Matte painting combines live-action footage with painted images so that a painted background looks like a real set. Norman Dawn's 1907 film Missions of California used painted glass placed between the camera and the scene to repair ruined mission buildings. Later, blacked-out sections of film let artists paint into the gaps, and in 1985 Young Sherlock Holmes became an early example of digital matte painting made with software instead of paint. Today most matte paintings are built digitally from photographs and 3D models, which makes vast film worlds cheap and reusable.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.