What is Matte Painting?

[jasonsco]

Well, in the traditional sense, matte paintings were usually photo-real paintings on glass of environments/sets, with clear areas to show where the filmed action was (creating a "matte"). Sometimes they were actually placed in front of the camera during filming; other times they were just comped in later with optical compositing or used rear-screen projection. The masters of matte painting also used a variety of techniques to draw your eyes toward the action, and not to the rest of the painting so that you wouldn't try to distinguish if it was a painting or not.

These days, matte paintings are usually created digitally by combining a variety of photos together to create such an environment as a background or set extension (using photos is faster as well as gives an inherent photo-real look). I won't answer if it's hard or not, because that's asking if any art is hard or not. You need to have a good understanding of light, contrast, composition, etc.

There are some great books on it now (The Invisible Art (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002RTU02/ref=pd_sim_6/002-0351445-4480004?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance) by Mark Cotta Vaz probably gives the best history and understanding of the process), so that would be a start if you want to learn how to do it.

Ah, almost forgot to add that a lot of places these days consider matte painting to be synonymous with set extension, so many companies are doing their "matte paintings" in 3D. But I'd start with the traditional sense first . . .

[DreamingInDigital]

Hey Scotty Doesnt Know,

If yoou really do want to start learning and creating digital matte paintings then here is a great website and forum that i am also a part of.

www.mattepainting.org (http://www.mattepainting.org)

register there...it is a great place with great artists that are willing to help. the community is still really small so after about a week u'll know everyone there. Also cause most of the artists there are pro's or work in the field responses may take a little bit longer that here. Hope to see you there soon. my name there is also DreamingInDigital and i am there all the time.

cheers,
~ Kris ~

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