Matte Painting - Rivendell

This matte painting took out top honors in a contest over at CGChannel. The competition was run by Jonathan Berube, who kindly provided a great plate to work from. The task was to remove any signs of the modern world, then add Rivendell and modify the environment until it looked like it sat in the world of the Hobbit / LOTR films.

The buildings of Rivendell were modelled and roughly textured in Maya, then painted over the top. Photographic resources were my own photos from China, and from cgtextures.com. Then I reprojected the matte back onto 3D geometry to get the animated camera move below. I also animated the birds and composited in some practical mist effects.

Matte Painting - Cypress Mountain

This matte painting is based on a simple plate I shot on a cheap point and shoot up at Cypress Mountain, Vancouver. David Luoug, during his CGWorkshop, helped me to push this one to a strong finish. Below you can see an animated pan of the shot, followed by a quick process breakdown so that you can appreciate the invisible work that went into this one. All photographic resources were either shot by me, or sourced from cgtextures.com

Matte painting - Skyfreight

This matte painting explores the idea that mankind has developed a technology that can manipulate and overcome gravity. However, the technology isn't terribly nimble, making its applications somewhat less glamorous than your average science fiction craft. 

There's something extremely appealing to me about impossibly large objects floating serenely in the sky. From Avatar's hallelujah mountains to the District 9 saucer, I've always been captivated with this idea. I'm not sure if it's the serenity, the primal urge to fly, or the thrill of vertigo in the back of my mind. Maybe a bit of all three.

Built exclusively from my own photography taken in and around Vancouver, you can see a quick video of the process below. 3D Camera projection still to come.