Week One

• Students will gather references for matte paintings later in class (such as photos self taken, or on copyright free high resolution images on the internet or scans). I will provide for some references for use to start out with. Students encouraged not to use these for their matte paintings and to use their own material.
• Students will be provided links to recommended reading materials to enhance knowledge of matte painting such as: D’Artiste: Matte Painting, and The Invisible Art by Craig Barron.
• Lecture on the history of matte painting. Students will learn what matte painting is, what it was, and what it is today as a digital form.
• Video: Quick introduction to Photoshop tools and canvas, aspect ratio, and pixel resolution, and color space information (8bit/16bit/cineon/rgb). For example: Working in 8bit can be fast, but for film, it will create banding because it doesn’t have the high color range of 16-bit images.
• Video: Composition and rule of thirds, tangent lines, atmospheric perspective, 1/2/3 point perspective.
• Working out a concept for first matte painting due in Week 5 (concept due Week 2). Students must get approval for the concepts before working on matte painting on Week 2 to ensure they have enough time to finish matte painting by Week 5. Concepts can be made from any combination of paint sketches, rough photo stitching, texture work, and 3D proxy models.

Week Two

• Video: Color correction tools in Photoshop: Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, and Brightness/Contrast.
• Video: Layer management, coloring layers, groups, clipping masks, and adjustment layers for non destructive image editing.
• Video: Extraction techniques: extraction tool, marquee tool, quick mask erasing.
• Critique and art direct concept work from students, then give approvals or redo’s, must be finalized by Week 3.
• Critique references brought in by students to use for matte paintings. Ensure light direction, perspective, resolution, and subject all fit in their concepts.
• A study on plate extensions and how they are used as a basis for matte paintings.
• Grain averaging, and re-graining plates for matte painting work.

Week Three

• Video: Study on Lighting/Shadow, sun direction, bounce light, specular/diffuse/reflection components of objects to consider while matte painting.
• Video: Sky replacement tutorial, matching lighting, black values, and perspective.
• Art Direction: Students to experiment with different color schemes before settling, giving focus to the piece and having an interesting subject.
• Video: Background, Midground, Foreground elements, giving depth to a matte painting. Start thinking about breaking up painting into layers for compositing later on and giving control over animating it later.
• Video: Showing what the different blend options for layers – multiply, screen, linear dodge, overlay, etc.
• Have students show rough version of matte painting for peer critiques due next week for Week 4. I will do paint-overs on how to improve them and give stronger focus if needed for final due in Week 5.

Week Four

• Video: Cloning techniques, painting back in texture detail using the Levels tool and adjustment layers to paint in highlights.
• Video: Flipping canvas rotation to get a fresh eye on composition and lighting of matte painting.
• Critique student’s rough matte paintings.
• Have students create new concept for final matte painting. Conceptualize it so you can break up the painting layers, which can then be animated in a compositing package or be projected in 3D on cards and/or objects.
• Students are encouraged to use their own shot footage in a locked-off position on a tri-pod, if possible (or simple pan/tilt), or moving freely if they are ambitious to match-move on their own.

Week Five

• First matte painting assignments due. Peer critiques and paint-overs for improvements given back later in the class.
• Video: Day for night tutorial, using curves, painting in lights, and shadows.
• Video: Using After Effects to import in Photoshop matte painting layers and preparing them for some 2.5D animation. Think about adding in practical elements or CG elements to liven up matte painting.
• Critique concepts and make suggestions and corrections to have them ready to work on for final matte painting in Week 8.

Week Six

• Video: Preparing Photoshop layers in matte painting and exporting them with alpha channels for non Adobe programs (they handle alpha’s differently).
• Video: Using Nuke to import in Photoshop layers, and preparing them for 2.5D/3D compositing. Show basic nodes to attach to make it work for students.
• On-going paint-overs and critiques for students on final matte paintings and animations. Prepare rough matte painting for Week 7 for more critiques.

Week Seven

• Video: Using Maya for 3D matte painting projections and techniques to render out for compositing.
• Video: How to spot stretched paintings if the camera is moving too much, and adding additional projection cameras to patch up those stretch marks.
• Video: Using 3D Studio Max for 3D matte painting projections and techniques to render out for compositing/
• Peer critique of rough matte paintings for final project. Ensure students aren’t getting nasty alpha edges, correct parallaxing with 2.5D/3D cameras. Work out their problems to get their finals looking as great as possible.

Week Eight

• Continuation of lecture on the history of matte painting and the great artists of today.
• Critique final matte painting projects and give open feedbacks that will help them improve beyond the end of this class.
• Recap on what students have learned and have open discussion about how to get into the industry, what are the needs of today’s matte painters.

Student Requirements
This is an intermediate to advanced level class that will cover topics on matte painting through use of Adobe Photoshop, and how to composite them into their final project using their choice of compositing and 3D application. Beginners are welcome as well as topics covered and class discussions are personal and open to different levels of knowledge.

Software Requirements
Students need Photoshop plus a compositing and 3D application of your choice. The minimum software versions required are Adobe Photoshop CS2, Maya 7.0, Nuke 4.72, After Effects CS2 and 3DStudio 8.5.

Hardware Requirements
Students need a minimum 512mb RAM and a 1GHz.

A broadband connection will be needed for downloading the weekly video lessons.

Other Requirements
Students need to be familiar with web navigation and browsing, as well as email

Students need to be familiar with using a bulletin board system (such as CGTalk.com) as well as how to upload attachments to postings for review.