Matte Painting: Environments for Film

3h 22mIntermediate2016-11-07

Authors

Danny Janevski

Matte Painting Supervisor for DreamWorks

Course details

Modern matte painting is a multidiscipline art. Matte painters need to know how to create 3D geometry, extend worlds with nodes and macros, create detailed materials and shaders, digitally paint convincing detail, and composite the many layers together into a final render worthy of the big screen. Danny Janevski, matte painting supervisor for DreamWorks, shows how to master these techniques using software such as Clarisse, ZBrush, World Machine, Photoshop, and NUKE. He covers a wide variety of current industry techniques used in creating feature films, including layout and set breakup, top-down renders, environment and terrain generation, painting, and final render.

Learning objectives
Laying out geometry in Clarisse
Importing and separating geometry in ZBrush
Creating top-down renders
World building with World Machine
Creating shaders in Clarisse
Matting painting the sky and mountain in Photoshop
Compositing and rendering the matte painting in NUKE

Skills covered

World MachineClarisse iFXIsotropicsNukeThe FoundryDigital PaintingZBrushPixologicMayaAutodeskAnimation and IllustrationDeep Dive (X:Y)

Concepts

Introduction

Welcome
What to know
Exercise files

Layout

Concept frames or inspiration
Layout geometry in Clarisse
Layout importance and set breakup

Asset Creation

Import and separate geometry in ZBrush
Renaming geometry
Creating a top-down render

World Building and Terrain Generation

Import into World Machine
Creating nodes in World Machine
Adjusting height and resolution
Using erosion in World Machine
Adding color to erosion
Mesh and texture output
Advanced macros
Rendering through tiled output
Converting files to use with Clarisse

Look Development

Import OBJs into Clarisse
Setting up Lookdev
Shader creation using textures and masks
Creating a layered shader
Creating a rock and sand shader

Final Layout

Creating the final layout

Project Setup

Projection setup
Creating render layers
Resolution

Matte Painting

Key art - Paint setup
Key art - Creating a haze
Key art - Sky setup
Key art - Painting the sky
Key art - Painting the mountain
Key art - Final touches
Exporting layers

Projection

Importing layers into Nuke
Shuffle node and scene setup
Projection
Compositing
Rendering
Final render

Conclusion

Next steps