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An Introduction Digital Painting and compositing Areas / Career Options

‘All that we design in any form of visual effect is all that we see in the world around us through our eye lenses. Although Imagination is essential to create visual art; Imagination initiates from our initial knowledge, observations and experiences of reality.

There are many roles that a Digital Paint artist can do based on interest, knowledge and practice in various aspects of digital painting. The two most demanding areas for Digital Paint Compositors are Painting and compositing for 1 Visual effects ingestion in live action films and 2 Visual 2D to 3D stereo conversion of films. Although both painting requirements differ in production objective; both of these demands require similar software platforms and almost 90% of painting and compositing techniques are same. Hence students can develop their practical job skills in both of these skill demands.

Digital Painting and compositing for VFX ingestion in live action films

In filmmaking, visual effects (abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which computer graphics imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the environment of a live action shot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action shots and computer generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be unsafe, costly, impractical or not viable to capture on film/digital cameras. Visual effects using computer generated imagery have recently become accessible to the independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and easy-to-use animation and compositing workflows.

Visual effects production is a combined effort of various departments such as Rotoscopy, Matte Paint, Match-move, FX, Modeling, Texturing, animation, lighting, Paint and compositing of live action and Computer Generated Imagery (Abbreviated as CGI) in post production. A Digital Paint Compositor can start his career as a junior Paint artist where one can start digital painting and enhance compositing skills to become an expert Compositor.

2D to 3D video conversion (also called 2D to stereo 3D and stereo conversion) is the process of transforming 2D (“flat”) film to 3D form which is a stereo imagery for each eye from one 2D image. Stereo 3D is nothing but a natural three dimensional view that we are able to see through a visual synchronization of views through our both eyes. An image or video captured by a normal single/mono lens camera is a representation of only a single eye/ 2D view. This means that in order to create a three dimensional view of image / video; second eye image / video is required for synchronization. A Stereo 3D conversion process helps create a second eye view through Computer graphics compositing and Painting techniques. Although there is multiple 3D conversion processes developed in stereo 3D conversion industry; Alike Visual effects (VFX) post production; Digital Painting and compositing is an obligatory part of 2D to 3D stereo conversion workflow.

Digital Painting for conversion is a complex process as it requires creation of all types of texture creation through manually painting on each frame in the image sequence in Photoshop or silhouette as well as tracking / match moving, transforming, warping, projection and colour correction of texture patches in compositing software’s such as Fusion or Nuke.

Beginners with a good eye on details thrust to learn this dimension of art can surely excel in Digital Paint. Digital Painting skill can open various opportunities in not just Media and Entertainment but many other industries as well.