Please explain this art

[hi19hi19]

I was looking for epic fantasy landscape wallpapers, and I came across this inspiring, AVATAR-esque scene.

My question is, how the hell does one make a picture like this? The foliage on the lower left looks so real, that I feel like it might be photo-manipulation (espeically because it doesn't blend with the cliff face seamlessly, which is something I notice happens even in the best edited photos) But then again some parts look like they could be digitally painted, and other parts look like they could be 3D models.

What kind of software/techniques do you guys think went into a picture like this? Please explain, I am curious

[Hateandhatred]

Its my backyard, I took that picture with my webcam.

[Herogashix]

no makeup

[Emithith]

err.. my best guess would be someone is extremely gifted with models and 3D editors. But chances are he just took ages to make that one image and did it all in the shop. Though even if it was 3D, the shading would be horrible. It's probably a mixture of the two.

edit: he also probably just mosaic'd the hell out of it by taking images and smashing them together. If you look in the bottom left you can notice the detail change, and I don't mean because it's farther away.

[xVaLoRx]

Thanks for my new desktop bg :>

[Nullifidian]

This is called a matte painting, which is a combination of digital painting and photomanipulation to create a photorealistic image. It's not really a matter of which software you use or which technique you use. Basically, you'll need knowledge of environmental design and perspective either way to create effects such as atmospheric depth (objects further away receding into the sky giving them a blue-ish tint in this case) and you'll need your own creativity.. The software doesn't make this image, but the artist does. The software is merely a tool like a pencil or a brush.

This one you linked has some quite sloppy photomanipulation and you can see lots of unfinished or untouched areas that are the result of sloppy edits and carelessness. Here's a matte painting example of an awesome concept artist called Levi Petterfy who has done some work for blizzard cinematics and the Harry Potter movies too.

[Spenner]

It's likely a mixture of that with a terrain rendering from a dedicated program, possibly just using samples from generated images. The trees and rocks don't look very natural, especially with some overlap with textures



One is just flipped, with brightness brought out in the curves or whatever.

But yeah to me it looks like imagery for this matte painting was sampled through a terrain rendering program.

[alloyus]

Oh my god I want to live at these places

[Renevatia]

Photoshop is probably your best bet for airbrushing/ matte pieces like this. Its a quite flexible program in terms of photography post processing and with enough practice and stock selection you can make something like this by editing each layer to make them seem like they fit into the same picture.
Also take into the consideration of consistent lighting and texture size of stock. Levente has a much better grasp of matte painting.
Most likely no 3d models in that picture but mixing 3d models in matte is quite common. You will have to learn how to speed paint normally (without texture or stock) first before you can do something like levente tho.

[Gundam-Dude]

Essentially what Spitfire said. It's combination of merging a bunch of photos together into a composite and digital painting, although that one example in particular is poorly done and just looks like collage, rofl.

Nice find, Spenner

[hi19hi19]

Awesome, thanks Spitfire for the description.

I could tell it was pretty sloppily done in places- I noted the weird blending between foliage and rock on the lower left, but I was just intrigued with the process. Of course in the end the image is created by the artist, not the software... but it's important sometimes to know what software was used. It can be incredibly enlightening to know what kind of brush or what type of canvas a painter used, asking about software for digital art is similar.

Matte painting eh... thanks again for the info


EDIT- wow Spenner I just checked out the spots you mentioned... keen eyes!

[Emithith]

What really ruins the illusion is if you start looking at the colors of the light. Bottom left it's yellow, over the forest it's somewhat white, but more of a clean lighting, further up the picture it's a weird ass foggy white, and then up on the arches it's a somewhat pale yellow-pearl. There's also jpg artifacts all over the sky and mostly none on the rocks. The way the light hits the rocks also doesn't seem to always match up to where the shadow is.

[Ohaider]

I am not disappoint