(Digital) Matte Paintings

We all know that quite a few effect shots in the original Trilogy were done with matte paintings, that were painted on glass. They are used to create the optical effect that a set is actually bigger than it is. Today ILM and even fanfilmers use Digital Matte Paintings and sometimes use 3D imagery or images of miniatures for this issue.

I used those techniques several times to create the illusion of huge buildings that are situated in a life action shot and such things. But, if you don´t want to create miniatures or 3D imagery for these particular effects- how could you do it else? For instance if you want to add landscapes or mountains to your life action material- what would you use? Of course, a digital painting program like Photoshop or Paintshop.

My question is: Do you use those techniques? Do you use real Matte Paintings, ditigal Matte Paintings, 3D imagery? Any information, tutorials, screenshots, informations and experiences shall be presented here!

 

I´m going to use digital mattepaintings in the future. I buy a Wacom graphics tablet soon and then I can paint in PS like on paper.
A good technique for creating mattepaintings is to mix different pictures to get a new one. You can find many pictures of landscape or buildings on the internet and use only some parts to mix a new image. It works very well if you´re good at PS. You can composite those images into your footage.

Edit: Here´s a cool way of creating mattepaintings.
http://perso.club-internet.fr/sebastien.gaucher/Tutorials/Photoshop/Mattepainting/mattepainting.htm

Too long for linking, copy & paste!

 

Yeah, that´s how I do it, but sometimes I use pictures that I take myself, like from miniatures and such... At the moment I´m building a rather big miniature of a space ship hangar with foamcorr (or whatever it´s called) So, afterwords I´m gonna paint it... It´s gonna be like great and makes me feel pretty professional! That´s what makes Movie Making so exciting!

 

A few more Digital Matte Painting sites for your review.

Digital Matte work is typically done in Photoshop these days, with the results often camera mapped into 3D or placed onto 2D "cards" set in 3D space with compositing software to provide just a touch of depth-cued motion.

The work iself generally consists of combining many reference photos of real places or miniatures or just texutures into a larger complete image, much the way you would "photoshop" (verb) anything else, with final touches added by hand using a digital tablet.

Have fun.

 

Thanks for that great link Nick! I'm using a lot of Matte paintings for my film and it really helped.

 

Yes, they´re really useful and show off something! Would like to see how one can actually paint such things on glass. The accuracy

 

As suggested, I often combine images from Google of what I need in Photoshop. I'll use miniatures for what I can't find, want customized, or will need alot of angles of. My wacom tablet helps, but I'm no Matte Painter.

One technique I've gotten into lately is Forced Perspective; the use of miniatures inbetween the camera and the actors to enhance the set. It's also useful for larger-than-life props I can't afford; such as tanks, spaceships, laboratory equipment, special vehicles, droids, etc. For examples of this, look at the Tank-Lifting scene in Grayson or the Batmobile sequence in the World's Finest.

 

www.nydenion.de

They use such "in camera effects"... Look arround there.
Forced Perspective actually means to use differently scaled objects and place them in a way in order to pretend a larger location, set, model or whatever.

But this is very tricky, because of the lighting. It would be much easier to do this digitally, I guess. (what you talked about) or can one do camera movements without a lack of perspective?

 

Camera moves can be possible, but your model must be built to compensate. A cardboard representation of a wall would not hold up in different views, whereas, say a toy batmobile may work. It's all really just guess and try.

 

yeah.. I just watched the Speical Edition of ESB and found out, that they didn´t recreate the windows in EACH shot, which the same place is shown in. That´s pretty uncanny I guess! So- it´s allways a guessing and fighting.

 

I just tried to do some clouds in Paintshop Pro. I failed because this is almost impossible with a simple mouse. Can someone tell me about a Wa<com table or whatever it´s called? - this pen thing... Would like to know how it works and which is best for a good price, of about 50 euros or so

 

?

 

It's a pressure-sensitive drawing pad for your computer. What more do you need to know? Look them up.

 

I'm not sure what the conversion rate is, but I think the smaller ones (4"x5" or so) are about US $100. The larger ones (8x10) are about $300-400, I think.

BUT, I've heard nothing but good things about them.. most people I've talked to that have used them say they'll never go back to a mouse.

 

For drawing, anyway, yeah. They're heavenly. But for gaming and other usage, I stick with my trackball.

 

Of course I search them to play DooM 3 with it. Of course I do... (Look at the thread´s topic, please)

 

my film is ALL digital matte painting. each bg plate painted in photoshop. aiiee-ya.. thats why its taking so long...

 

You can get nice Wacom tablets at ebay for under 50?.

 

Danke Bone. Das brauchte ich