[Anthony]

Hey guys! This is a work in progress of a scene for my demo reel. Missing from these images are all the volumetric effects-rolling clouds, blowing dust, and rising smoke in the city. I included the forground to see the framing of the shot.


Big: http://antsin3d.com/reeldev/battleground-1a.jpg

and after the camera dolly:

Big: http://antsin3d.com/reeldev/battleground-1b.jpg

And the clean full size matte: http://antsin3d.com/reeldev/battlefieldmatte.jpg

All in all I have over 20 layers of dusty stuff in the compositor, animated. I left that stuff out so that you can see the painting better. I'm going for an artistic realism(strong color themes for each scene in the animation). Like I said, this is going on VHS, my demo reel, so don't pull any punches. If any career matte painters have a thought or two I'd GREATLY appreciate it. I'm a 3d guy, but do love painting. ^_^ Thanks in advance guys!

[ October 24, 2001: Message edited by: Anthony ]

[nil900]

Hi anthony thank you for the name of the book. I'll search for a german version of it.

Perhaps you should not write want crits from matte painters cause there aren't many here and the other ones might be "afraid" to crit.

My crits from background to foreground:
I like the background like it is. Most of the mountins look good to me too but I think there is to much contrast (or to much black) in the old city on the right and on the hill on the left is to much black.
The river is great!
The mid area looks a little dead perhaps you should add some more hills.
The tree in the foreground is going up much to straight (don't know the right word hope you know what I mean), It doesn't look natural.
The foreground is to narrow I think. If there was just a little more space behind the tree the perspective looked better.

Don't know if the crits are really right but that's what I think about the pic.
Anyway I like your painting and would like to see it animated.

[Anthony]

Ah, yah! Didn't mean that only matte painters could crit. ^_^ The big tree's definately gonna change, gotta find something for the middle background. Thanks for the crits, they help!

[Steven Stahlberg]

I think it's a very good effort, almost there... but I think the colors are a little bit too strong - the oranges and yellow on the distant ground make the ground look incandesent, like lava. At most there might be some tiny parts of a cloud close to the sun which is 100% saturated, but nothing else should be.
Most of the ground is also too light, in this lighting situation we'd only see thin bright edges of whatever's sticking up far enough, all else would be a purplish, brownish, dark shadow, more like what you did right next to the city, but going slightly cooler into the distance.
The walled city also looks a little smeared, perhaps you could cut that bit out, resize it 200%, paint some sharper corners and edges in there, then shrink it and paste it back in?

[Anthony]

Hey Steven, thanks for the crits! I'm working a new direction with this piece, I'll have an update for you guys hopefully late tonight. Basically I'm starting with a night scene, battle ongoing, fire in the city, etc, and throw in a fade to the day shot, city spewing black smoke, armies gone. That'll set up the story much much better, and we'll know from whence our soldier comes! Thanks again, more crits very welcome from anyone and everyone(especially folk like Loki or Spooge who do this thing so blasted well).

[Anthony]

OK! Here's an update. Basically it starts at night, dollys very slowly right(is dollying at fade in), cross dissolves to day shot as it stops, camera stops, and the character will come walking up and off the right to behind the camera.

And the day shot:

The cross dissolve gives a really nice "rapid sun rise" effect with minimal effort, and the night shot at the start lets the overdone radiosity of the light come across OK(I'm just getting anxious to get to the next scene really!). Thoughts still welcome, as always =]

[Steven Stahlberg]

To clarify my earlier comment, I did a little overpaint here, hope you don't mind.
Although you could desaturate the sky even a bit more, at left and right, since sun-rise is usually depicted less saturated than sunset.
Also, comments about the night-scene: the blue is much too strong, and the ground too light around the soldiers. I know the problem of making them visible there; maybe the soldiers could have torches to make them stand out, or you could make it a mooonlit night, or both.



[ October 25, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Anthony]

Mucho gracias!