How to be a Gmod Screenshot Artist

A Basic Guide to making your Gmod an art pallete using specific mods and patience :D

Introduction

Hey there! Yui (Jaguar) here to show you how to be a Gmod artist :D *swooshing noises*
Gmod is great for all sorts of game modes, like TTT, Prop hunt, Dark Rp Aka Rdm; but a lot of people over look the amazing engine that is source, and the already amazing pictures that can come from this game, used as a pallete.

As any Gmodder knows, this game only gets better when used with workshop files ~ and turning the game into an art pallete only compliments this experience.
I'll be suggesting mods, Styles, and just some basic tips to get your hands on the basics of art making in Gmod~ I'll probably end up writing a more distinct guide for advanced difficulties like posing and lighting.

The Very basics

For the basics into making great looking art, you WILL need to beef up your settings (if your computer can handle it)
The basic you want to go for here is less scratchy lines, so AA filtering should be a priority.
Since Gmod is an older game, This won't eat up performance but makes a big ole difference in your quality.

Here are my Settings.




Note: If you can use High level shadows, DO IT. That creates some beautiful shading that I can't emulate with these settings, and therefore have to manipulate to get in game. (It makes it easier to make better pictures)

You should notice a slight frame bump, but it's nothing too bad ~ Gmod is an incredibly secure game and rarely ever crashes.

Next, we move on to basic mods that help create pictures.

Mods That Make your screen a next gen game.

Instead of explaining all of these, I'm going to make a collection that is easier to use and faster

My Collection that is Easy mode.

These mods all work together and are not very performance heavy ~ plus, we only use them WHEN we are about to take a picture

Next, The ACTUAL process.

Setting up

For most conditions, you want to use maps that have HDR lighting for best results, but this is optional. If you use other maps that are older/have no enhanced lighting, you'll experience more difficulty gettings nice shades/colors/tones/lens flare.

Let me be clear ~ my guide tends to go the JJ Abrams route of having lens flare, That does NOT mean you have to have lens flare ~ This is a personal choice.


For this guide, and admittably, for most of my pictures, I will be using Gmodconstruct, the basic map with buildings and a nice atmosphere.

This map already has enhanced lighting and can be used even more to make great screenshots (not to mention it has a greenscreen room, but that will be in an advanced guide)

Alright, let's Load in!

Your game should look something like this when you first load in ~


Bleak, Boring, without color, but a noticable change with the sun, which will help us later when we activate our wonderful shaders. You don't want to activate your shaders yet, as it chomps performance and will make you have less precision while setting up

in editors, you will see something called "Sun editor;" if the sun is going to be used in your screenshot, this will help you place it in a more interesting way, to maxmize your use of the environment.
First, you want to pick an interesting environment or scene~ or create one~ for my screenshot I'm going to use one of my favorite areas of the map~ The roof of the multistory building.

since this is a timely process (but well worth it) I recomend using external programs that you can integrate and use realtime in game to make some music. I use the vocaloid radio mod, and just set the radio outside my "scene" so it doesn't interfere, but still gives me jams to listen to.
Admittably, the best mod I could think of for this is PlayX*, because it allows you to put some youtube stuff up in the game while you pose; but sometimes, for performance/time, other mods are better. This is completely optional, but I recommend it.
* Play X can be used to make awesome pictures as well, but that will be on a later guide.

Next step, Making a Scene, and some tips to good posing.

Setting up a scene

first, you need a central theme;

I reccomend sparking off these themes:

1. Videogames ~ The community LOVES to upload assets from games, making fanart easily the best and fastest, as well as the easiest thing to do with this.


2. Atmostpheric ~ Nice Scenary is a bit harder to find in Gmod, but it's out there. You can create it and enhance it with assets from other games, like TF2 and Hl2. These style of pictures will be more based on lighting, so it's ever more important to find a good map.


3. Random things ~ Obviously, a good artist uses their tools to make anything awesome, Do whatever you want~



Once you've figured out a central theme, you want to set it up; I'm not going to go into detail here, but assets from your prop list are the best thing you can do to set this scene up;

For our example picture, I'm going to set up a scene that is video game esque, Following the Dark souls "Praise the Sun" gig.

The first thing You'll notice is that Ragdolls/props MATTER;
You always want to get a higher Quality Ragdoll iff possible~ one with finger posing, face posing, bodygroups, and anything else you need for your picture.

I find it easier to deactivate gravity, and turn the time scale down to slightly less then realtime, when dealing with poses~ Remember, your character and your scene should look natural, not forced, and deactivating gravity can help move the ragdoll in a more natural way.


They will also noodle around a lot.


Keep things specific to your scene~ Don't worry about posing a lower half of a ragdoll if it's not going to show up


While this scene has no objects in it, the same goes for those
note: be careful with using wooden objects, as they can break.

When you LIKE your pose, Statue it and then make it persistant, in case you accidently Press R and unlock the entire thing. (Hold C and right click the figure/object)


Next, let's add lamps and get into the grit.

Lighting, why Trinlinear and Sun lighting is the best way to go.

This part of the guide will be more of a personal choice, but as I've done this, I've noticed that Trinlinear lighting seems to be the best route in making nice pictures.



First, we want to spawn some lights. Don't worry about the shaders, while they are the things that REALLY tie this up, we don't want to activate them yet.

For my picture, I'm using a More warm color scheme, with 3 lights centralizing on the character. While you may only notice the image slightly, when we play around with contrast and shaders, this will pop.

the left most light is also Yellow, as to emulate a Sun brightness, This can also be done WITH the sun, and we will see, it probably will play into it.



Already we have a pretty decent picture, with no (besides vignette, I always play with vignette active) shaders on! To hide lights you can make them "fade away" using the color tool, but I find it easier to just crop them out of pictures usoing the camera tool and right click+ dragging.

Let's move on to shaders and how incredibly important they are.

Shaders~ intro to the best ones, and how they make your picture amazing

Ok, this is where this picture becomes something

Note: to do precise sliding, click and hold the Text of the apsect your trying to edit, it's much more accurate then trying to use the slider that's right there next to it.

to activate shaders, go to your Q menu...
I generally use


Color Modification ~ This is by far the most important tool to your work. It allows you to make the mood, color, and contrast of whatever you're takign a screenshot of.
For this screen shot, I'll increase the contrast and brightness by a hair (more then like, .5 on any of these tends to make things over expose)



Bloom ~ Your second most (Even maybe tied for first) in making your picture romantically beauitful.
We use bloom to change the environment and even make that atmosphere of sun/light.
Higher passes make it more complicated to control, but play around with the darken and lighten




Sun Rays: This is specific to sun based pictures, like this one. This will manipulate the lens flare and isn't really that important.





Moving on to Bokeh, your best friend.

Dof, whether Fake or real, really makes your picture I use Bokeh, which alows me to make scenes that have a background and foreground, but the simple DOF generator will work.

Occasionally, to knock out the stipply edges, I'll use SUPER DOF as well, but that can easily chimp the remainder of your cpu.

you can find that bokeh will do odd things, as well as the other Dof's, this take manipulation and give/pull

using a combo of the three will make the best pictures, but is optional.

You're done!

Take a screenshot with the Camera tool, button, or hotkey and then post it! you are done!

While this picture was basic, you can make incredibly complex and beautiful pictures with this method. Try it out!

This is my first guide, but hopefully not my last. Feel free to leave comments or Links to screenshots you've taken using this.

Have fun!


A screenshot using advanced methods


















http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=357083253
Here is part two of my Screenshot artist project. it has to do with lighting. Give it a look!

[RikaFriedRice]

Back in the day this was the guide! I'm honored and very happy it helped a lot of people with art stuff.

[Julian Core]

I freakin love how this little good guide got an entire mini-community in the comment section. Great job

[The Pie]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3141377085 how's this?

[BoNoYaSi]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2917551157 is this ok?

[RikaFriedRice]

I'm honored that nearly a decade later people still refer to my guide! Thank you so much for the support!

[NoobSlayerCZ]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2857228559/

uno gameplay

[RikaFriedRice]

Years and years later, I'm very glad people still look at this guide frquently! I'm unsure if the modpack for it still is functional, But I might try to update it for modernized computers.

[the eternal bird]

instructions very clear, now know how to make good screenshots 11/10

[bau]

what i like the most about this is that its so basic everyone can do it

[IvanPetrvs]

Thanks so much!