How to Make Virtual World Screenshots Look Like Old World Paintings

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Now that's we've all marveled at Scylla Rhiadra's stunning tributed to Degas paintings, Scylla pulls back the curtain to explain her techniques for turning raw Second Life screenshots into an image like the one she created above.  (Original here on her Flickr.) While these images include multiple avatars, they are actually all her:

My basic process is to start with a composition that is, most often, comprised of multiple figures – because part of what I want to capture is the relationship between the young dancers, which must have been simultaneously close and supportive, yet also fiercely competitive. Rather than using a small army of alts or friends, all of these figures employ my own avatar, and the images are produced by a composite of multiple shots of each. I take separate depth maps for each, as well as supplementary shots to deal with things like clothing glitches and subtle lighting effects.

“The Dancer VII: Les coulisses” (above) includes six figures, and was composed of nearly 20 different shots merged or worked together in different ways. (Interestingly, Degas began his own training as a painter by producing paintings from photographs, and he remained interested in photography throughout his life.)

Next comes post-processing in Photoshop and running it through a free Adobe app:

 

I then process the composite image in Photoshop as I normally would, but, with the final “oils” effect in mind, lightening the image somewhat (because painterly details are lost when the underlying texture is too dark). Generally, I don’t do much else other than occasionally add a bit of diffuse glow to highlight bright portions of the image.

The oil painting effect in my images is produced by a Photoshop "action," a sort of macro that is much more sophisticated, granular, and customizable than the traditional "filters" available in Photoshop.

The one that I use is called “Painterly,” and is available as a free download from Adobe’s Creative Cloud website. It’s an enormously versatile bit of software. [You can download it from Adobe here.] When you run it on your image (after installing it in Photoshop), it produces a composite image comprised of no fewer than 46 individual layers, each of which adds a different adjustable effect to the image. Most of these are in turn organized in 7 different layer groups, under headings such as “Paint FX” or “Medium Strokes.”

When you run it on your image (after installing it in Photoshop), it produces a composite image comprised of no fewer than 46 individual layers, each of which adds a different adjustable effect to the image. Most of these are in turn organized in 7 different layer groups, under headings such as “Paint FX” or “Medium Strokes.”

Each of these layers, as well as the groups themselves, can be modified, manipulated, and masked in exactly the same ways that any image layer in Photoshop can, giving you incredibly granular control over the final look of your image. You can choose between different kinds of brush strokes and other effects, and of course also adjust things like contrast, brightness, saturation, and so forth; the “action” produces layers that are specifically designed to adjust many of these elements.

Modifying the paint effects is by far and away the longest part of the process -- adjusting transparency, using masks for more nuanced effects, adding photo filters to accent particular colors, etc. In general, I add more detail (reducing the size of the brush strokes and prominence of the “noise” produced by special painterly effects) to the focus(es) of the image (most often faces), and work out from there, keeping the background much “rougher” in appearance.

I will also heighten contrast, luminescence, and particular colors (sometimes using photo filters): Degas’ paintings often feature elements and tones that almost glow, and I want to reproduce this effect.

The impact of these sorts of changes are fairly visible in “Les coulisses”: faces are more detailed than other elements, a strong glow has been added to light projected onto the floor, and I’ve highlighted the colors and luminescence of the dancer’s tutus to add a slightly ethereal effect to these. (Degas once commented that his main interest in painting ballet dancers resided in “capturing movement and painting pretty clothes.”)

I’ve also imitated in this image one of his compositional tricks (see his “La Classe de danse” for instance), arranging most of the figures in a diagonal ranging up from the bottom left of the image.

See the results here or in Scylla's feed above.

Image copyright Scylla Rhiadra

 

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Comments

[Luther Weymann]

I have 52 digital paintings of some of the most famous places in SL in the Weymann Gallery inside the Prims & Scripts store. I opened my digital painting gallery three years ago.