[hman]

I think this discussion will be with us for a long time. I think the job title "matte painter" may be partly to blame for this. It's kind of like if you go to be a "modeler" or an "animator", you pretty much know what you'll be doing. A matte "painter" is required to handle a variety of tasks in addition to the "painting" that don't quite fit the "painter" tag. Artists have to decide if that's for them. Especially nowadays that 3d is creeping in more & more. If a person really enjoys painting only, maybe a concept artist would be a better fit for their career. The simple fact is that film industry matte paintings today are heavily reliant upon photography & 3d. Many would consider that to be an unfortunate fact, but is is a fact.

[AA]

I agree with Christian. Matte paintings in productions are going to become more and more photo-real cg environments, because of complicated camera moves, and just in general the freedom of moving around within an environment. Cg matte paintings are already being used by many artists/studios, and the results are great, and it is only going to get better, and these creations more exciting.

And of-course the painting skill combined with the knowledge of 3D, especially texturing, as well as modeling, lighting, and/or additional technical skills such as the creation of projections in 3D can only benefit matte artists. And there are also many VERY talented cg artists, that also have great painting skills, which eventually is going to creae the next-gen matte painters out there. Eventually we will have clients looking for 3D matte painters in the near future, or painters with additional technical skills related to 3D.

As far as just painting with a wacom (freehannd) is certainly more visible in the conceptual design creations for film and video games.


Anyways, nothing wrong with discussions . . . this is the reason we have sites like these to discuss, explore, share, and ofcourse . . . . have our own opinions :)

Nice work on your site by the way Christian, especially the renders from your short look great !

AA