Matte Painting for games?

I've just been rendering out a scene at 400 billion polygons (in Vue), and wondering how to get such a scene tinto Unity. Matte painting is used extensively in film, but I haven't seen much reference to it for games. Most matte painting these days contains a large component of 3D render, so it seems a natural way to get complex scenes, or at least backgrounds, into a game.

 

Skybox.

 

You're right, I should look at getting more from my skyboxes.

 

Well Halo series, particularly recent ones use Skybox + billboards to create the closest thing to a matte painting in games.

 

If something is a straight 2d image in a game engine it will use a crap ton of texture memory, won't respond to lighting changes, and won't parallax (show different movement speed at different depths). It also means the player can't go there. So the more beautiful and interesting your matte painting is, the more pissed the player will be that its all fake. I think the nature of interactivity makes matte paintings a terrible choice for anything but strictly sky. Even mountains I think should be distant geometry.