what i need to learn?

[monem81]

dear all ... what do i need to learn to be a professional matte painter that can work on big projects? is matte painting related to compositing? do i need to be a good compositor in order to be a good matte painter? which tools do i need? thanx for all :)

[nickmarshallvfx]

Well, a lot of matte painting is about developing an artistic eye, a lot of the same artistic sensibilities that a compositor requires to match cg objects together. Being a strong traditional artist will really help for understanding of lighting, composition, perspective etc.
Do a search for these kind of threads, these questions come up a lot, so you might find something that answers your question better.

Nick

[LRomero]

Learn the basics... a lot of people get caught up with learning a particular software package, but that alone won't get you very far. As space-sprayer has mentioned, learn the fundamentals to traditional art and composition.

As for your other question, composting is a post production process of laying out footage and putting together various assets. It relates to matte painting in that a compositor can take a matte painting done by a matte painter (or himself) and use it as either a background or whatever element he/she decides to use it for. Think of it like a person who assembles a puzzle together to make the final picture.

In order to become a good matte painter, you don't necessarily have to be a compositor but you do have to understand the idea of how a matte painting is to be delivered to a compositor (ie, how many layers he/she needs them in, what foreground or background elements are needed).

[bepitulaz]

Hi, I'm newbie here and have a liitle questions..

I have a good skill in photoshop (I used photoshop since version 7) and still learn 3D with blender, and I'm interesting in matte painting today. Is the photoshop skill and traditional painting skill enough for matte painting? And to show in portfolio, is the painting must be projected in 3D camera mapping?

Thanks for the answer...and sorry for my little bad English :)

[Nightparrot]

Each domain is composed out of 4 things : history, theory, practice and critics.
Knowing Photoshop and traditional painting is a very good start but is it enough? Depends on what you wish to achieve :). If the matte painting is like a puzzle, so are we, the more pieces we have ( architecture, perspective, patience, drawing skill, photoshop, maya, zbrush, 3dmax and a couple of a hundred more things I can still think of :p ) the better our work will be. Every element is important and how well we can handle them.
The main idea is that you can start from anywhere but you will never end somewhere :P.