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From Virtual to Real

Funny enough, I learned photography backwards. I've been doing virtual photography since 2017 - years before I ever picked up an actual camera in 2022.

So when people ask if I "translate" real photography skills into games, it's actually the other way around: game worlds taught me how to see light, composition, and framing first.

Experience & Technical Skills

  • Lighting & Environmental Storytelling: I spend a lot of time working the in-game lighting, weather, time-of-day, environmental effects to build atmosphere and set the mood for each shot.

  • Composition & Virtual Photography: Solid grip on composition, focal length, depth of field, and camera placement - the stuff that makes a character, vehicle, or environment actually feel like the subject of the shot.

  • Camera Tools & Visual Enhancements: I use ReShade, Otis_Inf Camera Tools, Cinematic Tools, and a few community and self-made utilities to unlock angles and image quality that standard photo mode doesn't give you.

  • High-Resolution Image Production: I shoot, edit, and export everything at high-res for portfolios, web, and social - mostly in Lightroom, with Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects in the mix too. Alongside some locally hosted AI tools for tedious processing that can be automated.

  • Blender workflow: In order to create images the way I envision them, I spend a good chunk of time digging through game files, and pulling stuff to and from Blender - poses, objects, or custom scenes.

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Twitter/X: @PatoliniVP | Discord: patolini