of the inside of the box white, but I prefer a smoother arch as it creates a slightly more diffuse light, being reflected from many more angles than just the four of a flat top, sides and back. I may well paint the cardboard liner though, as the posterboard has a very slightly blue cast. I believe it's possible to get a very highly reflective pearlescent white paint, intended for painting walls for home-cinema projection, and if I can find some (and it's not too dear) I'll give that a go.

The subject — an Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk.I

The light-box in action with two lights

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This is a carved wood Garuda I found in an antique shop and picked up on the cheap, due to it having a large crack in its base which I didn't care about at all. I've photographed it against a piece of coloured card, but otherwise I haven't changed the setup as shown above at all.

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Reaper Bones Ice Worm

These two scenes have been exposed and post-processed with the aid of a very simple little white-grey-black card. Photoshop allows you to eyedropper-select the tones to be treated as white or black within the the scene, and if you have elements in the image that you know are pure white and/or pure black, this automated levelling can be very handy.

Battlefront 15mm British (North Africa)

Cards like this are available from photographic supplies vendors, but they're ridiculously expensive, and I don't need that degree of accuracy. I just mixed the grey until it was a close enough match to the medium grey on a scanner calibration card I got with my scanner some years ago.

Lighting Test

I've put this here for my own reference. I've added a large reflector/diffuser to my lighting stage key light, and I wanted to take some test shots with it in place.

All photos were taken at ASA 100, f8, and with the camera set to auto-exposure. All lights are 24w. cool-white "daylight" fluorescents.

The camera is a Fuji FinePix S6500fd, now getting on for about ten years old.

1. Ambient light only, approx 1.1 seconds.
2. Key light only, approx. 1/12 seconds
3. Key + left fill, approx. 1/20 seconds
4. Key + left + right fill, approx. 1/30 seconds

Movement, Encumbrance, and Material Components

To quote Hack & Slash: On Movement

"Now the real world movement rates are very slow. Several people by themselves have done 'tests' where they map their environment or attempt to cautiously move around in these environments. In every case they say, 'I am able to walk so much faster then the listed rate'. They then reach the conclusion that the listed rate is wrong. In every single case none of the following is considered. 

What you can usually see in the dungeon, if you're lucky

The environment is cramped and pitch black. The ground is uneven in the best case. The light is torchlight. Mapping is done with either parchment and charcoal or an ink pen. There are no hash marks or clear markers to indicate distance, it must be measured. Groups range in size from 4 to 12. Many are uneducated hirelings. Many are wearing metal armour and carrying heavy gear. Movement must be coordinated and silent. The rate is an abstraction, looking around corners, stopping to listen (and having to get everyone silent first) and quiet hurried discussion about what to do make up for the time spent moving slightly faster down an open corridor. 

When you look at real world examples of these things the movement rate is much more realistic. Getting people in line and moving orderly is time consuming. Exploration of caves tends to take much longer (with modern equipment) than people assume, and we know they aren't trapped, filled with demons and monsters, and actively inimical to your survival."

I know I don't take as much notice as I should of party movement and timekeeping; it often feels like pettifogging book-keeping to no purpose, like being strict about encumbrance.

However, a large part of old-school D&D style gaming is resource management and exploration, and to play that sort of game properly you really do need to know exactly what resources you have to manage, and how far and how fast you can get those resources to where they'll be useful (i.e. the massive piles of treasure).

I've been pondering for a long time on ways to make keeping track of encumbrance as painless as possible, because I know that if it puts players to any trouble at all, 99% of them will just try to ignore it. And I think I have a workable solution, though it will mean a little bit of design work on my part.

I'm thinking of separate sheets — index cards, maybe — for each container the characters are carrying, each card marked with the container's dimensions and a number of encumbrance "slots" that can be filled with Stuff. To this end, I'll largely hark back to Gygax's old AD&D equipment encumbrance values, since they took into account not only the item's weight, but also its size and general awkwardness. There will still have to be a certain amount of common sense employed (no putting barrels into belt pouches, for example), but in general it should work out easily enough. Plus, having a bunch of cards to sort through for all your packs, pouches, sacks and porters  should neatly represent the problems of having to find that thing you knew you had but just can't quite remember where you put it...

On a semi-related note, I think I'm going to return to the idea of having set material components for spells again, a la AD&D, rather than just hand-waving the matter. Again, it's to do with the resource management aspect of the game. If you don't have the components available for the spell you want for the situation at hand, what do you do? Try and substitute something else and hope it works? Or find another plan?