About Matte Painting: In case you are not familiar with matte painting, here is a short explanation: A matte is used to mask out (or matte out) a part of the film, so that the empty space can be filled with visual effects and other separately created elements and sequences.

 

The matte painting can be any combination of hyperrealistic (nowadays digital) paintings and purposefully acquired, edited, and manipulated photographs. For moving camera shots, the technique of projecting (or "sticking") the matte painting onto digital three-dimensional objects and cards, allows for virtual camera moves around these models.

 

In order to be able to synchronize the digital 3D sequences with the original photography, special camera tracking software is used that can extract a three-dimensional (spatial) camera move from the photographed sequence by tracking and measuring movement, position, and distance of prominent features in the images. The extracted virtual camera move is then used to record the 3D matte paintings in digital 3D space and match them to the film.

 

Until the late 1980s, matte paintings were painted with traditional media (e.g. oils), today they are painted digitally. An art education and painting skills are a prerequisite for the matte painter, even with the help of an ever growing set of digital tools.