MotorStorm2 Trailer

#7

Thank you everyone,

First of all I would like to apologize for the lack of information I provided at first. Honestly I wasn’t sure if there would be enough interest.

The footage was originally shot in 1080HD on Hawaii. I worked at twice that resolution. All shots were filmed from a helicopter and therefore the camera is constantly on the move. Sometimes the helicopter flew in one direction while the camera operator was panning in another. All of my work included a lot of projection with multiple cameras and relied heavily on good camera tracks. The life-action environment is astonishing and not all shots actually have big matte work in them. For some shots a combination of different colour corrections, controlled by rotoshapes and pulled keys, was enough to achieve what was needed. In the matte shots about 30-50% is real.

As for breakdowns I am afraid I don’t know if I can post them here at all just yet. I really don’t want Sony to be knocking on my door. But since the final has been released in 720HD I should be able to provide some 1280x720 images. For my next reel I was hoping to be able to show some of that stuff. So, please feel free to stay tuned and keep checking my website in the near future. Technique-wise I can explain as much as you wish. People on my team were doing loads of camera solves and then creating geometry from the point clouds, which I then imported into Maya and modified accordingly. For example in the long shot where the beach gets revealed the mountain on the right is all that is left from the original. The most painful shot on the entire project was the one with the volcano because all of the foreground, including that big smoke cloud, is real and with all the natural smoke rising we couldn’t track the helicopter camera move appropriately.
I don’t have a bulletproof approach because it always depends on the shot itself. Sometimes I need to start with a painting of the last frame, and sometimes I need to create two, one at both extremes. There are always a lot of changes down the line as well.
But if you have more specific questions, please do not hesitate to ask. And I will try to upload more visual information asap, either here or on my site or blog.

Thank you again.

Jaime, have you done any Matte Paintings for the Fable2 cinematics? Are you allowed to show any of those, if so?

#8

Some realy nice work there, a good mix of techniques!
I actually have to produce a shot very similar to one in there for a project i am working on at uni at the moment.
Thanks for sharing, look forward to seeing some breakdowns sometime.

Nick

#9

Are you at the NCCA?

#10

No, im at Teesside, on the Visual Effects Degree. Have been learning matte painting myself over the past 3 years ready for my final project.

Nick

#11

Because I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my workflow in the past 6 months…


My usual weapons of choice are Photoshop, Maya, Shake. At work most often I’d be provided with shot footage and don’t need to start complete paintings from scratch. There is usually a tight brief and after the client sent over the shot footage I start mocking up some sketches and concept art. Ideally they already have storyboards or some kinda thumbnails to have an orientation and get an idea.
While waiting for approval or feedback I gotta already prepare other shot concepts and also dig through my photo library for relevant pictures.
Once all changes are made and I get an ok I got about a day to model the necessary environment in 3D. As soon as that’s done, I start the first projection tests.
Although I would have carefully planned out details about that at an early stage. Mostly even before starting the concept.

(…)

Of course there will be endless changes between this point and the final stage. That’s the agonizing fun part of the job. Endless back and forth with the compositors and 3D guys and even some late nighters.

I’ll post some more later on if you guys are still interested.

#12

Really amazing stuff. Thanks for taking the time to put up the work in progress shots to and explaining your approach.

#13

Really interesting! Loved the intro and would love to see a breakdown when possible.

#14

Yeah, sorry. The freeimagehosting link broke. Here is another one:


#15

great work ! here as I said before, your camera projections are so cool and the mood is excellent!

#16

Thank you, Jaime. Appreciate it.

#17

Hi proconpictures, :slight_smile:
I saw the MotorStorm2 Trailer at youtube! :slight_smile: It looks awesome & amazing! :thumbsup: You’re a great matte-artist! :bowdown:

#18

Thank you, Kaustav. Glad to be an inspiration.

#19

Ooo I have been waiting for such a post here too long. It’s amazing work. When I first saw it I thought: “Smells like a lot of Vue”. But hey, I don’t have experience with Maya for 3d or Shake. Inspirational indeed. Thanks for sharing it :slight_smile:

#20

:thumbsup:

#21

Actually, after Pirates 2 came out (a few years ago) I thought I’d need to learn Vue asap in order to survive in this industry. Sadly I must admit that I still haven’t gotten my hands on it yet. But luckily I can say that the pipeline I use is working just fine for every shot I have come across so far. Being efficient with projection mapping in at least one 3D package is the key thing for a digital matte artist these days, I believe. (That and painting like a madman, huhu…)

#22

wow, thank you for sharing all information and images! it was really helpful !!!

#23

Thank you, lolvigne. I’m glad I could be of some help for people out there. Actually, I was hoping to encourage other professionals out there to post similar work and share their workflow somewhat with the community out there. Jaime posted his Fable2 mattes over on deviant: http://jjasso.deviantart.com/ but I’m looking forward to see more of that kind over here on cgTalk.

#24

Everything’s amazing! Thanks for your good work and inspiration for me (us) :slight_smile:
But I relly didn’t like the film editing of the video from the beginning and until speaker says “Welcome to motor storm”. I couldn’t understand the mood that editor wanted to bring to the movie.
For example, at the beginning we see beautiful panoramas of the island and speaker intruduces it to us. In the breaking point we are shown an armada and then nothing happens. Right in the moment when spectator waites for a fury or something. Instead of that we see again nice sceneries in the same mood and style as in the introduction. Some portion of discomfort exists…
Maybe this is not really about matte painting but this is my opinion about the movie.
At least, I very like matte painting and dynamic projections, so I cannot add anything about it :slight_smile:

#25

WOW, Great work. I don’t play video games, but I got the first motorstorm and loved it, so I’m getting this one for sure. Like I said awesome work man congrats!

#26

Hey you guys.
Thank you for all the nice feedback.
You can check out some stuff I did more recently in the 2D Gallery:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=766530
or over on my website:
http://www.proconpictures.com/milan

-m