Matte painting is a great way to embrace your creativity and truly bring a world to life. It’s one of the oldest forms of visual effects in film. If you’ve taken an interest in landscapes and backdrops in movies, TV, and video games, then you may find that this is the career path for you. If you’re interested in how you can get started, then here is everything you need to know about matte painting.
What Is Matte Painting?
Matte painting is simply the creation of a set for filmmaking. This can be an imaginary background or even a realistic appearing set, depending on the movie. While this sounds so simple, matte painting is much more than just set production: it’s art.
This skill allows the artist to relay their vision for a film to the viewer and bring it to life. With an appropriate background and scene setting, the production crew can create a fictive universe with endless possibilities.
While fantasy and sci-fi landscapes are most commonly portrayed in matte painting, this isn’t all that can be done. Matte painting allows the artist to create buildings, cityscapes, and more without the use of additional props. This technique has been used for many years, but it has changed throughout the evolution of filmmaking.
Traditional vs. Modern Matte Painting
Before the modern digital age, the first use of matte painting occurred in the 1800s. This involved the background being integrated on black painted glass screens. As filmmaking progressed, the first true form of matte painting appeared in backdrops in the 1930s.
This technique for creating realistic backdrops was performed by painters. They would use pastel or acrylic paint to develop their scene on glass screens for movie backgrounds. As technology continued to advance, matte painting became more of a digital art form. The last traditional matte paintings were made for the movie Titanic, which was created in 1997.
Today, artists use software such as Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint to perform a digital version of matte painting. There is also software available for creating 3D digital paintings, and these options have allowed artists to create more realistic backdrops than ever.
Learning Matte Paint Photoshop Skills
If you have any interest in this career field, then there are a few requirements that are considered essential. Firstly, you should love movies, video games, or similar types of media! If you aren’t particularly interested in these types of media, then matte painting may not be for you.
Next, you’ll need to learn the foundations of traditional drawing and painting. A great place to start is drawing basic three-dimensional shapes. You’ll also need to know about light, color, how humans see, and more. Starting with these basic principles, such as the rules of perspective, will help you translate your skills digitally later.
After you have the basics of art, then you’ll need to learn the basics of the technology you’ll be using. This usually involves learning some matte paint photoshop skills. Matte painting involves combining photography, rendered CG elements, and digital paint to create these realistic looking backgrounds. Having a basic understanding of Photoshop will be useful regardless of what field you use it in, whether it be digital art, photo blending, deformation, commercials, video games, and more.
Some other general skills that will be useful to have base knowledge in is 3D creation. Having a general idea of modeling packages such as Maya or Modo is a great place to start in this area. Lastly, having a basic understanding of compositing tools, such as Nuke, for 2.5 (projected) environments will have you set up for success. This allows your environment to move and come alive!
This may seem like a lot of information to learn on your own. The important thing to know is that if you have the imagination, the digital skills will come with time and practice. While time and practice are necessary, there are ways to quickly enhance these skills. One of the best ways is through taking a digital painting course.
Learning Made Easy with a Digital Painting Course
If you have a basic understanding of Photoshop, then your next step will be to take a digital painting course. This will allow you to take your skills to the next level without wasting time and money. The Digital Matte Painting Bootcamp will allow you to create a 2.5D environment and help you launch your career in VFX. Productions are relying heavily on artists for film, TV, and commercials, so having these skills will allow you to take advantage of such high demand.
What to Expect
The Digital Matte Painting Bootcamp will help you construct a digital matte painting from start to finish while utilizing tools such as Photoshop, Nuke, and Maya. By the end of the course, you’ll have a deep understanding of digital matte painting and have an efficient workflow. You’ll also have the knowledge to troubleshoot new problems or tasks.
When your start date arrives, you’ll have immediate access. You’ll need access to Photoshop, Nuke, and Maya to complete the course. This is a great option for those who need self-paced learning and access at all times. Through the online, pre-recorded formatting, you’ll be able to take your lessons anywhere at any time.
Course Overview
In Module One, you’ll be learning DMP within a Visual Effects Pipeline. This will cover the entire workflow of DMP in today’s current VFX industry. You’ll also learn common workflow stages. Module Two will cover the principles for an efficient workflow, which will give you all of the efficiency and productivity tips that you need for different scenarios.
Modules Three, Four, and Five will be covering different various aspects such as maintaining realism, creating 3D layouts of your scene, and setting up Photoshop and Nuke. Modules Six and Seven will include painting CG renders, props, textures, and finalizing your environment. Here you will complete the entire project and have an amazing piece to add to your portfolio to make it stand out.