[WIP] Cliffside Haunted Mansion

#1

Here’s a matte painting I’ve been working on - it’s very much a work-in-progress:

   [[img]http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4674/mansionmattev1.th.jpg[/img]](http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mansionmattev1.jpg)
   
     I'm a huge fan of the 3D matte shot of the Modesko Island flyover in [i]The Ring[/i], so I'm planning to do something similar. The idea is to create a camera-mapped shot of the camera starting from the ocean (the picture above is the starting point of the flyover so far), rise up and circle the mansion and settle above the courtyard where a car pulls up to the front gate.
  
  A few things:
  
  1) The mansion itself is still pretty much a placeholder as I haven't put much thought yet on its design. And considering the extreme camera move, I probably have to create the building in 3D anyway.
  
  2) The integration of the foreground left side rocks and the right side rocks is pretty apparent and sloppy. I haven't put much work on them yet as looking at the picture as a whole now, I might pull back the starting position of the flyover a bit so I might need a lot more work on the entire foreground anyway. My initial camera mapping tests do show that with motion blur in the shot, the water looks really good all around. But anyway, it's still in-progress.
  
  The resolution is currently 3.5k, but I might increase it to 4k if I decide to start the flyover further in the sea. The final resolution will be 720p, possibly matted to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
#2

Wizdoc -

Great start - from a technical standpoint (color/value), it is almost flawless - but the mansion needs some work - the perspective isn’t quite right, and it’s facing the camera - which is boring, but you said it was just a placeholder, so no biggie…

What does concern me here is two competing elements: the lighthouse and the mansion… do you want the lighthouse or the mansion to be the focal point?

So, what I’d consider, is put one in silhouette, and have a break in the clouds illuminating the other… just a thought -

Looking forward to an update -

Matt

#3

An update:

Thanks for the comments.

I opened up the image a bit, by pulling back more towards the sea. I also tweaked with the water as it didn’t mesh very well. I also added more rock to the main cliffside as it looked too much like a single, flat piece of rock.

The problem with the competing areas of focus was both the mansion and the lighthouse. The lighthouse was too big and prominent for the image so I scaled down a bit. And the mansion was indeed too unimpressive and flat.

I started blocking out some basic shapes in 3D to see where I need to take the design. I use greebled blocks to give me a better idea how how light falls on a more complex structure. The final mansion isn’t intended to be a big clump of sci-fi paneling. :slight_smile:

#4

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