This post is a continuation of the matte painting post, where the artwork below was first created. In this lesson, I have further developed the skills necessary to make a matte painting by adding animation.
To recap –
A Matte Painting is defined as:
“a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location.”
To enhance the matte painting I already created, I imported it into AE in order to add movement to certain aspects of the painting, and really make it feel alive.
Firstly, I wanted to completely change the sky. Whilst the original is alright, for the more dynamic piece that I want to do, I would like to convey a different tone and have a more firey/intense atmosphere to mirror the movement and dragon. I found one which I felt did this well but once I imported it into the comp, I realised I had made a mistake in photoshop, and put the dragon on the same layer as the sky. It would be difficult anyway as the mountain and sky are also one image and therefore on the same layer. In order to separate everything, I duplicated the layer and rubbed out the sky with the eraser, by hand. Once I was satisfied with it, I hid the other layer and imported everything into AE for the second time, along with the new sky.
Once everything was set and in its proper layer, I animated the first aspect of the painting by making the sky move to the left. I experimented with the speed by dragging the keyframe. I didn’t want it to be too fast, but also not too slow, as I didn’t want to give a calm, peaceful evening type of impression.
Next, I moved onto the small dragons flying towards the bigger one. For the first two, I had no problem. I moved the anchor point to the middle and animated each dragon to move slightly in one direction, as well as adding some rotation and scale transformation for depth and realism.
However, for the third one, which is the one on the bottom, I ran into the same problem as the sky, realising that I had put it on the same layer as the mountain image. So, when animating it, and moving it from its original position, the background showed up from underneath. Going back and fixing this would take too long, as I would have to download images, go through cropping, erasing and position again, so I had to work around it. I tried my best when moving the dragon, to have it parallel to the hole underneath. This didn’t work perfectly, and you can still see the white checkered pattern slightly, but it isn’t as noticeable as it could have been, and I continued onwards.
Moving the sky and dragons was working quite well, but I felt that the sequence needed some ‘oomph’. Something more intense to really give the painting that spark. I decided that the bigger dragon on the mountain could use some ash or fire to make him seem more powerful and dangerous. So, using what I had learned in after effects for creating embers, I created a separate composition and used CC particle world to make some quick embers to add in. I wanted the inferno effect, so I tried to make them look like they were spinning in a circular motion. I also added glow, but I think they would have benefitted from a much stronger glow, perhaps even one in the background which would have made the dragon look like he was omitting a glow, which would have been quite cool, but perhaps a little distracting.
When I added the embers in, I had to think about scaling and distance and change their size according to that. The problem with this is that the glow was lost, and it is no longer clear that they are embers. They resemble little birds or maybe large insects, but I kind of liked the effect or small things, whatever they may be, flying around the dragon. It draws our attention to him and again, adds that firey aspect which I really wanted, through the movement and colour.
Because of CC particle world, and the many settings you can edit, I had some trouble with the quality and playback, but I knew this would be fixed after rendering. I like how the colour of the dragon and embers works with the clouds, and there is a nice balance throughout the sequence.
A few days later, after completing and rendering this, I noticed that I had opportunities to do much more with it. I wish that I could have used the puppet pin tool to add some movement to the big dragon’s wings and possibly head, because he looks very still, especially in comparison to the smaller dragons. I also could have added some fog/mist to the areas of the mountain where there already is some or a little near the bottom. I would have to make the movement subtle as to not overload the sequence, but I think this would have really improved it overall, and I regret not thinking of these things earlier. As a whole, however, I am quite pleased with the result, and I think that it really helps with my fantasy brief project, firstly because I was creating the matte painting with my concept in mind (it reflects the orc mountains when under Kreo’s rule) and secondly because it has shown how I have applied skills previously learned. I can also say that I now know an awesome method for creating environment concept art that is just that bit more enhanced and energetic.