Why is it that some models look "like models" and some can be mistaken for full size, without any reference objects?
Take for instance model cars: can you guess the scale of these?
Those were 1:24, 1:64, 1:12 and 1:18. The smaller ones defintely looked like models, but the 1:12 wasn't appreciably more realistic than the 1:18. To me, the tires on the 1:24 give it away -- they're too shiny, or too small or something. On the 1:64 the grill and headlights don't look real. The 1:12 I can't tell WHAT'S wrong, but the 1:18 looks pretty good.
Here, the 1:12 looks a lot more realistic than the 1:18.
I'm always amazed in science fiction movies when model space ships look real, and appalled when they look like scale models. Yet it seems like it's more than the depth of detail that makes the difference, or the pure scale of the model. So what, I wonder, queues the eye into "scale modelness"?
Why does the 2nd, identical model look so much less realistic?
And something like this just astonishes me. It looks photoshopped, like it can't be true-to-scale.
This movie made me start thinking about this stuff.
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