EXERCISE - FUNDAMENTALS OF MATTE PAINTINGS
EXERCISE PROGRESS RECORDING
Fundamentals of Matte Painting
NAME: Miao Xinjun
STUDENT I.D: 0379525
MODULE: Digital Matte Painting DST60904
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Instruction
2. Progress Recording
3. Feedback
4. Reflection
1. INSTRUCTION
2. PROGRESS RECORDING
2.0 MODULE BRIEFING - Week 1:
The first week's lectures were about the module introduction and learning objectives. After explaining the module's content and course requirements, Mr. Ahmad began by explaining what Digital Matte Painting is and showing us examples of Digital Matte Painting work.
2.1 PERSPECTIVE STUDIES (Landscapes and Interiors) - Week 2:
In the second week, we gradually moved into the formal learning of the Digital Matte Painting module. This lecture focused on 'perspective'. After explaining the basics of perspective, the lecturer began guiding us to analyze perspective in photographs.
I realized that perspective is one of the essential foundations of Digital Matte Painting because only by understanding its principles can we combine image elements from different photographs to create a visually appealing and natural scene.
Self-practice is a good way to further master knowledge. We were asked to select at least two photos from our own photos and draw the perspective in the photos.
At first, I tried to take some photos at school for this week's practice, but I couldn't find any scenes I liked, so I chose two scenes that I took during my trip to Penang.
- Week 2 - Exercise 1:
This photo was taken from the Clan Jetties in Penang. The scenery in the photo is presented in two-point perspective, with these perspective lines clearly visible in the boats beside the bridge and the huts by the sea. A row of houses in the distance lies on the horizon line, which is also the line between the two visual points.
- Week 2 - Exercise 2:
Based on the analysis of the results, I believe the perspective in the second photograph is one-point perspective. The diagonal lines formed by the stone pillars and walls on either side of the visual center, intersecting the floor and ceiling, extend towards the center of the image and eventually converge at a single point.
2.2 COMPOSITIONS - Week 3:
In the third week of lectures, we began to learn about composition and value. Of course, this week's exercises are also based on the knowledge about perspective we learned in the second week.
- Composition 1
I personally love visuals that strongly convey a sense of story. I hope that each of my works can evoke associations in the viewer, depicting a story in their subconscious. For my first composition exercise, I wanted to depict a street scene with a Western European Cthulhu theme, using tall buildings, giant beasts, and a simple figure's silhouette to create a two-point upward perspective scene with significant visual perspective. Therefore, I looked for some composition references and source materials to help me continue practicing composition and depicting scene content.
In this composition exercise, I used a low-angle shot. The visual center is in the lower left of the center point of the image. The tall buildings on both sides accentuate the street in the middle, and the colossal beast in the distance contrasts sharply with the tiny figure standing on the street. Numerous upward-extending architectural lines create a large vertical visual guide, which I intended to lead the viewer's eye from the small figure at the bottom to the distant street and the colossal beast at the top. In the lower right corner, I added a corner of a building as a foreground element, a personal preference of mine that helps enrich the spatial sense of the composition.
I referenced a typical scale contrast. By compressing the figure to the lower part of the image, the buildings and environment appear even larger, creating a solemn, mysterious, and even oppressive atmosphere. I plan to further enhance the contrast between light and shadow near the central building entrance or the figure when adding tonal gradations in post-processing, thus making the visual focus clearer.
- Composition 2
In the second composition exercise, my idea was to draw inspiration from the divine palaces of the Marvel Universe and conceive a scene of war ruins framed by the arched corridors of a palace. To this end, I first looked for some palace scenes and battlefield images with arched corridors as references.
Based on my concept, I drew an arched doorway on one side as a viewfinder for the middle ground. The interior scene of the corridor, consisting of the arched doorway, the roof, and the ground below, becomes the view outside the corridor, "framing" the scene in the middle and creating a feeling similar to looking out from inside the building, which also enriches the spatial layers of the picture.
Next, I began attempting to depict the war ruins outside the corridor. However, I found the framed space to be quite limited, unsuitable for a large-scale depiction of the war ruins. Therefore, I ultimately decided to adjust the theme of the image.
Thinking about it, I recalled one of my favorite novels, *Charlie IX*, a soft science fiction adventure novel. One of the most memorable elements was the cannibalistic forest at the edge of the world. Combining this with my composition practice, this sparked some associations. Therefore, I decided to incorporate forest elements, depicting the scene outside the corridor as a mysterious forest landscape, creating a sense of a story about plants invading human territory. To this end, I again sought out references for forest trees.
Based on my initial composition concept and references, I refined my initial draft. The midground of the image features a large tree clinging to the stone wall of the corridor, entwined with a skull. This tree serves as the visual center, creating a striking contrast with the smaller trees. I chose this tree as the midground to draw the viewer's attention to the skull encased within it, thus clearly defining the theme and atmosphere. The foreground is the dilapidated corridor serving as the frame, while the background is a vast forest beyond. I intentionally incorporated many diagonal lines into the composition, such as the ground covered in tree roots, the dense trees in the distance, and the large, twisted tree encasing the drum tower. These diagonal elements were used to create dynamism and evoke an atmosphere of ruin, danger, and the unknown. Simultaneously, the twisted tree in the center contrasts with the surrounding straight buildings, clearly defining the visual center and overall visual impact.
Finally, after making improvements, I completed the second composition exercise.
- Composition 3:
For my final composition exercise, I wanted to try drawing a large-scale scene. My idea was to depict a sea city supported by giant stone statues, presented through a bird's-eye view.
I continued to use Western European-style elements to compose the image. To convey the solemnity and sanctity of the maritime city-state, I employed a central circular composition. The center of the image, the visual center, is a colossal stone statue surrounded by islands, with the city-state built on small islands encircling it, representing a panoramic view of a complete small kingdom. In the distance, distant mountains along the coast suggest the vastness of the ocean and enhance the spatial depth. In the foreground, there are erected stone pillars and a corner of a building, allowing the viewer to feel that their perspective is from a high vantage point overlooking the entire maritime city-state, with the colossal stone statue and architectural complex fully visible.
2.3 VALUE STUDIES - Week 3:
2.4 SKY REPLACEMENTS - Week 4:
The fourth week's lesson focuses on sky displacement. This is a common technique in Digital Patte Painting that helps us change the time and season of a scene to create a unified color scheme and atmosphere. Designers typically use Photoshop to perform this technique.
In the lecture exercises, we needed to use pre-prepared movie screenshots and practice sky replacement using Photoshop. Photoshop already has a built-in sky replacement function, but during practice, I realized I couldn't rely on it entirely. To make the scene more natural and harmonious, and to make the boundary between the original image elements and the sky blend better, I also needed to manually adjust values such as saturation, brightness, and hue, and use the selection tool to refine the edges.
Some students used one photo to create a variety of different effects, while I chose to practice with two photos separately.
- In-class Exercise 1：
The first screenshot is from the movie *Titanic*. I first used Photoshop's sky replacement function to replace the blue sky with a built-in sunset background image, and then used the 'Select and Mask' function to refine the edges. At this point, the overall effect already looked relatively harmonious, but I still adjusted the hue and contrast to make the sunset atmosphere even more harmonious and pleasant.
- In-class Exercise 2：
The second screenshot is from a movie I haven't seen. It's a daytime scene, and I wanted to try replacing the sky with a nighttime starry sky I had downloaded beforehand. This exercise took me relatively longer because after replacing the sky, I found there were too many values to adjust. First, of course, was the brightness, and then the overall color tone, etc., because the starry sky background was blue, while the original screenshot was warmer in tone. In the feedback, Mr. Ahmad also pointed out that the image brightness was still too high and didn't look like 'nighttime'.
Fortunately, after several attempts, I successfully merged the night sky and the original screenshot into a new scene. I also made progress in this exercise, which I believe will be very helpful for my future studies.
2.5 2.5D MATTES - Week 5:
In this week's lecture, we learned how to create 2.5D Mattes using After Effects (Ae).
This was my first time trying this Ae technique, and it was quite fun. Before creating a 2.5D Matte using Ae, you first need to prepare your image assets. This step can be done by building the scene image using Photoshop (PS), or by downloading the images and editing them directly in Ae. I chose to build a scene using PS first, and then import it into Ae to create the 2.5D Matte. Image 2.5.1 shows the image resources I used to build the scene using PS.
I used stock images to create a scene of a European-style palace corridor by the sea. The idea for this scene was inspired by my previous composition exercises, so I didn't spend too much time conceptualizing the scene this time.
While editing the stock images in Photoshop, I adjusted the hue, saturation, and perspective, ultimately separating my scene into two layers: a mid-ground corridor and a distant seascape, making it easier to import into After Effects to create a 2.5D matte effect.
After importing the Photoshop footage into After Effects, I began creating a 2.5D Matte following the video tutorial shown by the lecturer. One problem I encountered was that although my footage was divided into two layers, when I tried to move the camera, the images in the frame appeared to be on the same layer, lacking spatial depth. The lecturer pointed out that this was because I hadn't differentiated the distance between the two layers and the camera.
Based on this feedback, I successfully completed my first 2.5D Matte.
- YouTube Link Here:
2.6 VIRTUAL PLAIN AIR - Week 6:
2.7 INVISIBLE SET EXTENSIONS - Week 7:
3. FEEDBACK
Comments
Post a Comment