In our today’s blog we will take you through extensive discussion about Digital Matte Painting. “The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”- Henry David Thoreau.

1. IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL MATTE
PAINTING AN EXTENSIVE STUDY
In our today’s blog we will take you through extensive discussion about
Digital Matte Paining.
"The world is but a canvas to the imagination."- Henry David Thoreau.
Imagination is something which doesn’t has any limits.
An artist can imagine or fantasies anything beyond any barrier to give life to
his creativity and make it fascinating.
An Artist’s imagination lets one see many outlooks.
No one knows the Origin of art, every Civilization every Culture has its own
Art form, Style and Way of Imagination.

2. Art form Evolved from time to time! And has reached to a milestone where we
got introduced to Digital Art!
It’s quite alluring to think about the transitions that art took in past decades!
From Engraving designs on stone till painting on papyrus, followed by the
synthetic brushes till a digital Pen Tablet.
Ever wonder how those incredible scenes of panoramic vistas, impossible
futuristic cities, or fantastic alien worlds come to life?
It's all through the magic of matte painting. If only I had a dollar (hey,
inflation!) for every time someone responded, "Matte painting?"
But you know what I'm talking about, right? If you don't, a brief history lesson
is in order.
Ages ago, extremely talented artists painted these realistic scenes on large
sheets of glass.

3. It really is a lost art nowadays.
The painting used to have blank areas that would get filled in with live action.
The filmed segments were optically composited with the painting for the
result.
A matte is a solid shape that is used to block out areas of the film frame so that
no image gets exposed there.
A simple matte shot must contain painting with a matte to block out the live
area, the film sequence with a matte to block out everything but the live area,
and a final piece of film for everything to be exposed onto.

4. Art in today’s time has unlocked limits of imagination.
Which became possible because of digital Matte Painting.
Matte Paintings are one of the most important and popular techniques used in
VFX Industry for Film Making to create illusions which are not even available
in the real world or the Shooting Location.
Digital Artist or we can say Matte Painters use many techniques to combine
Matte Painted image with a Live Action Footage or a CG generated Footage to
complete a Fantasy scene.
It’s not possible to pinpoint the invention of the matte painting. Since the mid-
19th century, photographers were experimenting with double-exposure to
create composite images.
Magician and legendary filmmaker Georges Méliès used the matte painting
technique in many of his films.
In his 1898 film Un Homme de Têtes – Four Heads Are Better Than One.
A glass pane painted with black was used to create a matte Méliès.
When shooting on film, the black matte kept light from reaching the camera.
Since a portion of the film was not exposed to light, it would leave part of the
frame empty.

5. Méliès use to rewind the film and use to set up an opposite matte.
By removing the original matte and blacking out everything else, the film
would now fill in the blanks.
The resulting sequence was astonishing. Norman Dawn used glass paintings in
his 1907 film Missions of California.
Many of the missions Dawn was filming had been partially destroyed.
He used matte paintings to visualize the buildings look whole again, often
painting the missing arches or roofs.
Dawn would also disguise telephone poles as trees, as he illustrated below.
Norman Dawn is known as the inventor of matte paintings, but he was just
the first to apply for credit.
From the source of The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte
Painting, Dawn applied for a patent for his “glass painting” technique in 1911.

6. But following a lawsuit it was deemed that the technique had long existed.
Dawn was just an early adopter of using matte paintings in films.
Alfred Hitchcock was using glass pane matte paintings throughout the 40s and
well into the 60s.
They were prominently used in North by Northwest and The Birds.
By the 1970s, the previously mentioned VFX masters at ILM would use many
matte paintings to bring Star Wars to life.
Star Wars had a multitude of great artists, like Christoper Evans.
Evans created many of the iconic Star Wars images, like Darth
Vader’s imperial march.
ILM also created the matte painting for the legendary finale to Raiders of the
Lost Ark. It took three months to paint all the crates and boxes.

7. The last hand painted mattes used in a major motion picture was in the 1997
epic, Titanic.
Most production Houses has shifted to blue and green screens, the techniques
used by matte painters are still applied to modern filmmaking.
Background plates are often hand drawn or painted.
They are used as reference material for the digital artwork.
Matte paintings are no longer a matter of two dimensional images.
Entire 3D sets, and backgrounds are created digitally. Even Professional
digital cameras are used to add movement.
There are still films that will use matte paintings as backdrops.

8. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, six 100-foot canvases were
stitched together and placed behind the set.
Digital Matte Painters usually belongs to arts and designing backgrounds.

9. Although a show reel of matte painting work can be called for, consisting of
landscapes, set extensions and interiors.
Images demonstrating careful skill in integration, match grading and an
understanding of depth of field, exposure, scale, lens distortion and grain can
also be presented as part of job applications.
It is possible to move into matte painting with more of a blend of skills in 2D
digital preparation (prep/paint) or junior compositing – particularly for
people who show skills as part of their junior compositing show reel.
Use breakdowns to show how your work was built up in layers and with color
adjustments. Photorealistic work is always in-demand.
From 3D texture painting, you can also look for opportunities to move ‘across’
to junior or entry level matte painting.

10. Students get an insight into techniques like compositing, match-moving,
digital matte painting & editing at our Maac Institute.
Here is some of our student work.
Still thinking just call us @9836321595