76201679 digital matte painting
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ImageA
lpAltiner
TUTORIALS |Digital matte painting tips
060 | 3D WORLD3D WORLD September 2006
A dark art or simply a craft to be mastered? Whatever your preconceptions, these
tips from five world-class matte painters should guide you towards the light ...
Digital matte paintingTIPS & TRICKSTIPS & TRICKS
Our expertsthis issue
This matte painting from AlpAltiners forthcoming graphicnovel, The Unknown, demonstrates
the importance of composition.The viewer is lead into the image
and across the bridge
ost matte paintings begin life as a verbal
brief communicated by the films director: A
cold and bleak environment, not too alien in
its feel or a historically accurate view of the
Southampton Docks, circa 1912. If the brief hasnt already
been visualised by the art department, the concept sketch
becomes the digital matte painters first job. Vital as a
development tool for exploring the composition of the
final painting, and also as a method of communicating
the look to the director, its only when the concept image
has been signed off that work should begin on the actualmatte painting.
Whether the matte painters role is to reconstruct an
entire imaginary background from scratch, or to augment a
rudimentary set or existing location, the craftsmanship is
essentially the same. These days, the majority of digital mattes
start with a background plate; reference footage is sourced,
then the layered paintwork begins. Colour-picking a brush and
painting from scratch is becoming an increasingly rare task, as
digital stills form the foundation of the majority of paintings.
Yet, by no means does this equate matte painting to
a Photoshopcollage. Artistic talent is vital, and even with
the most competent colour grading skills in the world, the
techniques we cover over the next few pages will never
compensate adequately for a lack of artistic ability. Most of
all, youll need a good eye, an excellent sense of composition,
an aptitude with colours, and a solid understanding of spatial
design for the camera.
Especially for this feature, five of the best matte painters
from around the world have combined to share their collective
experience, offering insights gathered over the course of their
many years in the creative industry. From selling concept art
to a director to working effectively with layers, well take youstage by stage through the process of creating a matte painting
and empower you with expert tips along the way.
DONT RUSH THE DESIGN PROCESSIf youre involved in designing the matte painting, spend your
time wisely and dont rush your work. While the majority of matte
painters produce concept art digitally (with Photoshopor Painter),
others work in whichever medium is appropriate. Ensure that the
colours, composition and lighting are signed off, and that the
perspective is accurate before you move to the next stage and
begin work on the details.
M
LUBO HRISTOVWith his own mattepainting company,Christov Effects and
Design, Lubos credits include
The Last Samuraiwww.christovfx.com
DYLAN COLEBest known for hiswork on Return of theKing, Dylan has just
completed Superman Returnsas Lead Matte Painter
www.dylancolestudio.com
ALP ALTINERAward-winning mattepainter and VFX ArtDirector, Alp Altiners
credits include Superman
ReturnsandSpider-Man 3www.alpaltiner.com
DAVE EARLYCurrently DigitalMatte PaintingSupervisor at Cinesite,
Daves credits include Gladiatorand the Harry Potterfilms
www.cinesite.com
CHARLES DARBYOne of the pioneers ofdigital matte painting,Charless credits include
Titanic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon and Minority Reportwww.charlesdarby.com
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Image
AlpAltiner
Images
BuenaVistaPictures
PRESENT ONLY YOUR BEST WORKSince youll probably be working on several variations of ideas in
your concept drawings, use your own judgement when choosing
which to present. Although most directors like to have choices when
considering how elements of the matte painting will work wi th thestory, never present more than three images or youll inevitably be
asked to take elements from each and end up with a composition
that doesnt work.
SELL YOUR DESIGNWhen presenting your concept work, point out which of your images
work well and provide good explanations as to why. Knowing how
to sell your work is an essential part of the process. Point out
the strengths of the images, and explain how youll address any
weaknesses. If youre convinced that one of your images represents
the perfect composition, show a couple of alternatives where one
element is clearly wrong. Dont fail to underestimate the importanceof a psychological sell.
CREATING PARALLAX WITH 2.5DPROJECTIONMatte paintings are no longer confined to locked-off shots. Where
the shot camera rotates nodally around a locked-off position,
the matte painting can be projected onto series of planes in the
compositing software, and camera data imported to give the
impression of slight shifts in perspective via a multi-plane technique.
Known as 2.5D projection, this method can also include simple,
rendered 3D elements.
PROJECTING A MATTE PAINTING IN 3DAn alternative technique allows for even greater movement of
the camera through a scene. By camera projecting (or camera
mapping) a matte painting onto 3D geometry, the scene can be
rendered through the shot camera, with the hi-res matte paintingadding fine texture detail on top of the 3 D geometry. A 3D
projected matte provides all the benefits of true perspective shifts
and real shadows, yet with a lower ge ometry count because details
are provided in the textures.
WORK ON A LARGER CANVASHow often has a guaranteed lock-off ended up being a slight
zoom-in on the matte painting? Expanding your canvas beyond the
Digital matte painting tips | TUTORIALS
The Douglas Adams planet on the left was created
from a cyberscan made of the author while he was
still alive. The detailed matte-painted texture was
then applied, and the element was rendered as a 3D-
projected matte painting. The render formed another
midground layer for the compositors.
04
Within Shake, the compositors then assigned the
matte paint layers to cards positioned in Z-space.
Each card was assigned a distance, so when the
live-action camera move tracked from the background
plate was imported, a sense of parallax was created in the
distant planets as the camera moved through the shot.
05
Once the background was complete, the compositors
added the 3D-rendered scaffolding and live-action
plate, shot in the studio against bluescreen, as
foreground elements in Shake. Various lens effects, glows,
atmospherics and colour grading were used to create this
final impressive shot.
06
Background layers of planets, including the Vegas
planet on the right, required much less detail.
But each planet was still handed off as a separate
layer to the compositors so that, within Shake, they couldbe positioned in space to create a sense of parallax within
the shot.
When Cinesite created the Planet Factory sequence
for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, David
Early knew that the movement through this shot
would require a combination of 2.5D and 3D projection. Mattepainter Sevendalino Khay created a projected dome backdrop
for the distant stars the first in a series of layers.
01 02
The layers containing the foreground planets were
painted with greater resolution, as it was known
that these would be used for more than one shot.
They would later be projected onto spheres and rendered in3D through the Shot Camera to enable 3D lighting and real
shifts in perspective.
03
STEP BY STEP | Working with layers
Using a combination of stillstaken from various American
cities, careful grading andpaintwork, Alp Altiner designedthis shot to draw the eye towards
the pyramidal buildings on the right
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Image
BuenaVistaPictures
Imagecourte
syofCharlesDarby
Image
BuenaVistaPictures.CourtesyofDaveEarly
TUTORIALS |Digital matte painting tips
standard 2,048x1,556 pixel film resolution creates a safety margin
for any unplanned moves on the shot. Better still, take advantage
of the benefits of downsampling: double your image resolution
(work at 4,096x3,112) and youll enjoy the added advantage of
more comfortable paintwork. Rather than needing to ensure your
brushstrokes are pixel perfect, youll be able to work with broader
strokes, then downsample to 2K when your work is finished.
DEGRAIN THE FILM SCANIf, as is nearly always the case, a plate is the basis of your matte
painting, before starting any paintwork, youll need to remove grain.
Kodaks Digital Gem Professional 2plug-in (www.kodak.com)
works well in eliminating film grain from scans, and also noise from
digital photographs. For a locked-off plate, an alternative is to have
a compositor create a grain-averaged plate from 12 consecutive
frames of the shot.
WORK IN 10-BIT COLOURSPACEIf your final output will be film, work in 10-bit log colourspace
wherever you can. 10-bit images maintain the full dynamic range of
the original camera negative. While maintaining all of the original
data, log images look washed-out to the naked eye, so to view them
properly, a lookup table (or LUT) is applied to the monitor. The LUT
alters the screen to show the log image as though it were a print.
If you dont have access to lookup tables, working in 10-bit linear is
a good alternative, and while the full dynamic range of the negative
isnt present, unless youre making radical colour grades to the scan,
youll rarely see the difference. 8-bit linear is the standard for
television work, i ncluding HDTV.
BRUSH UP YOUR ART SKILLSEven with the best knowledge of Photoshop in the world, you
wont be a great matte painter without a fai r degree of natural
artistry. Youll need to understand perspective like an expert. If
youre still unsure about constructing multiple vanishing points,
nows the time to pick up any of the numerous books on the
subject and hone those skills.
LEARN TO LOVE THE CLONING STAMP
It may sound straightforward, but learning how to clone well isan important trick of the t rade. Good cloning is invisible cloning.
Practice removing a tree from a digital image of a landscape, or
a lamppost from the front of a brick building.
062 | 3D WORLD3D WORLD September 2006
The live plate for the shot on the left. Since much of it would be hiddenby the set, the composition of the matte painting required careful thought
Once the 3D geometry had been created, a grid
texture was projected from the Projection Camera,
and the scene rendered through the Shot Camera.
Areas showing excessive texture stretching, or those
obscured from the view of the Projection Camera, were
identified as requiring separate texturing, as revealed in this
render of the first frame of the shot.
STEP BY STEP | Projecting a matte painting in 3D
To achieve a photorealistic crane-up on the ancient
African city of Carthage, Lubo Hristovs team decided
to project a matte paint on a relatively simple 3D
model. Once the camera move was finalised, the Projection
Camera was set up. Since the city was seen at its widest at
the last frame of the shot, the Shot Camera was duplicated at
this frame, locked off and renamed as the Projection Camera.
01 02
Back in mental ray, three orthogonal, primary
coloured distant lights were rendered through the
Projection Camera. The resulting render was used
as a selection matte in Photoshopto variously isolate the
ground, rooftops, side walls and front-facing walls. In the
image above, each is shown as a separate colour. This was
an essential step for the next part of the process.
03
Sundown on Magrathea. Like much
modern matte work, this shot fromThe Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
involved blending, painting and colourgrading multiple digital stills togetherto create the perfect sunset
Good matte painting fools the braininto believing a flat image is a trulythree-dimensional world. Virtually all
of the background for this shot fromThe Fifth Elementis a 2D matte paint
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ImagecourtesyofCharlesDa
rby
Imagecourtes
yofCharlesDarby
Imagecourtesyof
CharlesDarby
September 2006 3D WORLD3D WORLD | 063
YOU CANT COLLECT TOO MUCHREFERENCE DATAMost matte painters build up their own reference libraries of imagesby shooting digital stills wherever they can. Keep a digital camera
with you and jump at opportunities to go out on location. Shoot
all the stills you think youll need, including general views, textures
and lighting conditions. Capturing images in RAW format retains the
most data, and bracketing images around a central exposure will
provide more information about the highlights and shadow areas.
Where shots require significant colour grading, shooting HDR images
may be worthwhile, but unless youre really pushing a grade, its
generally considered overkill.
DONT FORCE PHOTOGRAPHS TO FITWhile photographic images are often the best starting points for
a digital matte painting, dont force the wrong photographs to fit.
A good matte painting isnt simply a collage of photographs bound
together with a few painted pixels. Rather than stretching and
Digital matte painting tips | TUTORIALS
A stone procedural shader was applied to the 3D
model and rendered through the Projection Camera.
The process was repeated with about 20 other brick,
stone and tile textures and procedural shaders to create a
series of layers. By using the selection matte, appropriate
areas within each of these images were combined to formthe basis of the matte painting.
04
With the texture layers combined as overlay layers
in Photoshop, paintwork began. Since the lighting
would be rendered in 3D in order to achieve greater
realism through real shifts in perspective, a 3D ambient
and shadow lighting pass, rendered through the Projection
Camera, was added as an overlay layer to preview the effectof the rendered lighting.
05
The final matte painting was projected back through
the Projection Camera, and the shot rendered
through the Shot Camera, with mental raylighting.
Renders were graded in Shakeand additional 3D elements
were added, including the ocean, animated boats and people.
The trees were textures projected onto cards and thenrendered in 3D.
06
colour-correcting a reference image until it breaks, rely on your
artistic skills and, where required, paint areas from scratch.
3D KNOWLEDGE IS ALWAYS HELPFULThough its certainly no prerequisite for the job, 3D knowledge is
often beneficial. Whether its in setting up your own 3D camera
projections, or using 3D models to help with perspective, so much
the better if you can produce the el ements yourself. If launching
headfirst into Mayaseems overwhelming, try your hand at one of
the more self-contained modelling and rendering packages such
as Cinema 4D(www.maxon.net).
USE LAYERS SENSIBLYBe structured, label all of your layers clearly and sort them into
folders. When youre up against a deadline and tryi ng to tweak the
roof tiles on the fifteenth building from the right, youll appreciate
a good working method. Work like a painter from background
to foreground. Start with the sky, then move on to the clouds,
In the final digital painting,
the tones, composition andperspective are faithful to theoriginal concept art (below left):
proof that digital techniques donot render traditional media
entirely obsolete
ForCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Charles Darby presented this single
A4 watercolour to demonstrate how his final matte painting would look
Because this shot from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Firerequired
a zoom into the lit window, the matte painting was an enormous 20K
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Image Dylan ColeImages Dylan Cole
CHECKLIST |15 steps to success
1. Familiarise yourself with the shot. Is it going to be
straightforward matte paint, or will it require a 2.5D
projection or full 3D projection?
2. Create two or three concept images and get approval
on one of them from the Director or VFX Supervisor.
3. Check that your monitor has been correctly calibrated
for colour and contrast.
4. Collate all the images youll need. These will include
background plates, 3D renders and reference stills.
5.Shoot any additional stills that might be useful.
6. If youre working on a 3D-projected matte painting,
ask the modelling department to hardware-render a
wireframe from the Projection Camera.
7. Check whether the compositors have any specific
requirements for you.
8. Import your personal settings into Photoshop,
including shortcuts and custom brushes.
9. Decide whether youll paint at 2K, or a higher
resolution then downsample. Set up your Photoshop
canvas slightly larger than the final image.
10. Import the concept drawing (and/or any hardware-
rendered wireframes) as a background layer.11. Switch to log colourspace and run a log-to-linear LUT
on your monitor.
12. Import your images into Photoshopand organise your
layers with care.
13. Now paint to your hearts content, using reference
images where you can.
14. When the work is complete, get sign-off on your final
image by the Visual Effects Supervisor.
15. Lastly, save out the layers discussed with the
compositor, following the studios naming conventions.
064 | 3D WORLD3D WORLD September 2006
TUTORIALS | Digital matte painting tips
mountains, background atmosphere and subsequent layers of
buildings. You may end up with about 50-100 layers, grouped
into about 10 folders for easy colour grading.
KEEP YOUR ELEMENTS LIVENever flatten or merge a layer unless youre sure youll never need
to tweak that element in isolation. Changes may be requested until
the moment before delivery. If youre unable to shift a background
element to make way for the new positioning of the CG, youre in
for a lot of unnecessary paint fixes that could have been avoided
by keeping more elements live.
WORK WITH THE COMPOSITORDiscuss with the compositor which layers they would like to work
with, and whether they have any special requirements, particularly if
theyre blending the matte painting with live-action elements. Layers
that are typically required include atmosphere, highlights, shadows
and various mattes. Elements that need to be animated should be
created on their own separate layer, and elements which may become
foreground to live-action should also be split off into a new layer.
Final: the composition, colour tones and feel of the lightingare almost identical to the concept created in Photoshop. Only
the foreground building on the left is true 3D
Created from a combination ofphotographic reference stills and Photoshop
paintwork, the blimps were the onlyelements in this shot derived from basic
Cinema 4Dmodels
With the saucer building as the only 3D
element in this shot, the landscape wascreated via a combination of photographic
reference images and paintwork
Initial: as comparison of this sketch and the final mattepainting (reproduced below) shows, all of the important
creative decisions should be made in the concept work
From another of Dylan Coles personalprojects, this desert town sketchdemonstrates just how closely the concept
lighting matches the final matte painting
Images
DylanCole
List courtesy of Alp Altiner
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