Gabriella Grace Christyanti / 0371915
Digital Matte Painting / Creative
Media / School of design
Task 1 Exercises (Fundamental)
1. Instructions
2. Lectures
3. Process Work
4. Final Outcome
5. Feedback
6. Reflection
1. INSTRUCTIONS
WEEK 1
Matte painting is a visual effects technique used in films, television, video games, and advertising to create realistic or fantastical backgrounds that would otherwise be too expensive, dangerous, or physically impossible to build. Originally developed in the early 20th century using hand-painted glass panels placed in front of cameras, the art form has evolved into a digital process where artists combine photographs, digital painting, and 3D modeling. Today, professional studios use sophisticated software to project these digital environment paintings onto 3D shapes (a process known as 2.5D projection), allowing the camera to move naturally within the scene while maintaining convincing depth, perspective, and scale.
WEEK 2
This Adobe Photoshop tutorial from MattePaint Academy demonstrates a time-saving technique for digital artists to seamlessly repeat and scale objects—such as pillars, light posts, or spaceships—along a strong perspective line. Instead of manually guessing the relative scale and diminishing distance of objects moving into the background, the instructor walks through a precise workflow: duplicating a layer, activating the free transform tool to set the initial distance and scale adjustment, and then using the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Shift + T (on Windows) to repeat that exact mathematical transformation recursively. Because Photoshop automatically calculates and scales the movement distance alongside the object size, this trick allows matte painters and concept artists to bypass manual calculations and quickly block out realistic, repeating layouts and environments.
This perspective drawing tutorial explains how artists can convey a strong sense of depth and scale in outdoor landscapes without relying on geometric vanishing points, focusing instead on the rules of atmospheric perspective. Because Earth's atmosphere scatters light, objects closer to the horizon appear less detailed, lower in contrast, and shift toward the color of the ambient haze—which transitions from blueish-white in the afternoon to oranges or purples in the evening. The video details how painters can use color temperature and values to establish distinct visual planes, noting that warmer, brighter, and higher-contrast tones naturally advance forward while cooler, darker, and less saturated tones recede. Finally, the instructor highlights that even in pure line drawings, artists can replicate this illusion of distance by using heavy, thick line weights for foreground subjects and significantly thinner, lighter lines for elements far in the background.
WEEK 3
WEEK 4
This digital art tutorial provides a comprehensive guide to building environment painting skills through "digital plein air" studies, using virtual locations from resources like Google Street View or Map Crunch instead of painting outdoors from life. The instructor demonstrates two landscape studies, emphasizing that the goal is not to copy references one-to-one, but rather to practice deliberate compositional and artistic decision-making by adjusting shapes, designs, and colors. The workflow begins with a rough sketch to map out the composition, followed by establishing a strong foundation by limiting the scene to three or four primary value groups (light and dark shapes). Working from the background toward the foreground, the artist showcases two different stylistic approaches: the first utilizes adjustment layers and a progressive manual paint-over to capture lighting, while the second uses a highly saturated orange base layer reminiscent of traditional oil underpainting to push vibrant color limits, simplify noisy details into recognizable shapes, and use elements like diagonal sunlight to successfully stitch together depth.
This YouTube video, titled "Daily Sketch #10 Virtual Plein Air" by artist Jeremy Fenske, showcases a digital painting process inspired by virtual exploration. The artist utilizes Map Crunch—a tool that generates random Google Street View locations—to discover unique, unedited references from around the globe, specifically capturing landscapes from Hungary and Cambodia. Throughout the video, Fenske demonstrates how to translate these real-world environments into compelling digital studies in Photoshop, taking just under two hours per piece to balance composition, perspective, and natural light while emphasizing the immense value of using virtual tools to build environmental painting mileage from the comfort of a digital studio.
This Adobe Photoshop tutorial from PHLEARN outlines a comprehensive workflow for seamlessly replacing a boring or flat sky in a photograph using the automated Sky Replacement tool. The instructor demonstrates how to access the feature, navigate its built-in options, and import custom sunset images from stock sites by organizing them into dedicated folders. To ensure the composition looks entirely believable rather than artificial, the tutorial stresses a crucial design principle: because the sky acts as the primary light source for the entire image, the replacement choice should closely mimic the brightness, lighting quality, and direction of the original shot. Finally, the workflow is elevated by outputting the adjustment to separate layers and applying custom-clipped Levels and Hue/Saturation adjustment masks directly to the new sky, allowing artists to fine-tune color channels, match ambient highlight tones, and reduce saturation for a perfectly integrated final image.
WEEK 5
This comprehensive tutorial details how to transform a flat, 2D photograph into an animated 3D scene using a parallax depth effect. The process is broken into two main stages: first, using Adobe Photoshop to meticulously isolate key elements (the couple on the bench, trees, a train, the fence, and the ground) into separate layers using tools like the Pen, Magic Wand, and Clone Stamp to rebuild covered background details; second, importing these layers into Adobe After Effects, converting them into 3D layers, and arranging them at different depths along the Z-axis. By animating a virtual camera moving forward through this newly established 3D space and adding secondary motions—such as a moving train complete with a simulated floor shadow, motion blur, a blurred city skyline, and realistic optical flares for sunlight—the static image successfully shifts into a dynamic, multi-layered visual narrative.
This interview features Irena Šmitáková, a Digital Matte Painter and Environment Artist at Framestore London who has worked on high-profile projects like The Lion King and Good Omens. She discusses her creative journey from photography to VFX, emphasizing the benefits of combining 3D elements with Photoshop compositing, and breaks down her personal "Every Kit I Own" (EKIO) series. Using her piece EKIO Utopia as a case study, she demonstrates how she transformed a real vacation photo of a Polish valley into a futuristic sci-fi mine by blocking out pre-modeled KitBash3D assets in Maya, utilizing lighting passes and cryptomattes for granular adjustments, and layering textures, atmospheric smoke, and lens flares in Photoshop. Ultimately, Šmitáková encourages the community to embrace experimentation, thoroughly prepare references in advance to save time, and maintain a healthy work-life balance to prevent burnout early in their careers.
In this fast-paced, 10-minute challenge tutorial, the creator from the channel flomotion demonstrates how to transform mundane smartphone footage of a beach walk into a sci-fi movie trailer sequence using After Effects and pre-keyed digital assets. The workflow begins by keying out the original sky with Keylight and compositing a space galaxy backdrop, sand dunes, and color-shifted planets whose transparency and tint are adjusted to blend deep into the atmosphere. The scene is further populated with animated spaceships, an integrated alien companion, localized foreground foliage, a foreground alien skull, and layered sandstorm effects to establish deep environmental dimension. To finalize the cinematic, multi-layered look, the tutorial shows how to execute a realistic focus pull using a gradient ramp with the Camera Lens Blur effect before pulling everything together with epic music, robotic audio glitches, and an automated title template.
INSTRUCTIONS
You will undergo a series of exercises that will enhance your understanding of matte as listed below:
- Perspective Studies (Landscapes and Interiors)
- Compositions
- Value Studies
- Sky replacements
- Virtual Plain Air
- 2.5D mattes
- Invisible Set Extensions
For our perspective studies, we are encouraged to do some exploration in the real world to take photos and break down the perspectives from the photo that we took. These are the photos from my real world photography that I did perspective studies on.
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| Fig 3.1: Perspective Exercise |
Other than using real world photos, we are also allowed to take pictures from movies. These are my perspective exercises done from screens shots I took from movies such as Maleficent, Big Hero 6, and The Matrix.
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| Fig 3.2: Perspective Exercise |
COMPOSITIONS & VALUE STUDIES
For this process, I needed to repeat twice as my first attempt was made from my reference movie instead of a different movie. But this only helped me to get more experience in this aspect.
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| Fig 3.3: Composition and Value Studies |
SKY REPLACEMENTS
First I started with just making 3 versions of sky replacements, all were fairly realistic with one showing dark cloudy skies, one showing clear skies, and the last showing a sunset. This was my first attempts on sky replacement.
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| Fig 3.4: Sky Replacements Exercise |
After finishing the first attempt, Sir Ahmad asked us to do a more fantasy based sky replacement in order to push our limits a bit more and to see if we are able to do more extreme versions of this technique.
I did another attempt at sky replacement, this time using different themes and more extreme locations. The two images at the top shows a more horror theme while next to it, its a more fantasy theme with a purple night sky. For the lower row, it shows the ruined home is located in hell, while next to it, the ruin is located underwater.
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| Fig 3.5: Sky Replacements Exercise |
VIRTUAL PLAIN AIR
While it's shown to be drawn on photoshop, I decided to do mine in Procreate as I am far more used to that application. I placed my drawing side by side with the reference I used. The left side shows the reference and the right shows my virtual plain air drawing that I did in an attempt to recreate the scenery.
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| Fig 3.6: Virtual Plain Air |
2.5D MATTES
When we did the 2.5D matte, this was my first time getting into the After Effects 3d function and I was not that comfortable with it in my first attempt. My first try in it ended up moving way too fast as I mistook the paste of the rendering video to be the same or somewhat similar to what the final output will be like. This caused my final video to move way too fast and I needed to go back to the application to fix it again.
After learning from my previous attempt, my second attempt came out much nicer. Though now, that I look back at it after more experience, speaking from the present looking to this past work, I do feel like I would be able to improve upon it a bit more if I had the knowledge and experience I did now.
Instead of using a simple position move for the ocean, I would instead use a green screen ocean instead to create movement on the water. I would also make the movement to zoom even more slower to make it feel more cinematic.
| Fig 3.7: 2.5D Mattes Exercise |
Video Link: Google Drive Link
INVISIBLE SET EXTENTION
When I did my invisible set extension, I was not aware that I was doing it incorrectly. Sir Ahmad later explained to me that what we were expected to do in this exercise is to make an extension on the background of our original image. But what I did instead was make the image wider like the photo below shows. I used techniques of coloring and photo bashing in order to make the extension look more realistic. Sir Ahmad also seem to like how realistic the whole thing looks even if I did the set extension incorrectly.
(The image was an old image I took from my phone, that is why it is vertically shaped.)
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| Fig 3.8: Invisible Set Extension Exercise |
4. FINAL OUTCOME
5. FEEDBACK
COMPOSITIONS & VALUE STUDIES
I got feedback for my compositions & value studies as mentioned, I used How to Train Your Dragon as my beginning study reference but I needed to explore more so I changed it to Life of Pi instead.
SKY REPLACEMENTS
As for the sky replacement exercise, I started too safe with just normal sky adjustments and I was told that I needed to push myself more and to make more of a fantasy sky replacement. I was told to not limit myself and to try a more challenging theme.
2.5D MATTES
The movement of the camera and props were too fast, I was also able to assess the same as I was still new to using the 3D After Effects. The fix for this was quite easy.
INVISIBLE SET EXTENTION
As said earlier, I did my set extention incorrectly, but Sir Ahmad still accepts it.
EXPERIENCE
This module introduced me to the fundamental techniques of digital matte painting, including perspective studies, composition and value analysis, sky replacements, virtual plain air painting, 2.5d mattes, and invisible set extensions. While I faced challenges such as redoing my composition studies, learning after effects' 3d camera system, and misunderstanding the set extension exercise, each task helped me improve both my technical skills and creative thinking. The feedback I received throughout the semester encouraged me to refine my work and experiment beyond my comfort zone.
OBSERVATION
Throughout this module, I observed that successful digital matte painting depends on strong fundamentals such as perspective, composition, values, and lighting rather than relying solely on software techniques. I also realized that constructive feedback and repeated practice play an important role in improving both artistic quality and technical execution. As I revisited my earlier works, I could clearly see the progress I had made over the semester.
FINDINGS
This module taught me that creating convincing environments requires a balance of artistic observation, technical knowledge, and creativity. I found that experimenting with more ambitious ideas often produced stronger results, while mistakes became valuable learning opportunities that improved my workflow and problem-solving skills. Overall, the exercises strengthened my confidence in digital matte painting and provided a solid foundation for future environment design projects.
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