Matte Painting Resources
MATTE PAINTING TUTORIALS AND TECHNIQUES
One great portal, which I’ve also mentioned in posts, is www.mattepainting.org. Links, resources, tutorials, forums, lots of inspiration.
3D Total also has a great collection of tutorials:
http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorials/
Here’s another collection of matte painting tutorials:
http://www.cgindia.org/search/label/Matte%20Painting/
Here’s a link to a free PDF in which five matte painters (Alp Altiner, Dylan Cole, Charles Darby, Dave Early and Lubo Hristov) talk about their techniques for digital matte painting:
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/digital_matte_painting
Lots of great tips, including a reminder not to rush the design process — something that I find all too easy to do.
There are also lots of good tutorials focusing on a single painting, like this one by the Romanian artist Sorin Bechera, a beautiful image of a destroyed museum:
http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorials/london_mattepainting/
This is the website for artist Sébastien Gaucher, who has three very thorough step-by-step demos of his matte paintings, including one turning a shot from spring to winter:
http://www.seb4d.com/
This is the website for the French artist Alain Descamps, who has several PDF tutorials (in French):
http://www.adesconcept.net/
On CG Arena, Alain also has a very cool demonstration of painting a landscape from scratch:
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/photoshop/landscape/index.html
FORUMS
The digital matte painting forum of the CG Society:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=196
For those who read German, lots of stuff here, at the Forum für die Welt des digitalen Matte Painting:
http://www.mattepainting-forum.de/
MATTE PAINTING HISTORY
Domingo Lizcano, a visual effects artist in Madrid has put together a very nice site on the history of traditional effects of all kinds: http://es.geocities.com/artinmovies/indexFX.html. The page on matte painting (http://es.geocities.com/chominart/matteartist.html) has a great list of matte painters with links to samples of their work.
There’s also more historical stuff here:
http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2007/07/matte_painting.html
CAMERA MAPPING
Here’s a guide to 3D mapping strategies: http://www.g-3d.com/Mapping_Strategies.html
This page on their site is specifically about mapping in Maya:
http://www.g-3d.com/Newer_AAC_3d_499_Cam_Map.html
And here’s still more info on camera mapping:
http://www.3dfluff.com/cameramapping/cameramappingtut.htm
To create a camera in Maya that has some real-world type camera jitter, look here:
http://www.grafiskkooperativ.dk/mads/dyn_cam.htm
PAINTING AND DRAWING TIPS
There are so many resources on the web for digital painting that it’s really overwhelming, but here are a few I’ve found useful lately:
A blog by artist Joseph Francis, with great tips on digital art, including digital painting: www.digitalartform.com
More tips on drawing and painting in general: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
Two nice tutorials, one on creating clouds, and one on painting a bee:
http://www.steeldolphin.com/tutorials_photoshop.php
A list of tutorials, including a couple by renowned matte painter Craig Mullins:
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials
A series of tutorials, mostly for Painter:
http://www.3dluvr.com/content/section/9
A lot of these are more focused on people or small objects, but while learning draw lips, eyes and tomatoes may not be that useful for matte painters, there are also lessons to be had about learning to sketch, create gradients and work with color and highlights may.
I’m always astonished by the generosity of individual artists who are willing to share their techniques and tools. Here’s a website from the artist Natascha Roeoesli, with lots of tips and free Photoshop brushes:
http://www.tascha.ch/?page_id=21
BOOK, DVDs AND COURSES
And of course, there are are plenty of places to take classes or order DVDs and books about matte painting:
FXPHD
http://www.fxphd.com/index.php
From the people behind FX Guide…
Gnomon
http://www.gnomon3d.com/
I’ve taken about eleven classes at Gnomon, and they were almost all excellent — though pricy. In addition to their school in Hollywood, you can also take online classes at: www.gnomononline.com
And buy DVDs at: www.thegnomonworkshop.com
And finally, download individual tutorials at: http://gnomonology.com/
GALLERY OF GREATS
And for inspiration, here are some of the monsters of matte:
The masters — Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton. They started off working for Albert Whitlock, and then traveled on from there:
http://www.illusionarts.com/
Craig literally wrote the book on matte painting, the glorious The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting. This is the website for his company, Matte World Digital:
http://www.matteworld.com/
Craig Mullins
http://www.goodbrush.com/
Dylan Cole (one of the artists who has instructional DVDs available through Gnomon)
http://www.dylancolestudio.com/
