[PostaL]

Hello there! I'm glad to join this comunity for I am a CGI maniac :D .I whant to apolagize now for all my future posts (including this one) for my bad english, but I'm trying to be as clear as possible ;). But what's with me writing this post: I work a lot (and I hope I'm not very lousy) in 3D Studio Max. I see over the net that almost all tutorials are for Photoshop. Can't the matte painting be made in 3ds max also, couse I can't imagine animated matte painting being made in Photoshop (Maybe photoshop + AfterEffect, but why 2 instead of 1, especialy that this one is the one I know the best). So, do anyone know some good 3ds max tutorials for matte painting or Cammera Tracking (exepting the tutorial from 3ds max documentation, couse that one let's say that is not working properly).

btw: a part of my 3ds max work (a part, couse I didn't have time to update the work from this summer) can be found on my site ( www.postal.go.ro ) at "Portfolio" section.

[Azra]

a matte can be done in whatever software suits the job at hand.
You can also do it in 3dstudio max or other 3d software using the nifty lil trick of camera mapping. Create basic geometry, export it, paint it over in whatever program and then remap it on the geometry thereby gaining valuable paralax effect illusion.
Mattepainting cannot be applied for example for a cityflythrough. But for camera moves like nodal pans, zooms, and other small camera moves benefit from this technique.

Cheers,

[rrische]

I'd say you can do more than nodal pans and zooms with camera mapping.
Those are things you can do in a compositing program like AfterEffects.
I'm always surprised by how far you can go with camera mapping. And
if you project the paintings off-axis from the shot camera, you can do even
more. A lot of the backgrounds in the Podrace in SW1 (rock arches etc.)
are projection mapped matte paintings. This technique is great bang for
the buck.

[Azra]

Yes rrische. You're right. I was only trying to explain in a few words what this technique can be used for. :) and again ur are right. You can texture stuff a lot easier if u need detail with camera mapping. And of course u can setup COUNTLESS cameras to project textures on objects so u can basically even have a 360 degrees move around a perticular object but hey.. that's a whole different thing :)