Digital Matte Painting | Project 1 : Invisible Set Extension 1 (Pre-Production)

21.4.2025 - 6.7.2025 || Week 1 - Week 11

Yong Zhen Xing || 0359473
Digital Matte Painting || Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 1 : Invisible Set Extension 1 (Pre-Production)

---

Contents

1. Lectures (Links to the Exercises Page)

2. Instructions

3. Invisible Set Extension 1 (Pre-Production)

    Final Outcome

4. Reflection

---

Instructions

---

Invisible Set Extension 1 (Pre-Production)

In project 1, we are to take an existing movie and create an invisible set extension or recreate our very own concept from scratch. Project 1's purpose is to plan and create a simple basis that can be further developed in project 2 and final. An invisible set extensions is essentially a world with additional added elements that is seamless.

First things first, I needed to choose a movie and think of ways on to expand it. For the first week into the project, I simple looked into different movies that I have previously watched and then study the movie. The movie of choice that came to mind was "Alita: Battle Angel". I chose this movie as it is one of the movies that I could still somewhat recall and it had an interesting setting throughout the movie. Of course, I still rewatched the movie to ensure I didn't miss anything important.

After breaking down the different locations in the movie, I have decided to make a new location that is essentially an abandoned city due to the lack of resources. The look of the city would be a mixture of "Zalem" and "Iron City". Fig 1.2 shows a quick sketch I made on the location.

fig 1.1, Project 1 Proposal (29/5/2025)

fig 1.2, Set Extension Sketch (29/5/2025)

After a feedback session, instead of creating a full new world, I should instead take an existing place and then add elements into it. So after searching through images, I found fig 2.1 as my base plate. I then paint over it as just a rough concept (fig 2.2 & 2.3).

fig 2.1, Image as Origin Plate "Santiago Chile" (5/6/2025)

fig 2.2, Set Extension Paint (5/6/2025)

fig 2.3, Set Extension Paint 2 (12/6/2025)

After another feedback session, I needed to fix the perspectives on buildings and start photobashing. I found photobashing really difficult as you needed to find the right perspective of structures/buildings to be implemented into the picture.

fig 3.1, Invisible Set Extension 1 (19/6/2025)

From the last set extension, I continued working on it, adding more elements and seeing how everything fits together as a whole. Colour adjustments, depth of field and perspective were also considered when photobashing. Fig 3.3, shows all the element added with the original image removed.

fig 3.2, Invisible Set Extension 2 (3/7/2025)

fig 3.3, All Elements Added (3/7/2025)

Final Outcome

fig 4.1, Project 1 Final (4/7/2025)

Back to Top ↑

---

Reflection

While working on the initial concept of painting the set extension I felt a bit lost because I didn't know how to move on from there. But after looking through multiple matte painting speedpaints and tutorials, it helped me to understand the process better. A tool that I learned that was helpful for this was the Stamp Tool in photoshop. It basically duplicates a certain selected part of the canvas and it works perfectly when I was trying to blend in buildings and structures through grass and mosses on my composition. Overall I liked how my invisible set extension came out as a base!

Back to Top ↑

---

My Other Digital Matte Painting Work :

Exercises 

Project 1 : Invisible Set Extension 1 (Pre-Production) (Current)

Project 2 : Invisible Set Extension 2

Final Project : Thematic Matte Painting (VFX)