Matte Painting reference,

[everlite]

Well matte painting is very different now-a-days and the approach varies depending on the needs of a given shot. In recent years more and more people are starting to do projections, a technique by where you take a painting and project this onto 3d geometry through a camera, this allows for sutble camera moves in a given scene. You can also reverse engineer a live shot and add paintings onto 2d "cards" which are then places into the enviroment and give the impression that say, a castle is in the middle of a field.

Going back to more traditional use, using a locked off (still) plate you matte out the area of interest, where you want the painting to be and paint your matte behind this, matching the plate seamlessly to give the inpression they are both the same environment.

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_paintinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_painting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_paintinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_painting)

To be honest there's not that much in the way of websites that explain matte painting, you have mattepainting.org and two good books been the invisible art of matte painting and the Ballistic publication, D'artiste Matte Painting, and a number of DVDs through gnomon workshop.

Take a look at the websites of fellow matte painters such as Dylan Cole and Max Dennison they showcase good examples. Also do a google search on Albert Whitlock, one of the pioneers from back in the days of REAL cinema :)

You can see a good video tribute to him at: http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/videos/VESseq02_final.v2.-stream.mov (direct link/408mb! QT)

Here's a good example in action: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=16 also see the other tutorials for some inspiring ideas :)

So maybe from all that you can get a rough idea of what its about. I guess the more important question is what matte painting isn't. Which seams to confuse many people :)

Dave.

[Bdude619]

Speaking of mattepainting.org. i have tried to register and and it keeps telling me that i answered the question wrong. Does anyone know the answer to the question LOL

[everlite]

not sure what you mean to be honest.

[Bdude619]

When you register. There is a text field that has this question
what is mattepainting.org about? *
Answer the Textual Confirmation question to prove you are not a spambot.

and i don't know what to answer in order to register =(

[everlite]

Oh, i see, well thats like having a website dedicated to planes saying; what is this site about?! ... planes :) so a site called mattepainting.org will most likely be about ???? come on, im sure you can answer that one :)

Dave.

[Bdude619]

Duuuuuhhhhhhh!

[nickmarshallvfx]

As a heads up, i think the Invisible Art is now out of print. I got hold of it recently after a really long search, but it cost me over £50.00 for a pretty banged up second hand copy...

Nick

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