FXartist.biz
Brian Tovar's Online Portfolio
Last Updated: 5/17/2005
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©2005 Brian Tovar
Anatomy of A Matte Painting
Move your cursor over the boxes to reveal the photographic source of this composite image.
This project was created as an exercise in digital matte painting and set extension. I began by establishing a horizon and vanishing point in one-point perspective. Lines were drawn over an image of a cavern warehouse, which in a production setting could have come directly from the set. I then used Photoshop's distort tools to conform objects to perspective, along with color correction and blur to give atmospheric perspective. Shadows and highlights were either painted in or painted out, depending on the source material.
The image was then broken up into separate layers and brought into After Effects to be composited with live-action footage of explosions and sparks. A shaky camera move was then animated along virtual planes of the image. Light was also painted out to create the effect of interactive lighting in the scene when the light bulbs burst and shatter.
Live-action explosions courtesy Detonation Films. (LINK)
