[Tinusch]

I've seen this word tossed about quite a bit lately. I thought I knew what it meant, but I'm not sure. What exactly does "MATTE" mean?

[garthmidgley]

As far as I know, it means devoid of shine/ glossiness. Like the colour of a black hole (not that I've ever seen one).
If you want to see it in effect you could always go down to your local hardware store and purchase a can of matte and gloss black, you'll see the difference.
Likewise, you could always look on the road for a crappy car that's been sprayed matte black with spray cans in an attempt to make it look cool Or is that just where I come from

There isn't another meaning for this term is there???

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[Lukias]

Carefull this is deep

'To make things look really good, so people can't tell the difference......anymore'

and there you have it, i had to go and sit down for awhile and ponder the more spiritual aspects of this...

Sorry dude, I know jack

[Sumaleth]

I dont know where the term originated (although it's been in use for at 60+ years), but when people refer to 'matte painting' here they usual mean the use of painted background elements for TV or film.

Usually this type of painting is used to extend or enhance real footage - paint in a castle to a real location for example - but sometimes the entire image can be a painting (pretty rare I think).

Spooge's site has some good before/after images (and the Whitehouse thread shows a particularly good example of the elements he was given and the final result), but a really good site to see what it's all about is;
http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/~jmvives/

You can move your pointer over his images and see what the original image looked like.

Hope that explains it well enough.

Row.

[garthmidgley]

I think we've all learnt something here today

Thanks.

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[Skeezer]

Tinusch,

If you want to see a professional example of a matte painting go check out Eric Chauvin

here's his site.
www.blackpoolstudios.com

He did work on StarWars Trilogy special edition, Contact, Hook, StarTrek Voyager, Babylon 5, and many others.

Do check it out he's got some nicccceeee work.

later

-isaac

[silber]

babylon says:
(online translation programm)

''dull finish;non shiny color;border of picture''

but I don't think it's the ''matte '' you are looking
for



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-----silBer--
http://silber.atariflys.de

[n8]

umm...mr garth person....blackholes are colourless and cannot be seen...thats y u havent seen it before =) ..light cant escape it therefore you have no colour...u can only see what theyre "eating" ??...the swirly part...they are of infinite density and suck more stuff in the denser they get...so in conclusion the universe is gonna be sucked up by black holes...as for matte...i got nfi what the hell it is....only idea i have is that Mr mullins paints them..
cheers

[Sergenth]

This is just a shot in the dark, but I have an idea why they might be called matte paintings. In the days of Hollywood when they painted HUGE backdrops for movies like "Gone with the Wind" (sunset scene at end) and the "Wizard of Oz" the painted backdrop could/should not reflect light from the super bright lamps illuminating the stars. A matte finish of paint would reduce spot shines and would distribute the light hitting it, making it seem to glow rather than reflect. 20 lamps will do that.

Again, this is just a guess, but it's coming from someone who delights at the word "Encyclopedia" which literally means "Book that Encircles Everything"

Million
BI-llion
TRI-llion
QUAD-rillion
PENT-illion

hehe... figured that one out too after so many years...

Oh yeah.. one more... INSECT is short for "In Sections!"

[Skeezer]

In the olden days, about ten years ago,

They used optical printing to rear project the original footage through a glass plate on which a larger background was painted. The finish of the painting would have to be matte so that the lighting on the painting wouldn't make it glossy.

Check out the book -Art of StarWars-

If you've seen Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc, there's a matte painting used in the very end scene when the arc is rolled into a government warehouse and the camera pans back into a larger shot showing how immense the building was.

The only real footage was the guy rolling the arc and about twenty feet of cement floor in front of him.

Hope that clears up the Matte Painting issue.

-isaac

[Tinusch]

And... how is it pronounced? Mat? Mat-tay?

[Sumaleth]

Everyone I've ever heard say the word has pronounced it 'mat' so thats how I say it.

The origin of the word is interesting though. The idea that it might be because they were "non reflective" doesn't seem right since in the early days they often used oil paints and they can be quite shiny, it's all just a question of where the light is placed.

I actually wondered whether it might relate to images that have holes in them. In computer art/animation, "matte" is sometimes used to mean the same thing as "mask" or "alpha channel", so it describes which parts of the image are opaque and which bits can be seen through.

And tv/film matte paintings are like that in a sense. The painting is only in certain areas and then through the gaps you can see the original image.

I dunno.. may be a bit of a stretch.

Row.