Model Railroading > Building Flats and Shadows

I have seen many photos and videos of peoples layouts concerning their building flats.
I'm not an expert in scenery although it is my primary interests; I just see what I see.
Guya and gals have put a lot of effort in their scenery only to have a "flat" building with NO depth.
I feel that these "flats" should be kept at a distance to be more realistic and the closer you get to them the more UNauthentic they appear.

Maybe if the modeler could somehow stick some styrofoam behind the building to give it more depth or anything behind the structure for that matter.

Again I have seen some beatiful layous only to have this minor distraction ruin it.
In fact I have some "old" flats that are an inch thick and I still place them at a distance of at least 2-3 ft.

Also I'll give you another two cents of my opinion and it is SHADOWS.
Again and again people place there structures such as trees, or any small items AGAINST the wall of the layout casting a shadow ruining the realistice effect letting you know right away that it is a layout and NOT a realistic scent.

Suggestion: move your objects AWAY from the wall so they DON'T cast a shadow.

I hope this will be a constructive critism and NOt NIT picking since I'm nor a rivet counter and I'm just trying to make modeler's awaware of this distraction.

Hal

Another approach to shadows on the backdrop (which I agree are a big buzz-kill) is to move the offending object CLOSER to the backdrop. Especially if they're things like trees or rock outcrops.

You can do a lot to control this by using diffuse, non directional lighting as well.

As for my own personal world, most of my HO layout is on a shelf, only 14 inches deep. So I can't just put my building flats three feet away. They'd be in another room...