District 10 london matte

#1

This was meant to be a alien war torn attack on london and after seeing District 9 I figured “hey I’ll jump onto their coat tails” :stuck_out_tongue:

The view is from Holborn and it’s looking towards the river and Westminster. When working on it I knew it’ll be a huge task making it a “war torn city” with sheer amount of buildings that needed painting so I kinda fluffed it towards the end. I’m still not sure about the look especially the Helicopter in the foreground which I thought needed to be there for composition sake (must go in and that right)

Crits and Comments would be great because the amount of time I’ve spent on it is making me go blind. :stuck_out_tongue:

here’s the original:

and the Matt:


update

#2

awesome man! looking at the original photo, i wouldn’t want to think about doing anything to it! too many buildings too look at! overwhelming! haha :stuck_out_tongue:

i like it, so much detail, i noticed the “no alien” sign on one of the left center buildings, nice little details that I’m liking!

the only thing i can think of that looks a bit weird to me is the angle mother ship of the aliens? it could be just me though!

#3

Thanks jaypeeare, I tried to cram as much detail as I could but most of it is smoke and mirrors… well mostly Smoke :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not sure what you mean about the angle of the mothership, do you mean it’s loped sided? or not horizontal?

#4

Hey mxyzptlk

great image! Really good detail, i love how you destroyed the london eye haha

Only crit is that the image looks a little washed out and desaturated, though maybe that was intentional for the war theme. Maybe you could do a bit more to differentiate the foreground/ background?

Great job though

#5

Hey Thomas, thanks for compliments :smiley: I was trying to go for that washed out look and to get the feel of Dust and smoke in the air with a ting of green to make it slightly subdued and Alienly. I’m not sure what I can do with the foreground apart from (and this is what I’m planning) is to put it into combustion, animate the helicopters + smoke and make it look like a breaking/ live news feed by putting perhaps a BBC NEWS 24 banner with some headline. Kinda to go with the documentary feel of District 9.

#6

Wow, top notch work!
You nailed the look of those movie trailer that i downloaded from apple.com

#7

Take out the helicopters and hey you just might have a matte painting :slight_smile: … actually given the ship isn’t your work … hmm … i might feel my modding powers on that note!

Whats the deal with the london eye? i go past it every day to work and im sure it aint that big :slight_smile:

#8

Yea some of the destruction work on the buildings is quite nice, but the fact that you are using pieces of work done by Weta in your personal work is more than a little dodgy… If you liked those District 9 shots, why not design your own ship for your personal mattes?

Nick

#9

I guess I didn’t really think about it I just tacked the District 9 thing on the end to give a reason on why I destroyed London other than my “me being Godzilla” fantasies :stuck_out_tongue:
I sincerely wasn’t trying to rip off the film or weta I think you can call this a like a bad fan manip “Homage” than a matte :blush: However I’m in the process of camera mapping the scene and projecting it on some geometry so I’ll paint in a new mothership and hopefully get some stock-footage of some helicopters.

Oh everlite, yeah thought the same thing about the eye, perhaps it’s like the tardis the further you get the large it seems? Or sumthing like that :surprised :stuck_out_tongue: I think it looks kinda stretched because the pic got a weird aspect ratio.

#10

I think my suggestion would be to simply put more contrast into the foreground buildings (the roof and first row of buildings), this will silmultaneously pull the fg foreward and push the bg backwards, giving your matte more depth. The camera projection will help a lot as well, are you planning to animate the dust/smoke in the scene?

#11

Finally finished the new mothership. Modelled it in max with very basic lighting and I painting in most of it and taking some cues from the district 9 mothership for the rest. it’s been hell trying to break up the image into layers that work but I think I’ve got it and post the video once I get it done.

model

#12

There is something wrong with the london eye, it looks pretty big, spent ages looking at the photo it is really bothering me. I too work in London, It does not come halfway higher than the saatchi gallery and Big Ben is smaller than it . Big Ben looks tiny in comparison, also it is at the wrong angle to big ben. It would look taller from the south bank but is shot from the north bank.

I am sorry but sticking my neck out on the line, I am asking for your original file.

I am one of the few photographers in the country that is a freelance forensic photogrraphic examiner. Your original plate looks strange… Unless you shot on a wide angle and there is no evidence of that.

The picture has not been flipped, the geography is wrong, The london eye is not parallel with the bend in the river. It is straight on. I have done a line of sight check, you are shooting from Holborn from the corner of Russell Square Over the Victoria and albert. If so you should be looking at the eye edge on. It should be smaller. You have wide angle barrelling at the bottom, long lens compression on the left, and wide angle variation on the right. Also the eye is ovoid than circular.

I have never ever done this on this forum before, your integrety is in question, please may I have copy of the original photo, then I can check the metadata for myself. I have a feeling that something is awry here.

Is the original plate a montage or contrived panoramic? :hmm:

Richard Cave
Rockhopper VFX

#13

Errr…okay…? Sorry for asking this but are you being overtly harsh or OTT? because right now I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone where I’m being accused of doing something trivial or not to my knowing what the was crime I committed and getting the death sentence. BTW what have I done? :shrug:

I’m not sure what you find awry, the original image right? As far as I know it looks like it was taken with a wide angle lens or something but also I change the aspect ratio of image so that I can get better coverage when animating the camera.
If you want the original image google London Skyline because I didn’t keep the original without changing it’s aspect ratio.

This was my first attempt at real matt painting and it was just meant for practise/learning and weekend hobby reason along with being a fan of the film; and along the way I just so happened to be proud of it’s results and wanted to share but I didn’t realise it’ll come under such scrutiny.

#14

The photo just did not look right at all, I thought you may have done something to the plate, you downloaded this of Google, I will have a look because their way of stitching images together is weird. However there was a concern that you had also used elements from some elses work.

I am entitled to my opinion as you are also. Just when I see something that does not belong or is incorrect it annoys me. That skyline is incorrect in the original plate, which means that whoever stitched it together did a godawful job.

If I have caused offence sorry, just that there was a lot happening in this thread that I do not agree with.

I am now no longer going to partake in this forum, It used to be pretty good now it has died a death,

Pastures new,

Rich

#15

Yes you are entitled to your opinion and like you said so am I and in my opinion I think you merely skimmed through this thread reading what you wanted to see. The concern that I used some else is work ie: the District 9 Mothership I had already explained and since have painted in my own version.

I’m sorry you feel the need to leave but please don’t add in your person issues you may have in this forum when commenting.

#16

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