my attempt at making a matte painting...

[JimtheJib]

this is me trying to make a matte painting...
http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Untitled-2.jpg

these are the original pictures:

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/CLIFF_FACE_AND_OCEAN.jpg

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/route12cope4.jpg

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/Overcast.jpg

tell me what you think

[Ralph Oshiro]

That looks great! But what you did wasn't a "matte painting." What you did was a "composite." An old-school matte painting is an actual hand-drawn painting on glass that is lined up with a live action camera framed to act (typically) as a set extension to produce an "in-camera" composite.

[JimtheJib]

oops. thanks NBC. do they still use old school matte painting any more? i know it would be much easier / cheaper with CG but any upsides to doing a matte?

[PrestonH]

Nice job. Try horizontally flipping the building 180' to better match the direction of the sun on the landscape. :)

[JimtheJib]

thanks preston. this is the updated version... i also added some lightning and a little fishing boat...

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/spooky%20house.jpg

[TC]

The house looks way better now (good call Preston). Though I'm not digging the lightning so much. Doesn't look very natural.

Matte paintings on glass aren't really used anymore. Though the term has carried over into the digital age, and people do matte painting in post, for the same reasons that they did them live action.

[JimtheJib]

Tc: do you know how to make more realistic lightning?

thanks

[kai]

Looks good. I agree on the lightning though.. doesn't look very real. Try using a photo of real lightning, or create some in AE.

[dougspice]

I don't think it's accurate to say this isn't a matte painting. Sure it is. A lot of the old pros will show you how to do exactly this: adapting existing photos to create a new visual. Most people don't do physical paintings anymore, but some do, and the reason is simple: they are masters of using real media. Most working pros, however, have adopted digital techniques or a mesh of the two.

As for this particular painting, my main gripe with it is the base of the cliff where the water is. The shadows being cast by the cliff are very sharp and the cliff itself is very bright. It seems obvious to me that this part of the image was taken on a sunny day and doesn't match the top half. Nice work on the house, however, which is looking better.

[petelms]

Looking cool! :thumbsup: Nice to see also those pictures which you used to do it.

[JimtheJib]

:) glad you liked it... thanks

[JimtheJib]

here is another version with some changes.

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/spooky%20house%202%20copy.jpg

[TheGreenOne]

I kind of liked where you were going with the lightning. Made it even more wild and alive.

[Sean R]

It's getting pretty scary now. I'm sure Mr. Hitchcock would have loved you on his staff. Hehe. :engel017:

It would have looked truly awesome if you had merged all these layers in video.

[JimtheJib]

i tried to make the lightning but it just looked cheesy...

[J.R. Hudson]

When grabbing photos try and find ones with similar light patterns (Sources) and pay attention to scale.

The house is way too big for scale.

( And Black and White is too easy! )

[fractalguy]

The scale is fine.

[Erik Olson]

I thought the scale was off as well. Scaling within PS is so easy, just play with the element until it looks right.

Also, build a small foreground layer of grass / rock using the closest edge of the bluff in the photo to get your elements. Bring this layer forward of the old house to give it a little more depth.

Adding readable effects to your background plate (read: lightning bolts, defined clouds, birds, airplanes and so forth) makes it unusable in most SFX applications. Obviously, if you're just comping up a concept, then flattening all the elements is the only way to convey what the final will look like.

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[uhrgl]

The final one is looking good.

[JimtheJib]

i made it black and white because the light in each of athese pictures was very different. i didn't realize i should i have been looking for similar light sources or patters so when i got to the point of putting the two together the oanlay soluation was black and white (actually i desaturated the pictaures which i guess make it black and white).

[J.R. Hudson]

The scale is fine.

LOL

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

hey looks good

THree sugesstions
1) apply some blur to the house -- nothing else in pic is that sharp, but try to find somerthing the same distance from the imaginary lens as the house and use that as refernce for the percieved sharpeness at that focal point.
2) the gamma/brightness contrast is different for the house and the caves than the rest of the pic -- the blacks are crushed in the house and ony go to dark grey elsewhere except in the fake caves. Look at the level of black around the rocks near the lowest cave -- that's your darkest level in the main photo - gray, not black -- so either bring the shadows up to gray in the caves and the house or crush them in the main photo.
3) the stair case you made has no noise. Expirement applying some noise and/or grain both universially to the whole finsished thing and to that area alone. Probably heavier noise on the stairs to make it match and then just a very small amount to the whole thing to make it look like its on the same stock/been through the same processing, was shot with the same lens -- etc. :thumbsup:

[JimtheJib]

yet another updated version. http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/spookyhouse3.jpg
:grin:

[kai]

The scale on the building is much better. The overall tone of the scene lacks much contrast though, seems very murky.

[JimtheJib]

i think its done... :happy:

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/spooky%20house%203copy.jpg

[somewestfilms]

I like it, nice work!

[Dmitry Kichenko]

Why is the moon yellow? heh. The surface of the moon is mostly gray, and reflecting the hot light off its surface makes us see it as somewhat blue. I'd make it very bright blue and colour the rest of the sky in shades of blue.
Also the lighting of the cliff isn't evenly distributed. For instance, in the right bottom corner the cliff is somehow lift by another big light source. Same for the boat. You should darken most of the cliff. The water is quite bright as well, bringing it's brightness down and painting in some moon reflections wouldn't hurt.
And I still think the lightning just doesn't fit here. If all other imperfections aren't readily apparent, the lighting is.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

...er, I think its supposed to be somewhat stylized rather than photo- real -- I think the moon is yellow like a graphic type moon -- I mean otherwise, why is everything else black and white, etc.

[Matt Grunau]

There is something about the perspective in the foregreound cliffs at their bottom that is catching my eye. I can't place it exactly though. It almost looks like the ocean and the cliffs were shot at a differnt angle?

Great work, and that crit is a small one, since you have put the whole together well, and especially since different photos with the right perspective (which you have shown you can blend together very well) would negate it.

Nice work. Very well done.



ps. Change the moon to something with more detail, if you want. It's the only thing completely out of focus. Maybe just put something in where you can see the shape a little more, with the glow on top, just to define it.

[Neopics]

Another thing to check is the tower on the building. The perspective on it is too steep and doesn't match the rest of the building. (See how the roof line tips too far down into the back, whereas the other roof lines are more horizontal?)

Otherwise, I think this is looking quite good. The stark shadows aren't that much of an issue because, for all we know, there is a clear spot in the sky where the moon is peeking out over and behind our right shoulder.

[Neopics]

Uh...for the record, my comments about the moon were from the earlier version. I didn't look far enough ahead to the other updates. (Whoops, sorry folks.)

[Dmitry Kichenko]

I was a little bored last night so I decided to give it a go.
http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/667/mattecollage11hz.th.png (http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mattecollage11hz.png)
Still needs some calibration in terms of lighting, and it's probably a bit too dark since I worked on it at 3 AM or so.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

here's my try...
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/my_matte.jpg
I solved the perspective issues I think.

[Matt Grunau]

here's my try...
http://frenchquarterfeatures.com/my_matte.jpg
I solved the perspective issues I think.


That's awsome! Where's the monkeys serving hot coco? :(

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

http://www.himonkey.net/cooking/cocoa/5c.jpg

[FREUDENBERG_FILMS]

Nice comp. if trhat is your first attempt then I see its gong to get better and better. This still looks almost like its out of A Tall of unfortunate events

[g0ldenb0y55]

The lightning does fall out of place. But evrything else looks good.