White Wednesday - Short Film (Matte Painting)

This post is about the matte painting that I have created for the opening shot of the short film White Wednesday. The hills, trees and mountain has each been created on a separate layer using Adobe Photoshop whereas the buildings in the foreground is a rendered sequence from the 3D scene that has been created in Autodesk Maya. The sky in the background is a HDRI image created by Tom Magill.

White Wednesday - opening shot matte painting from Anzel Rossouw on Vimeo.

Creating the matte painting for the opening shot was quite a challenge as this was the first time that I have had the opportunity to create a matte painting. It was interesting to go through the process of creating the different layers of the background.

Opening shot, Final render

The opening shot for the short film White Wednesday, was created using Nuke's 3D scene through projecting each layer on a separate sphere with a camera which I have created within the scene. Each layer for the background was created using Adobe Photoshop by a series of images and painting.

Matte painting breakdown

On the left of I have included an image showing the breakdown of the opening shot. On the top left corner of the image I have included a screen shot of the 3D scene work space within Nuke to illustrate the composite of the five different layers, to create the final render that is used within the short film. The spheres that have the separate layers projected on, has been hidden so that I am able to show how each layer fits behind each other as the spheres are also hidden for render purposes. On the right side of the image is the four layers that make up the finished render excluding the sky. The very bottom layer is the 3D buildings; a sequence that has been rendered out of Maya from our 3D scene. This sequence was then projected onto a sphere in Nuke using an imported camera that is used within the Maya opening scene to achieve the downwards motion of the 3D camera. This was then projected onto the smallest sphere located at the centre of the other spheres so that was placed in front of the other layers.

Even though I restarted this matte painting quite a few times I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt. Each time that I restarted, it just became better and better. Sometimes all it takes is a new perspective and to learn from your mistakes. I know I have definitely learned a thing or two.