We head over back to Europe for our next interview with Patolini. We explore in a pretty in depth interview their thoughts on 2077, their process for making virtual photo art and how they got into this hobby, enjoy and let us know what your thoughts below;
First can you tell us a little about yourself, where you grew up and what attracted or inspired you to get into this art form?
Hi, my name is Pat, online I go by the username Patolini and it's many versions. I've spent most of my life in the small(ish) city of Nottingham, being in Poland and moving when I was too young to remember. I've been dabbling in and out of VP as early as 2017, starting with a racing game called The Crew, and moving onto other titles such as Project Cars, Gran Turismo and plenty other racing titles I'm forgetting the name of. It was very rare that I played to specifically take photos back then, it was just something I did here and there when finding a cool spot, or using a unique car, or to remember an interesting online interaction. I believe this is what began my love for photography, but it remained just a little thing I'd do every now and then until Cyberpunk came along...
How did you learn this form of digital art?
I never really took this seriously until recently, where I actually started trying to learn how to improve, I'd previously just do it purely for fun, not even sharing the pics besides to a few close friends. When I purchased Cyberpunk 2077 on the PS4, a few months after launch I immediately fell in love with its photo-mode. The amount of variety in the game, the amazing characters, the beautiful open world full of detail and architecture is when I began looking for a community to share my pictures to. Shortly after, I discovered the official Cyberpunk 2077 discord and its photo-mode channel. Seeing everyone's shots inspired me so much, and I reached out to a few members of the community asking how to improve. It was then when I had a talk with Syphon that he showed me what is possible on PC, I realized I want to do this. I wanted to reach his level of detail, clarity and realism in his shots. While I saved for a PC I began really trying to push the games limits on console - doing every little trick I could think of to light up scenes, get characters to pose in certain ways and plenty of other things. I used things like flashbangs for lighting and sparkles, muzzle flash to light up rooms, it was all very creative, and difficult.
It was on February 15th, 2022, when I purchased Cyberpunk on my PC. It wasn't much of a PC, but it ran the game (barely), and within a few weeks I discovered the Appearance Menu Mod. This is what took my VP to the next level and when I truly began to start learning how to master this art form. I spent hours in the "dark-room" spawning my own lights to perfect the lighting, looking at everyones pictures on the server, getting involved and asking for criticism, and most importantly, practicing. Now I am continuing to learn how to get better, taking inspiration from real life photographers, further continuing to work on my lighting skills and continuing to experiment.
What drew you to cyberpunk 2077 or/and the cyberpunk genre as a whole?
I don't really know what drew me to this game, specifically. I loosely followed it before launch, getting hyped just like every other gamer at the time - but not pre-ordering. I've always been a fan of dystopian stories and sci-fi but have never dove deep into the Cyberpunk genre as a whole. Now that I think about it, it was very much different to everything I had previously played, but I'm very glad I did get into the game, as I'm now a major fan of the game, genre, and most importantly, it's what made me realize I really, really like photography.
What message, to you, does the cyberpunk genre imply or relay as a viewer, fan of that aesthetic?
The main message I got from the game is that neon lights are pretty, and bokeh tickles my brain... I haven't played the story since around may 2021 just because I keep getting sidetracked by the photomode, so there's not much I can say on the story, and message behind it. In-fact, I'm about 1200 hours in on my PC playthrough, but still have not even completed the parade mission.
What drew you to the 2077 game specifically? What keeps driving you to keep making content for it?
As for what drew me to this game, it'd probably be the graphics, the marketing and the promise of a good story. It was the first game that really made me get emotional over its story, and I'm glad it did. It unlocked a whole new face of gaming for me, moving me away from simulators and the massive yearly release titles, and moving me towards narrative based games. I continue to make content for this game for many reasons. Firstly, I enjoy it, it always manages to take me out of a bad mood (besides when I crash and experience technical difficulties - that makes a bad day even worse). It's almost therapeutic in a sense, no longer am I under pressure to play competitively, play because of the latest battle pass or play to work on my competitive ranking. I get an idea and write it down for later, since the game in its current state won't run away. Another reason I continue to produce content on CP77 is because of how incredibly nice the community is. I love gifting my friends with shots of their characters, receiving nice comments on the discord, and it's all so positive. Another thing which keeps driving me to produce is the fact that it translates so well into real life photography. As a result of Cyberpunk, I have gotten into real life photography, and when the sun isn't nice outside, it will be shining in Night City. Being able to practice composition, lighting, and other things from the comfort of my own home has effectively kickstarted my real life photography hobby, as I now have a basic understanding of what makes an image good. There are so many other reasons as to why I continue to make content for this game, but these 3 were the first ones that came to mind.
What tools do you use to make your art? How long does it take to go from idea to posting a pic?
Back on my console days, I'd be taking 30+ pictures an hour if I wanted to. Since there was no reshade, cyberlit, posing, or anything like that I worked on the basis that if I take 100 pictures, one of them is bound to be good. And it worked. Nowadays, with all the tools under my belt, such as cyberlit, AMM, wolvenkit, reshade, hotsampling, nvidia ansel, and photoshop I can spend anywhere from 10 minutes to upwards of 3 hours working on a shot. Some of them are as simple as pose, spawn 2 lights, apply reshade and post, but more complex shots can have me building the background from scratch using AMM's props placer, spending hours trying to find the right poses, framing, lighting and all the other things within a shot. It can get frustrating getting a seemingly simple idea, not being happy with the execution of it, then spending the next 2 hours tweaking, tuning and adjusting the shot - but I guess that's just a part of anything involving creativity. Not everything will turn out the same as you imagined it.
How long have you been doing this art form?
As stated before, I've been doing VP irregularly since 2017, beginning on racing games, before moving over to CP77 full time as my main VP sim in 2022. I've always also had an even looser "interest" - if you can even call it that, in photography. But I'm assuming it was just me realizing my phone had a camera and using it every now and then.
Favorite NPC?
On my first playthrough I tried romancing everyone, 2nd time round as mascV I sped ran to romance Panam and shortly after put the game down until I got it on PC. On my PC playthrough I romanced Judy again but that was only for the photo-mode opportunity haha. I barely remember most of the "vanilla" characters, so I'm afraid I won't be able to answer this question ): But if you ask me about any of my friends characters I could probably form a list regarding them
And finally what are the socials people can find you, and do you do commissions? Thank you for your time!
Twitter is the only platform I actively post on, along with discord sometimes. I do offer commissions, if you'd like pictures of your V just let me know and we can work something out (it'd be for free incase you're wondering)