First matte painting

[EnV]

Hi all and let me say that is is one of the more interesting site I know (and watch almost daily).

Well, this is my first attempt to a "serious" matte painting:

http://www.enricovalenza.com/BlendwDino/envtest.jpg

It's for a project of mine, "Blending with Dinosaurs", and the matte is to recreate with camera projection an environment for the Allosaurus model.
Here you can see the result, a frame from the animation:

http://www.enricovalenza.com/BlendwDino/alloenv.jpg

and this is the link to the animation test, just in case someone should be interested (3.175 K):
http://www.enricovalenza.com/BlendwDino/alloenv.mpg
Note that I don't need a big output, only a tv resolution, so the matte isn't that big (it's almost 1 k).
Any critic and suggestion to this my first attempt is welcome, thanks in advance. :)

EnV

[homer]

As a first attempt, it’s really good.
Having more layers will help to create more believable parallax effects.

[EnV]

Thanks homer. :)
Yes, they are one layer for the foreground rocks, three different layers for the trees in middleground and a layer for the far background. For the rendering the sky has been replaced with a dome. Do you think the parallax effects is wrong?

EnV

[homer]

The big cliff in the front, in the beginning of the shot looks a bit flat.
It might need some distortion animation in comp. or more layers or a detailed 3d geometry.
But it does look good already.

[EnV]

Ah, thanks, I'll take this in consideration in the next test.

EnV

[graphmac]

The effect is really good.
I like the video.
I noticed that the dinosaurs body does not rotate from the hips when it walks making the walk cycle look a bit too CG when it walks past the camera.
The head and neck movement are good.

When rendering the beast make sure you use a lighter colour of the sky in the light and light underneath the dino with a colour from the floor/ it can makes the colours look more real to the scene.

[EnV]

Thanks, graphmac.
Yes, the animation has several error (also the weight is too "verticalized"), I'm redoing it one more time. :D
The dino is already lighted underneath with a floor color, maybe it's not enough. The key light is a bright yellowish, I tried to simulate the sunlight, plus a hemi light with the sky color to "fill" the shadows. I couldn't find a better way to establish a color for the main light, because there are no white areas in the matte, so I took the lighter one I could find in the matte (it's in the foreground rocks) and use it as a guide.

EnV