Temple of Knowledge

[Davibuddha]

-- UPDATED 10/09/2004 --

I've changed the waterfall color and brightness to more orange per the environment, and gave it more detail. Also added a "shoreline" to the right mountain of the temple to give it better integration. Also tweaked the reflections slightly to match the shoreline. Thanks all for the comments and crits!

- David

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Hey all!

I just finished this digital matte painting for matte painting class.
For this assignment, find images of shrines/temples, and make an environment for the shrine to make it not of a particular origin and culture.
Fantasy type setting.
http://davidluong.net/subpages/images/mattepainting/tok-matte-highres-full.jpg
Preliminary composite done in Photoshop, then animated and multi-planed
in After Effects with the leaves and waterfall done with Maya Particles.
Mesh Warping on the tree and branches, and turbulent/displacement maps
on the clouds and water for animation.

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Full video resolution Divx 5.1 4000kbs compression with 128kbs mp3 audio
to retain high quality viewing.

Screenshots, animation and the making of video below, hope you guys enjoy!


Original Photo

http://davidluong.net/subpages/images/original_photo_small.jpg

Small still of Digital Matte Painting

http://davidluong.net/subpages/images/temple_knowledge_small.jpg

Full resolution of Digital Matte Painting still

http://davidluong.net/subpages/images/temple_knowledge.jpg

Digital Matte Painting Animation, 7mb file size, TRT 15 seconds. Download Here. (http://davidluong.net/subpages/videos/temple_knowledge_divx_10_9_2004.avi)

Music from LOTR: Return of the King, "Twilight and Shadow" by Howard Shore, of course inspired by it!

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The Making of the Temple of Knowledge video, 24mb file size, TRT 1 min 35 seconds. Download Here. (http://davidluong.net/subpages/videos/making_of_temple_knowledge_divx.avi)

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btw this is a great website! Alot of information here that helped me and will continue so in the coming days for my next projects.

- David Luong

[brad]

The movie is fantastic,
It’s just the sun that seems to be too fantasy.
Great job

[AliK]

Good composition.
I think it would be better to put the sun more to the left.
I like the animation too.

[dstipes]

Nice work!

I have some concerns about the left waterfalls. While the right water looks like it could have been real footage (looks good) the left ones look like digital particle animation. (may not be ... but looks like it.)

One alternative to particle animation is to insert Mini DV footage of salt or sugar or Boraxo pouring over black shapes that correspond to your rocks.

We used that a lot on previous matte shots with great success.

Keep up the good work. (Where are you taking a Matte Painting class?)

David

[Davibuddha]

heyo thx for all the comments! yea another concern I got from the waterfall was that it was too white, so I am rendering a new version now to closer match the bronze environment color

RE: David (ack same first name as me!)
(ya all of the waterfall is maya particles). I'll have to try the salt technique someday =). Digital Matte Painting class I'm taking at the Academy Art University in San Francisco. Was wondering if you had a website or reference I can see of your matte paintings in action? thanks!

- David Luong

[ChristianM]

Great work !
I just think that there are too many leaves falling and some of them fall too fast.

[Davibuddha]

heyo Christian =0

The leaves don't come from just one branch, it's kind of from within a forest looking out towards the temple so the leaves falling faster are the ones in the foreground.

I made it more of like a serendipitous moment in time where you just happen to be there to experience the beginning of the leaves falling from the wind...hope that helps! But as art, it's open to alot of interpretation and that was my point of view, thanks for the crit/comment!

- David