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). David will provide some references for use to start out with. Students are encouraged not to use these for their matte paintings and to use their own material.
• Students will be provided with 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.
• Topics on sRGB and monitor color calibration; Mac vs PC ICC profiles.
• 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 five (concept due week two). Students must get approval for the concepts before working on matte painting on week two to ensure they have enough time to finish matte painting by week five. 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 redos, must be finalized by week three.
• 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

• Study on Lighting/Shadow, sun direction, bounce light, specular/diffuse/reflection components of objects to consider while matte painting.
• Showing what the different blend options for layers – multiply, screen, linear dodge, overlay, etc.
• 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, Mid-ground, 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.
• Students will need to show their rough version of their matte painting for peer critiques due next week for week four. David will the make paint-overs to illustrate improvements where needed for final due in week five.

Week Four

• Video: Cloning techniques, painting back in texture detail using the Levels tool and adjustment layers to paint in highlights.
• 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.
• Video: Using MeshWrap to animate your footage.
• Video: How to animate water in 2D using Displacement.
• Critique concepts and make suggestions and corrections to have them ready to work on for final matte painting in week eight.

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.
• Video: Setting up a 2.5D camera move for a matte painting using AfterEffects.

Week Seven

• Video: Setting up Photoshop to export your layers to Maya.
• Video: Using Maya for 3D matte painting projections and techniques to render out for compositing.
• Video: Shader setup, animating cameras, and rendering your matte painting in Maya.
• Video: Setting up a 3D Cityscape matte painting and matching camera data for animation.
• 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.
• Video: Setting up a 3D Matte Painting Projection in Nuke.

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 has been learned with open discussion about how to get into the industry and what the needs of today’s matte painters are.

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 Maya. 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, Maya plus a compositing application of your choice. The minimum software versions required are Adobe Photoshop CS2, Maya 7.0, Nuke 4.72 and After Effects CS2..

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.