Wherever there are vast alien landscapes to be explored, intimidating medieval castles to be stormed or physics defying dreamscapes to be traversed you'll find the matte painters, those unsung heroes of imagination hard at work bringing form to thought. If you've never had the need to work side by side with a matte painter it's likely that the complexity of the role may be lost on you, however after watching Mickaël MEO Forrett's impressive video breakdown for his imagined world HORIZON that should all change:
In case you missed it whilst your jaw was dropping, to create HORIZON's 27 second shot, Forrett went from crude sketches to matte painting with photos and paint, threw in a little camera projection mapping and 3d model animation before bringing it all together with a spot of colour correction and composition. He achieved all this singlehandedly using a toolkit comprising Adobe Photoshop and After Effects, Autodesk Maya and Mudbox and The Foundry's Nuke over 5 months including his graphical research time.
All of which took him from this:
to this:
Amazing work, but I can't help but shudder at the idea of having to repeat that process enough times to cover the amount of shots needed by a feature!
If there are any effects breakdowns which have blown you away recently let us know in the comments?
Link: HORIZON
[via fubiz]
