Motion tracking, in its simplest form, is the process of tracking the movement of an object within a piece of footage. Once you've collected this track data from the selected point, you then apply it to another element or object. The results of applying this data are that your element or object now matches the movement of your footage. Essentially you can composite something into a scene that was never there. https://youtu.be/-Db-B7AcTQw What the heck am I going to use this for? Stabilize motion by utilizing tracking data.Add elements such as text or solids to a composition.Insert 3D objects into 2D footage.Apply effects...

Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues (chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the newscasting, motion picture, and video game industries. A colour range in the foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as colour keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC), or by various terms for specific colour-related variants such as green screen, blue screen and magic pink;...

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is not present at the filming location. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage (compositing). At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible or expensive to film. In the scenes the painting part is static and movements are integrated on it. Traditionally, matte paintings were made by artists using paints or...

Throughout the 1990s, traditional matte paintings were still in use, but more often in conjunction with digital compositing. Die Hard 2 (1990) was the first film to use digitally composited live-action footage with a traditional glass matte painting that had been photographed and scanned into a computer. It was for the last scene, which took place on an airport runway. By the end of the decade, the time of hand-painted matte paintings was drawing to a close, although as late as 1997 some traditional paintings were still being made, notably Chris Evans’ painting of the RMS Carpathia rescue ship in James Cameron’s Titanic. Paint has now been superseded...

Dylan Cole is a leading matte painter and concept artist specializing in work for film, television, and video games. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in fine art, he took his painting skills to the computer. He got his start with a brief stint at Illusion Arts on Time Machine. Smaller jobs as a matte painter and concept artist led to him working at Rhythm and Hues on Daredevil. He then left his native California to go to New Zealand to be a senior matte painter on Return of the King for Weta Digital. He returned to the US...