Matte Paintings in Carrara?

scottidog2

Has anyone done Matte Paintings in Carrara using 3D compositing.

evilproducer

You mean an image you create and then composite live action video over it, or do you mean similar to the old fashioned static matte paintings that they used to use? Those were usually painted on glass and had areas that were left clear so that they could then either use a forced-perspective type method of actually placing the matte painting in front of the camera and lining up the un-painted area with a set and actors behind it, or later by using an optical printer method?

scottidog2

matte painting done with “Camera Projection” or “3D Projection” in a 3d software.
With 3D programs’ help, the camera movement can be more free. You can animate the camera flying through paintings in 3D software to create a helicopter fly-over shot with less trouble and cost. we can apply a technique called “Camera Projection” or “3D Projection”. This technique allows artists to put their paintings in 3D software and create simple 3D geometry to match the shape of the environment. You can create as many 3D objects with paintings as you want and position them any place or position as you need to create the right parallax.

JoeMamma2000

Not sure exactly what effect you're referring to, but I'm guessing you're talking about essentially converting a 2D image into a 3D scene, so you can composite your 3D actors/whatever onto the converted 2D image?

Like if you had a cool 3D character and wanted to insert it into a cool photo you took, or a painting you made, and wanted the lighting and shadows to match up, and allow you to animate the character in the new environment? So you make a simple 3D environment that matches the photo, and then project the 2D image onto that?

Or maybe something closer to the concept of the camera flying thru your 2D painting after you convert it into a 3D projection?

Here's a very simple one from long ago where I just added some simple geometry and projected a photo on it to get the right shadows (using a shadow catcher on the ground).

scottidog2

Fantastic image. Any chance of you posting some diagrams or sketches of how you did this?

converting a 2D image into a 3D scene, so you can composite your 3D actors/whatever onto the converted 2D image?
YES

Like if you had a cool 3D character and wanted to insert it into a cool matte painting you made, and wanted the lighting and shadows to match up, and allow you to animate the character in the new environment?
YES

concept of the camera flying thru your 2D painting after you convert it into a 3D projection?
YES

Been looking at compositing work that was done in Nuke where photographic textures were projected onto simple geometry to create the scene. This eliminates complex
modeling and texturing and rendering.

WendyLuvsCatz

Shadowcatch shader
just chose shadowcatch under lighting projection instead of multichanel in a default shader start by setting everything else to none
you can later try adding bump or a colour value in diffuse for different effects
this creates invisible objects that cast shadows you can place to line up with items in your scene like ground, walls or vertex outlines filled as polygons traced off your original image

scottidog2

Thanks Wendy.

JoeMamma2000

I recall it was pretty straightforward. Choose Scene and add your 2D image as a Backdrop. That projects the image on the scene in the rendering camera.

Then I added a ground plane object and shaded it with a Shadow Catcher texture, which makes it invisible and only the shadows show up on it.

The tough part is matching the lighting in the scene to the actual lighting. Of course, you scan the photo and pick up clues on sun direction. I recall that when i took this image in Italy the date and time was tagged by my camera, so if you want to be picky you can go online to an app that tells you sun location for that date and time and GPS location....can't remember the specifics.

I don't think I used GI, just added a bunch of blue skylights and a main sunlight, and maybe a bouncelight or two with the same color as the concrete.

JoeMamma2000

By the way, I recall when i posted this long ago one of the "experts" here chided me for having the sun in the wrong location. Which of course it wasn't since I had checked the actual position for that date and time and location... :) :)

Got a chuckle out of that.. :)

JoeMamma2000

BTW, here's an image without the projected BG image, only the character and shadows on the shadow catcher. Note how sucky the bounce and skylight shadows are, but it worked okay in this case. But it's good to do a render like this to check your shadows. For bounce and skylight you'll obviously want to soften them up a LOT more than this.

scottidog2

Very helpful. Thank you JoeMamma2000.

evilproducer

This was a simple plane with a shadow catcher applied. I also created some spline grass which I animated, applied a shadow catcher and stuck in a surface replicator.

Some things to keep in mind about the shadow catcher, if an object is behind a shadow catcher, the shadow catcher acts as a mask, and blocks the object from view. Notice the grass in the video in front of the dinosaur.

A shadow catcher object not only catches shadows, but it can also cast shadows, even on itself or other objects with a shadow catcher shader applied to them. If you don't want it to cast shadows, disable the Casts Shadows checkbox in the object's General tab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8puXTRXt7Y

scottidog2

Love the animated grass in the video.
How did you animate the spline grass?

evilproducer

scottidog2 said:

Love the animated grass in the video.
How did you animate the spline grass?

Unlike a vertex model, the curves and such in a Spline model can be keyframed over time. For the grass, I created three simple grass blades (for variety) and then adjusted the curves at the end of the video. I then used an oscillate tweener with damping. Since each blade started and ended at a slightly different shape and each blade's oscillate tweener was set to have slightly different parameters, it created a more random, wind-blown look when added to a surface replicator.

I set the blades of grass to not cast shadows as the shadows from the grass gave away the plane shape and ruined the effect.

scottidog2

Thank You so much evilproducer for enlightening me
I have never done animation in Carrara, only still images. I'm going to be learning the animation capabilities so I can composite the animations in After Effects.