Digital Matte Painting: Project 2 - Invisible Set Extension

15.05.23 - 16.06.23 (Week 7 - Week 11)
Chai Yi Xuan / 0346645 / B' Creative Media
Digital Matte Painting / Entertainment Design
Project 2 / Invisible Set Extension

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INSTRUCTIONS

To-Do List:

• Create an set extension based on a theme/movie
  

Week 7

In the previous week, Mr Kannan gave us a theme for us to work on as a practice for our project. It was an early post-invasion theme, and we are free to use whatever movie/game material as reference. Since I'm not too familiar with the sci-fi genre, I wasn't entirely confident in what I can do with the theme. I thought of the aliens in Chicken Little, and decide to build around the concept.

I drew what I could imagine if the aliens decided to build a civilisation on Earth. The problem is, I wasn't sure what I was doing 60% of the time when I was concepting the idea.

Figure 1.1: Early draft and concept

Week 8

Mr Kannan's feedback and guidance was enough to enlighten me, and I explored a few more landscapes with the same concept.

Figure 1.2: Invasion concept, fields and mountains

Figure 1.3: Invasion concept, cliffside

Figure 1.4: Invasion concept, cityscape

Figure 1.5: Invasion concept, desert

Week 9

I decided to work with the desert concept, since I prefer the composition over the others. I gathered more photos so I have more choices in adding in other elements.

Figure 1.6: Collected photos (from Unsplash and Pexels) to use for photobashing

Then, I quickly photobash the elements into my composition.

Figure 1.7: Photobashing elements into composition

Week 10

I fixed the adjustments for the elements, since everything is obviously out of place with different lighting and saturation.

Figure 1.8: Adjustments to saturation

Figure 1.9: Adding dust ambience

Well, even if I changed it to fit the mood, it definitely didn't look like anything impressive. It lacked a lot of things— things that I wasn't sure of nor did I know of. It happened that I was stuck once more, dissatisfied with my work.

Week 11

Again, Mr Kannan's feedback was valuable, and I managed to add more to my barren composition. I drew more buildings at different heights to create rhythm and darken a few areas to define the shadow and light. Suddenly, it's seems like an entirely different painting from before.

Figure 1.10: Week 11 progression

Figure 1.11: Changed saturation and added elements

 

I was happy with what I managed to change, but there's always room for improvement. After a few more comments from Mr Kannan, I tweak a few things to make it better.

Figure 1.12: Final render for project 2

PDF presentation file for Project 2

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FEEDBACK

Week 7

Buildings usually are not stacked in one straight line. Observe your surroundings and see how the buildings are arranged depending on where it's built. Project 2 isn't just about photobashing whatever photo you can find, but it's to create a imaginative scene that can be believable to the audience. Sketch out more ideas for you to explore your concept.

Week 8

Your cliffside and desert compositions looks more interesting. Choose either one to work on.

Week 10

Things that are closer to you must be darker. Cut off some parts of the rock pillar and reduce the texture of other mountains and rock further away. Add more buildings and other elements on the right side city, and also define the theme of your city to better visualise the type of buildings you need. Focus more on building your composition, as the ambience can come later.

Week 11

Much better than last week. Add something around the canyon the city is sitting on, as it currently looks out of place. Your signal tower is too thin— have to make it thicker or add other components to make it look stable. You can emphasize the shadows around the canyon to indicate a gap in between for your road. Remove the line of blue light.

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REFLECTIONS

After moving on from Project 1, I thought this project and onward would be easier to deal with. In a way, it's true— I don't have to constantly squint my eyes to get a certain value I need for my painting, nor do I have to draw the texture out meticulously. But the biggest challenge I faced is actually concepting the set, and most of it came from the fact that I'm stumbling in half-blind most of the time. Rather than the lectures itself, it's more so my lack of experience that had me confused and lost. Half of my time spent on this project is mostly trial and error, trying to figure out what works best. The other struggle is to make it as realistic as possible, but with photobashing, a lot of things are much easier to paint. The only thing that takes time would be looking for the appropriate texture for the painting. To sum it up, it's good experience, but certainly took up a lot more of my time and effort than I imagined.