[Bg]

Don't know about you but I've wanted to be a matte painter all my life, it's funny because today I was checking out my website and noticed there's zero landscape paintings there. It made me think, how on Earth I could get a job that involves background painting by doing close ups of characters?

To prevent myself of doing my first matte when I'm 40 I painted this: (done while other computer rendered = about 1 hour, no reference used, though inspired by Deep Impact, resolution: 2500x?, bla bla)


New:





Old:





Anyone played Hero's Quest 1? It was the biggest inspiration for me when I was kid.

Oh yeah, tear it apart, make it hurt

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Bg ]

[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Bg ]

[Micket]

quite nice!
although it got about a trillion times less detail then a matte painting =P

b.t.w have you seen final fantasy: the spirits within? on the extra DVD theres a short documentry about the matte paintings, damn that guy was talented!

good luck!

[Gimbal8]

That was close. Boss walked in before I could finish the message. Anyway -

The horizon (and surrounding) is convincing. I'd like to see more detail added. Not so sure about the rest of it, but then again my monitor here at work runs on the dark side (No, not that dark side) so I'm missing some detail on my end.

On one of the newer Star Wars trilogy releases there was a time-lapse photo shoot of the matte painter at work. Very cool to watch.

[BlackPool]

You want to be a matte painter? Well here's some advice from Micheal Pangrazio-- Copy color photographs and get good enough at it so that you can stand across the room and look at yours and the original side by side and not be able to tell the difference.

[Tinusch]

I'm no Spooge, but from what I've heard him say, you need to simplify more. I really like that, the colors and composition are really good. But maybe a little too much "noodling"... Use strong, solid strokes.

But look who's talking...

[henrik]

Bg, I think you should keep values more separated. What is form and what is texture? Your view is great, very small things at a long distance. Show more reference points to define space/dimension. Dare showing form where you find it necessary. Don't mix up form with texture.

I did a fast paint edit.
I don't think my image is better, just another example. But I cropped the meteor.

[The Magic Pen]

ohhyy both of them are good !! Henrik makes some good points but that is a damn fine painting BG

[Bg]

Thanks a lot for the comments!

Henrik, I haven't heard of those rules before, thanks for sharing! I really love your overpaint, the cropping makes wonders. Thank you very much!

[10ten]

*speachless* good pic there

[aColdOldKodiak]

"b.t.w have you seen final fantasy: the spirits within? on the extra DVD theres a short documentry about the matte paintings, damn that guy was talented"

craig mullins

[galen]

That was Craig Mullins??

EDIT: OH. MY. GOD.

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: galen ]

[Gimbal8]

"That guy" posts here.

I'll give you 3 guesses...and the first 2 don't count.

[snarf]

The man being interviewed in that section of the DVD isn't Craig. I think Craig said it was really talented Swedish guy (?) who picked up matte painting extremely quickly. Craig did do work on Final Fantasy, though.

He wasn't visible to us during that section, but he was there. See, Craig is invisible. When you have divine artistic powers you simply become invisible. Why? Because invisible people are just that much cooler. :P

[Leo]

ok, I'm not a matter painter, I'm not a pro and due to my stupidity I've been worked on intro cinematic for one game and did some *ahem* 'matte paintings'. So here is something from my experience:

Bg, I'd recommend you testing your paintings in animation. Matte painting is just a part of the shot. Depending on camera movement you'll see where you need more details and where just a few brushstrokes works better. The biggest problem for me was the sence of depth. That picture may looks amazing at your desktop but when you start scrolling over it you'll notice some weird things. But hey, you must be already knew these things!

Final Fantasy. I've seen some of the movie scenes with craig mattes step by step... hmm, seems like these guys didn't tell us all their secrets . There are always tons of things to explore.

-leo

[Bg]

Leo: Great info there! It took me 4 damn long hours to figure out how to put the elements (convincingly) in geometry: animation test . It's 10 megs.

I think I'll order the Final Fantasy DVD..

[Radiater]

Hey Bg,

I think one of the things you, and henrik, did to improve your picture was to change the compostition. Having the horizon across the middle of your first pic made it hard to digest. Now, you and henrik has divided your pictures up into thirds (sorta like they suggest you do in photo's), and it makes it look tons better.

Great work on the rendering too btw.

Oh, and I just got a chance to look at your animation test. That's pretty convincing.


[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Radiater ]

[spooge demon]

I am not saying this is any better... if it looks more fake than the two above, disregard this. I am serious; because one thing I have learned over the years doing this is what looks real is about as subjective as what is art.

There is a big difference in a painting or illustration and a MP. In art you are editing, designing, making things look pretty, exaggerating form and color. In MP you are trying to duplicate how the camera sees, and how film sees. BG, trying to do this out of your head is really hard. Your drawing is vague, the horizon is curved. You have to be absolutely precise about these things. Not detailed, but precise in construction. There is too much �noodling� and contrast that looks nice in a painting sense, but it does not work towards the MP. The biggest mistake that my effects supervisors make is art directing to much, trying to make it pretty. Think deadpan. What is really there, not what you think is there.

Especially in a low light situation like this, with the sun well below the horizon, it would be difficult to photograph and there would not be much detail. Fast film and low contrast, baseball sized film grain.

Might want to paint at a higher key, don�t crush your blacks. That won�t film out well.

Leo- what do you want to know?

[The Magic Pen]

That's some damn good tips spooge:thanks from me * book marks thread*

[Freddio]

you've got some great lighting happening there..

[Leo]

Bg, sorry man, with my connection speed 10 megs will be a pain - but you've got some real tips from the right people .

Spooge, take a scene tcb1.jpg for example - looks like a complete matte but in motion I've noticed at least 3 layers: foreground buildings (probably 3d), barrier city and background with clouds. Everything is moving. Kinda strange for the 'flat' matte?

Another thing I still can't figure out is how to project mattes onto geometry... Ok, I can understand how it works if it's just a flat (or spherical) surface with a painting mapped out, but what about more complicated geometry?

-leo

[General Confusion]

hey BG sorry to infringe on your post.. but it's interesting to see the other takes on what you did (and very helpful) I was wondering if you guys could give me an opinion on this image I did. It's my sorry attempt at a matte...

So I was wondering if you, Spooge and Henrik could take the time to do an overpaint of my image??? And sorry again for posting this here, I just figured that it's an appropriate thread to further, and possibly get some more helpful feedback.

my painting

thanks

[BooMSticK]

leo - not to answer for craigh here, but I know one trick that is pretty neat.
Most of the better 3d packages have an optional mapping method called cameramapping. Essenitally this works by taking a wireframe image of what the camera sees and paint onto a that wireframeimage. Then use the camera as the map-projector to place your painted image onto the geometry. Needless to say this method has some shortcomings if the camerapan is rather complicated, but used wisely this method can save bundles of time...
,Boom

[Artgolem]

those are all good. oy, it hurts me. i suck.

that is the downside. on the upside, i am now all inspired to go try something.

[Marvel]

ArtGolem, I feel your pain. Even Timo's first one is quite good, the second one even better. I feel Spooge's image is too light, but then again it most likely is the most realistic one if not the best looking per se; Henrik's image just adds another notch to Timo's original (no offence).

All this makes me wanna try to do some scenery stuff .. but I know I will suck at that as bad as I suck at drawing people - well, it's still all a learning process, isn't it?

One day it may be we have several people close enough to Graig's talent, hopefully.

[Bg]

I'm away for 1,5 days and I get some excellent critique and another great repaint! Thanks!

Radiater: Splitting image in two (equal) halves must be the biggest mistakes you can make composition wise and that's exactly what I did in the first version haha. I noticed it when I saw Henrik's overpaint.

Spooge: In illustration I try to paint things as they appear in real life. In the past I've observed thing the way they appear to human eye and studying photography has been mostly left aside. So in a few words I'm still a stranger to matte painting and to photorealistic painting in general.
There's a lot of faults in the basic structure of my image, I roughed out the basic structure in a couple of minutes and started detailing.. it was a mistake, I should've thought more and render less.
The thing I like in your repaint is that it proves once again that well thought out sketch can beat the crap out of over rendered painting. You even even made the meteor smoke look almost like I imagined. Thanks for the helping me out, I appreciate it!

Leo, I'll replace it with smaller version (is 4 megs ok?) tomorrow. I used very cumbersome technique in mine, had to make the trees as a separate image and change all kinds of stuff, very frustrating. I would also be interested to know how to map a complicated matte..

General Confusion: I don't mind, you can post anything as long as it involves matte painting.

Boomstick: Sounds interesting, Max has that feature, haven't tried it out. I'll see if it can do the trick..

Freddio, Artgolem and Marvel, thanks for the comments!

[Bg]

General Confusion asked for an overpaint: (General Confusion's original can be found here

[spooge demon]

I have overdone the simplification to make a point. Start with large blocks of flat color and be very careful with your values. Make do with as narrow a value range within the shapes as you can. I know the temptation is to pile the white highlights on those rocks, but resist. Instead, spend the time designing the shapes that will really describe the rocks well from the angle you are looking at and you will find the urge to noodle leaving your trigger finger.

All this goes especially for low contrast underwater diffuse scenes.

I like BGs as an image much more, but mine would need less work to make it into a workable matte, IMHO.

The exposure latitude of film is pretty narrow, and photography is generally exposed for the lights. The eye works this way too but can adjust very quickly to differing light levels. So when you look at photography, especially low light stuff, you will find many lost edges and areas where different forms combine their shapes to make much more complex and abstract shapes. Mostly in the shadow areas, that is. I the light, stuff separates and there is a lot of form and color.

If there is one giveaway that I see more than anything else in effects work, it is too much detail and contrast in the shadow areas. Example- t-rex lifts his leg, and you can see tons of texture in the recess. The night scene in JP1 was nice, though. Really well matched.

[Bg]

Here's more serious attempt in making an addition to my landscape portfolio and yes that's Mount Doom back there, you'll never guess for what company I'm about to send these samples...
This is probably again too dark to be used as a matte... what is the value range film can handle? I'm used to 1-256 value range of computer games.

(took 4-5 hours, reference used (30 pictures of mountains), 2500x1250)


The sketch:





Finished:

[Anthony]

Awesome awesome thread. Its got me painting landscape doodles too. You last volcano image is great BG - remember that Mt. Doom was next to Sauron's citadel(he could see Samath Nuar from where he was-I got the impression it was like a long straight path and bridge from one to the other). On your question, I do stuff for TV, and vibrant reds are a no-no. In fact anything terribly saturated or perfectly black isn't going to fly as being realistic, and that probably holds true for film too(perhaps neon signs are the exception

[DiXter]

wow..
I wich I were as good as you guys on matte painting.

breathtaking stuff, and very inspireing