All language subtitles for 03. Element creation and export

in this lesson

we will create and export

the needed matte painting elements out of Photoshop

and bring them into nuke

in preparation for building our basic 3D scene

so we we ended

in the last lesson just discussing the elements

that were provided to a Spiromat painting department

and we're now going to be extracting those

to bring them into nuke

so it's it's a very

this is a this is actually a nice

easy simple setup for

for our matte painting

they've they've kept it nice and clean

so that it would be easier

for us to be able to actually utilize

many times you might get a matte painting

or you'll get a Photoshop file and have a lot of layers

instead of something like this

where the layers

have been condensed down to the bare necessities

now when I say bare necessities

I don't necessarily mean that

layers were deleted or removed

which then subsequently

destroyed some of the artistic look of the shot

but instead

what I mean is

they've combined layers and consolidated things down

to try to make it easier

and to also

to ensure that the final end product meets

as close as possible to the original matte painting

uh look that the art department was desiring

so what we have here

are the three basic layers we discussed

so what I'm going to do is

I'm going to turn off the background layer

now that gives us our building and our antenna layer

so I'm going to turn off the building

and I'm just going to leave the antenna layer on

what we're going to do is

then we're going to save out a TIFF image

that will have just this antenna layer

with its transparency set to on

so then we have an alpha channel

to be able to utilize within nuke

so if we go to file

and apologies

you won't be able to see all of the menu

but you go to file

and save as

then you're going to see this

you're going to then

pick where you're going to save it

in this case

I'm going to actually save into a folder called

Matte Painting Elements

which is the same

elements you will be able to reference

for this tutorial

I'm going to change the format to TIFF

and I'm going to set this

I'm gonna call this antenna

but I wanna also specify layers

so what I'm going to do is

I'm going to call this 0

1 underscore

antenna now

the point of this is

I'm gonna say

that's layer 1

and then I'm gonna say

the building is layer 2

now in this case

there's obviously very few layers to deal with

so this is very

a very simple example

but if you're dealing with a lot of

complex matte painting elements

then you're going to really want to make sure

you always name

your layers as you've

as you're extracting them out

of Photoshop

because obviously

when you're compositing them together

the quicker and the easier it is

to be able to identify

the layers that you're working with

will also save you a lot of time and money at the end

so in this case

we're gonna call this

0 1 antenna

I'm going to hit save

and then it's gonna pop up with

TIFF options

you wanna make sure

image compression set to LZW

the pixel order

interleaved

and byte order IBM

that's fine

the thing to note is

you want to make sure that save transparency is check

check marked

that will ensure that you will get an alpha channel

to then bring into nuke

when you're

when you're working with this layer

and then under layer compression

you can just check the discard layers

and save a copy

so basically

what we're doing is

we're ensuring

that any of the other layers

that it has

in the current Photoshop file

will just be discarded

because obviously

they're turned off

so there's no need to save them out

now you just hit that

okay button

you've now saved out your antenna layer

so now we're going to turn that off

and we're gonna turn on the building layer

so now we have our building

let's do the same thing

file save as

and we're going to go back into that same folder

I'm gonna change

the format to TIFF

and then I'm going to call the 0 1

underscore building

and then we're going to hit save

and then we

select that discard layers

and save copy option again

double check

make sure save transparency is checkmarked

and ensure that image compression is set to LZW

press OK now

you've saved out your building

and last but not least

what I'd like to do as well

is actually

what we're gonna do is

we're gonna do

we're gonna do a couple things

what you want to do is

you always wanna save out a master layer

so this would be your reference image

so what I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna do another save as

and go back into that same folder again

and we're gonna pick TIFF

and then I'm going to

call this matte

painting reference

the point of this is

you obviously

want a master image

to be able to bring into nuke

to build a reference

to make sure that your final look

is as close

in comparison

as possible

to the current map

painting so

you can just click

discard layers

and save copy

there's no save transparency turned on

because it's a solid image

so that's fine

and L Z W is good

so hit okay

now we have our reference layer

now the the final thing that I want to do is

I actually want to save out

a few elements

that we can

utilize now

we probably won't use it

but you can see

for instance

right here what the map

painter did was he

for his fog element

he actually

used the alpha channel

of the building

to hold part of that fog inside

so if I turn this on and off

you can see

what's going on there

so this this layer

will probably not

uh be useful

for us in nuke

which is fine

because a lot of times

when you're dealing with fog

and things like that

where you're just kind of

milking up an image

you're probably going to create that

utilizing some

row shapes in nuke

as well but

for the sake of referencing

let's just create these layers

so that we know

kind of as a framework

where to place them

so I'm actually going to turn on

the foreground warm layer

I'm gonna turn off

the background

and so that looks like

it's just a solid color

so that's fine

we'll probably also

create this

utilizing our

roto shapes

but for the moment

just for referencing

let's let's make sure we

put all of the layers in

so I'm gonna call this

0 3 underscore

foreground dash

warm and then

we will save that out

and that's going to

have the same exact settings

where you discard layers

save a copy

save transparency

LZW compression

press okay then

the last one we'll do here

is the fog layer

which obviously

you can't really

see it against

the checkerboard background

but it's there

so we're gonna do

the same thing

that we just did

select your location

set it to TIFF

and I'm gonna call that 0 4

underscore fog

and if anything

this is also just

a reminder to you

when you're setting up

your nuke comp

to say oh yeah

that's right

I need to create that later on

so you don't forget

obviously you have

your master reference

that you're checking it against

but sometimes

it's just good

extra visual cues

to remind you

to do certain tasks

when things get busy

and things are crazy

sometimes it's better

just to have that there

just ensure you're

you're covering your bases

so obviously

we've checked

everything's good to go

LZW again save

transparency into

start layers

and save a copy press

okay alright

so now we're

basically ready

to bring our

layers into nuke

now one last thing to note

in the map painting

we have that brightness

contrast adjustment

that's happening at the top

over all layers

now obviously

that's not a layer

we're going to ex

be able to export out

I can't really

just say okay

let's export this out

but what we can do

is just make a

mental note

or you can write it down

on a piece of paper

when you're

taking notes

on your shot

to remind yourself that

you need to

make sure that you're

you're doing

some sort of

a similar setup

in nuke where

you're doing a

color correction

at the end of

the comp to

to match that look

you can see

when I turn it off

it's just basically

making just

just a little more

contrast in

the overall

image anyway

so let's go

into nuke now

and we can bring in

those elements

so I'm going to

bring up nuke here

and just layer

line that up

make sure you guys

can see now

what we're going to do is

we're going to bring in

the elements

that we just

created in Photoshop

so what you're going to do is

you're going to go in

your file browser

and you're going to

navigate to

that same folder

that you just saved out

you're going to

select all those

those layer files

and you're going to

drag them into

your nodegraph

view you drop

drop them in

you can see that now

nodes have been read

nodes have been created

and if we view

any of these

we'll actually

be able to see

in nuke the

the final map paint

so for instance

here's our map

painting reference

so we're good to go on that

so that's good

so that's what our

our master reference

is going to be

to ensure that

we are following

the framework

we need and then

we have our

various other

elements of course

our building

our antenna

and our fog

and foreground layers

so if I just

zoom in on this

really quickly here

we'll just do

a quick setup

so antenna building

foreground warm and fog

and I'm gonna put just a quick little

a quick uh merge

so the building is gonna go over the antenna

and then we're going to ensure that everything lines up

by just doing a quick composite of our images

so there we go

let's just put everything together

I like to have things evenly spaced

looks a little

looks a little more tidy

now if we view obviously

the one thing we're missing is our background element

which is fine

because what we'll do just for a quick temp

actually no

that's not gonna work

because we already have our fog and everything added

but what we can do is we will bring in

in our next lesson

we will bring in the image sequence

um and then we will be able to determine

that everything matches up

and at that point

we will begin to build our actual 3D scene with a nuke

as well as discussing our cramp

camera tracking

and progress into the more fun

exciting part of this entire course

so to do a quick recap

in this lesson

we will just

have just discussed how to create and exported

the needed matte painting elements out of Photoshop

and then brought them here into nuke and set it up

ready to go

for us to take it into a 3D setup

along with our camera tracking

and other various steps needed