Mattepainting Toolkit: Creating Photoreal Environments in Maya via Multiple Camera Projections

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The clip below was shot was modeled, textured, and rendered with the help of the Glyph Software Mattepainting Toolkit. The Mattepainting Toolkit is a newly released plugin suite for Autodesk Maya that allows artists to efficiently manage multiple camera projections for the creation of photoreal environments.

gs_mptk city demo from Glyph on Vimeo.

The toolkit has been developed by Michael Breymann who identified a need to more efficiently model and render scenes that rely heavily on reprojected matte paintings.

For more information take a look at glyphfx.com/mptk.html, Michael provides series of videos looking at how the toolkit can facilitate the creation of a full-CG environment for a feature film - from a first look it certainly looks impressive and we like the way it has developed out of a specific identified need.

Speed Painting a City in Photoshop CS3

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Matte paintings are used to create "virtual sets" and "digital backlots". They can be used to create entire new sets, or to extend portions of an existing set. Traditional matte painting is done optically, by painting on top of a piece of glass to be composited with the original footage (Wikipedia).

The movie embedded below illustrates the process of painting a city background in Photoshop CS3, timelapsed over 6 minutes it provides an interesting insight into creating digital cityscapes:



Credit for the movie goes to titoff77, his work is inspired by Dylon Cole (Dylon's site is well worth a look, especially the Daredevil section for urban images.)