The Digital Matte Painting Handbook

Varying the Lights

From frame 300 to 400, several changes occur simultaneously: the city gets darker, the street lamps illuminate, and lights in the homes are lit. It would add charm to the scene if these events happened at different intervals. Let’s change it so the street lamps don’t come on until the dissolve to dusk is almost complete.

Select the LampIllumination layer, and move to frame 375 in the Timeline. Change Opacity to 0, and set a keyframe. Move to frame 425, and set Opacity to 100.

Masks

It would be good to stagger the times at which the window lights inside the houses come on. There is a problem with this, however: all the lights are on the same layer (WindowLights). You’ll need to use masks to cut the WindowLights layer into different ...