Cook & Becker is proud to present a set of four fine art prints from the video game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter by Polish indie studio The Astronauts.
The four chosen artworks were also shown at the large art museum exhibition and conference Next-Gen Art Event in The Netherlands in 2014/2015. The super high-res in-game shots that were used for these limited edition giclee prints are by The Astronauts and Duncan Harris. Harris has specialized himself in the art of capturing special imagery from games with his site DeadEndThrills.
The prints come with a certificate of authenticity signed by Adrian Chmielarz, co-founder and creative director of studio The Astronauts. Chmielarz was also the founder and creative director of studio People Can Fly (Bulletstorm, Painkiller) which was purchased in 2012 by Epic.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first-person mystery game focused on exploration, discovery and narrative. It belongs to a genre of games (re)popularized by video games such as Dear Esther (also part of the New Horizons and Next-Gen Art Event exhibit) and has roots in older titles such as Myst.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an exceptional looking game. Many people wondered upon its release how a small team of only eight people was able to create a virtual world with such graphical fidelity and detail. This comes in part because Adrian Chmielarz and his team spent a lot of time on the details. They pioneered a technique called Photogrammetry for use in game development. With Photogrammetry objects, flaura and buildings are lit and photographed from all sides and translated to threedimensional objects through software. Commonly a video game artist crafts a 3D model from polygons and textures by hand. Thousands of photos were shot in the Polish Karkonosze mountains for this game. The reason that the rock faces in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter feel real, is because they are. The trick and craft for application of Photogrammetry in games lies in the right type of photography in combination with the translation of the imagery in low-polygon models that can be used real-time in the game engine. Ardian Chmielarz explains their proces in a blogpost on his site. "In our case, we wanted the player to feel a really strong sense of presence in the game world. There's some supernatural stuff happening in Ethan Carter, and I loved the idea of putting it in contrast with a lifelike, realistic world.", says Chmielarz.
About Dead End Thrills
The in-game screenshots that Duncan Harris makes and shows at his website Dead End Thrills are not Photoshopped or artificially enhanced. They are high-res captures directly from the game engine. Harris is often hired by game companies that want to show off their games at their very best. He regularly receives praise from the entertainment industry and press for his work, for example from Alex Garland, screenwriter, novelist and producer (Ex Machina, Dredd, Never Let Me Go, Sunshine, 28 Days Later…, The Beach), who says: "In his exceptional screen capture work, Harris finds and superbly accentuates landscapes, fragments, moods and ephemeral moments. He makes the viewer see the source game through fresh eyes, and reappraise what they thought they understood about the game. The pictures also exist as incredibly striking images in their own right".
The four chosen artworks were also shown at the large art museum exhibition and conference Next-Gen Art Event in The Netherlands in 2014/2015. The super high-res in-game shots that were used for these limited edition giclee prints are by The Astronauts and Duncan Harris. Harris has specialized himself in the art of capturing special imagery from games with his site DeadEndThrills.
The prints come with a certificate of authenticity signed by Adrian Chmielarz, co-founder and creative director of studio The Astronauts. Chmielarz was also the founder and creative director of studio People Can Fly (Bulletstorm, Painkiller) which was purchased in 2012 by Epic.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first-person mystery game focused on exploration, discovery and narrative. It belongs to a genre of games (re)popularized by video games such as Dear Esther (also part of the New Horizons and Next-Gen Art Event exhibit) and has roots in older titles such as Myst.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an exceptional looking game. Many people wondered upon its release how a small team of only eight people was able to create a virtual world with such graphical fidelity and detail. This comes in part because Adrian Chmielarz and his team spent a lot of time on the details. They pioneered a technique called Photogrammetry for use in game development. With Photogrammetry objects, flaura and buildings are lit and photographed from all sides and translated to threedimensional objects through software. Commonly a video game artist crafts a 3D model from polygons and textures by hand. Thousands of photos were shot in the Polish Karkonosze mountains for this game. The reason that the rock faces in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter feel real, is because they are. The trick and craft for application of Photogrammetry in games lies in the right type of photography in combination with the translation of the imagery in low-polygon models that can be used real-time in the game engine. Ardian Chmielarz explains their proces in a blogpost on his site. "In our case, we wanted the player to feel a really strong sense of presence in the game world. There's some supernatural stuff happening in Ethan Carter, and I loved the idea of putting it in contrast with a lifelike, realistic world.", says Chmielarz.
About Dead End Thrills
The in-game screenshots that Duncan Harris makes and shows at his website Dead End Thrills are not Photoshopped or artificially enhanced. They are high-res captures directly from the game engine. Harris is often hired by game companies that want to show off their games at their very best. He regularly receives praise from the entertainment industry and press for his work, for example from Alex Garland, screenwriter, novelist and producer (Ex Machina, Dredd, Never Let Me Go, Sunshine, 28 Days Later…, The Beach), who says: "In his exceptional screen capture work, Harris finds and superbly accentuates landscapes, fragments, moods and ephemeral moments. He makes the viewer see the source game through fresh eyes, and reappraise what they thought they understood about the game. The pictures also exist as incredibly striking images in their own right".