Hello! Welcome to my first guide of making a Garry's Mod poster! I know there are lots of other guide's out there, but I want to share my way of making a poster with you. So sit back and enjoy!




By reading this, you'll sell your soul to the Devil.

Before you start up Garry's Mod , I recommend to watch this video from MaxOfS2D.
It is a very helpful guide to make your shadows in Gmod look better.






Sadly, the video got removed for unknown reasons, but do not fear!

Try to type in these commands into your start up properties, or in the in-game console.
(Note:Do NOT type these in while a map is loaded or else it will crash your game.)

r_projectedtexture_filter 0.2
r_flashlightdepthres 4096
mat_depthbias_shadowmap 0.00001
mat_slopescaledepthbias_shadowmap 2

Here are the addons that I use (Note:these are not all the addons, just the important ones):
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=202241938
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=198578948
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=157560152
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=181382658
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104575630
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=135491961
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=105447250
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=170917418
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104604943
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=104576786&searchtext=Stand+Pose+Tool

Now,after you got all those addons I presume you are already In-game. For this Poster I'll make a TF2 themed one. I'll use cp_dustbowl.You can use any map but don't use a map that is too lit. It just makes your Poster look horrible and shiny and there'll be no place for additional lamps.



After you loaded in your map, find a place for your scene. I chose this area.

After you found your ideal place for your scene, you can start to spawn in the ragdolls and other stuff.I'll use the Soldier for this one.Use the Stand Pose tool to make him stand.














He looks pretty plain doesn't he? Lets put on some cosmetics.
Most of the people don't know where you can find all the hats for TF2 characters.You can find them here:
So basically it's in Games>tf>player>items>(class you want)
So lets spawn 'em in!
You may ask now: "How do I put them on the model easily? (without no colliding and stuff)"
Now this is where the Bonemerge tool comes in. You just select the model on wich you want to put on the cosmetics and it pretty much does the job for you.













But there is a problem. The soldiers stock hat clips through the new one. But don't fear. There is a tool for that. The Easy Bodygroup tool. With this tool you can easily remove the old hat. Like this:











Now after all this is done, we can pose him now! Now this is the exciting part. For easier posing you can use the Ragdoll Mover tool.Don't forget to pose his fingers too! Don't hurry at this part. Take your time and after a while it will look like this:













Looks ok, right? But there is another problem. He has no expressions. So, lets face pose him. Lets give him a happier face.








After this we are pretty much done with posing, so let's move on!

Now that we're done with posing, lets put stuff in the background because it looks pretty plain now.












Now it looks like this:

Now comes the most important part: Lighting!
First of, let's remove those ugly, low-res shadows. Yuck! How you remove them you may ask? With the Toggle Shadows tool you can easily remove them.
Before removing shadows:













After removing shadows:













Now after that is done, lets put in some lamps! Now it looks like this:













It looks better, but not good enough. The light looks too unrealistic. It looks like it comes from a lamp, but we want it to look like it comes from the sun. So lets put a bit of yellow/orange into the light. It should look like this:





Looks a lot more better, doesn't it?

Now that we're done with lighting, let's move onto the camera placement.The camera should focus on the main character (The soldier in this one).I put the camera here:













Now let's go into the cameras perspective. To do that you press the Camera key(KP_END in my situation).













Now,take out your camera (It's in 6th weapon slot) and zoom in a bit.You do that by holding the right mouse button and sliding your mouse up or down. You can slide your mouse left or right to tilt the angle.By doing this you give the picture depth of field.Now it looks like this:


Note that it even removed your HUD for you.

Let's move onto post processing. These are the following post processing tools that I use:
Bloom
Color Modification
Super DoF
Optional:
Overlay
Depth of Field (I put this into the optionals because it sometimes removes shadows and can ruin your work)


Bloom:
Bloom makes your picture... well Bloomy!
Without bloom:













With bloom:













Color Modification:
With this tool you can tweak with the colors on the picture. (For example: you can make the picture black and white, or make it super bright,etc)
After tweaking with the color modificator you can get something like this:













Depth of Field: Use this to make background elements become unfocused, allowing the viewer to have a better focus on the foreground, but I don't recommend using this. It can remove your shadows.
Without Depth of Field:













With Depth of Field:



See? It removed all our Shadows!
So don't use it.








Overlay: Overlay makes your Poster look more cinematic. (To have cinematic overlays, you need the Cinematic Overlays addon)
With the overlay it will look like this:













Finishing Touches: Let's finish this poster with Super DoF.
Super DoF lets you focus on 1 thing by blurring everything around it.
With Super DoF it looks like this:

There you have it! You've finished the Poster!



















Here are some examples:

Thank you so much for reading my guide. I hope it helped you a lot. If you want to learn more you can join my Group here: http://steamproxy.net/groups/doodlegmodposters

Anyway, I thank you again for reading and have a nice day!












Now your soul is sold for the Devil. No refunds.