FMP | MATTE PAINTING

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A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible to film.
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The government warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was painted on glass by Michael Pangrazio and combined with live-action footage of a government worker, pushing his cargo up the center aisle.
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I know that digital matte painting is used in the production of 3D animation but at this stage I'm not sure to what extent and in what capacity - how much is accurately modeled and textured and how much is matte painted - ? I guess it depends on how much lateral movement there will be and proximity to the camera.

I decided to jump in and do a few visual tests. I knew that I wanted to use locations where the architecture that would have been around in Victorian times is still in place and just remove all traces of time since - phone boxes, bus stops, street signs, etc. First I took some quick photos of various buildings around London; below is Burlington Arcade on Piccadilly and Admiralty Arch on The Mall - and 'painted' directly onto them in Photoshop.
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Original

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Matte painting

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Original

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Matte painting

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A notable expert in this field is David Luong.
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The process of introducing these images into 3D scenes is called camera mapping and involves 'projecting' the image onto basic geometric shapes that a camera can navigate, generating the illusion of 3D space. Grabbing a couple of images from iPhoto, I tested the technique.



It works fine on simple, flat planes but falls down when there is significant detail in the scene, like the hand rails. The test below in a tunnel is more successful because there are no extruding objects.



In terms of where to use this technique in the production process, I think it would be on flat planes in the middle distance - like buildings, or in a production situation when there is little or no camera movement. An extremely successful example of this is Morgenrot by Jeff Desom, which uses archive photographs of New York streets and buildings for mapping and composites 3D elements and adds shadow casting lights.


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In conclusion, it seems that because I want total freedom of movement around my Victorian collectors parlour room, I will need to model each object in the room - walls, floor, lights, fireplace, everything! Who said this was going to be easy...