The duo, otherwise known as, The Matte Department, just released their latest work and guided walk through of how they created this sweepingly beautiful cityscape…great work guys!!
http://www.3dworldmag.com/2013/08/22/tutorial-creating-a-photo-real-cityscape-animation/
Insane! That’s a lot of work and an awesome shot, and only 2 guys! Huge congrats to them, the dedication paid off. It must have been awesome to build and work on. I really loved their set and model designs.
Would be awesome to get a small team together and create a moving shot like this. Very inspiring.
Thanks for posting it David.
Definitely is right?!? So breathtaking when they first showed me this. They are both two matte painting artists from Blizzard as well, who will also have personal work in the upcoming D’Artiste MP3 book. Quite talented guys!!
Great work and lovely breakdown, well done!
I know the gate needed to be that size to be correct, proportion wise, for that whole palace. But that thing is slightly too huge in my opinion and was really the only thing that irked me in that whole amazing work of art 
Cobra 6
Pretty rad. Modeling all those assets alone must be worth tons of production value…
Mylenium
This is amazing post! I’ve seen this DMP before and I would also recommend to check Fabio’s reel - https://vimeo.com/73200104
So wonderful! You’re doing fantastic work there in Blizzard, David! So cool
Congrats!
Too awesome for words. I like all the small details, ie, the people moving around and some of the towers under construction. Only noticed that in the breakdown afterwards. But really completes the shot though.
Heyo Guys,
Fabio will be coming in and answering any of your questions you have about his new fantastic piece here this weekend, so stay tuned!
WooooW… what … the … !! Im speechless !! This is spectacular… :bounce: and did by just 2 people :eek: ! Their breakdown article was very informative !!
Thanks a lot David for sharing
Very cool, David! If you don’t mind, I already have a couple ready haha.
What films did you research for the camera move and how long did it take you to figure out which move you wanted for the final shot?
It’s often tempting with 3D camera’s to create unrealistic moves due to most real-world restrictions no longer being an issue. Did you guys ever feel that way or was it always in mind to stick to a more traditional shot?
One of the most inspirational work I’ve seen here at Cgtalk. Amazing work. Congratulations.
Yes they’re quite awesome!! Nice question Bobby, Fabio/Anthony should be posting here shortly about them, if anyone else has questions, please feel free to post as well.
Hi guys,
First of all thank you so much for all the kind words! We really appreciate it.
And a big thank you to David for giving us the chance to interact with all of you here on CGtalk.
As he said, feel free to ask as many questions as you want, we’ll try to answer as best as we can.
You can probably find some of the answers already in the article on 3d world, but I’m sure some of you will have more specific ones.
Thanks again!
Fabio
Hi Kaioshen,
Thanks for your question.
When planning our camera movement we looked at some of our favorite movies…or better, favorite MP shots in movies.
A big inspiration for us was “Anonymous”. We both believed that the environments in there were some of the best we’d seen. The lightning, amount of detail, staging and composition are top notch.
Other ones were “kingdom of heaven”, “prince of persia”, “conan”, but the list could go on for a while.
One thing we wanted was to make it feel as believable as possible. i agree with you, you have a lot of freedom in 3d to move your camera around, but looking at real world reference is always a good idea.
I think going too far could really break the illusion and make it look CG.
Unless you’re Peter Jackson…
I hope this answers your question
Thanks