Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been lauded for the creative freedom it offers through new additions like DIY crafting and outdoor decorating, as well as expansions to ideas like creating and sharing patterns. There has been a whole cottage industry of players who are recreating designs based on anime or other video games, and now the Getty Museum is getting in on the fun.
The world-famous Getty Museum, housed in Los Angeles, California, has made it possible for Animal Crossing: New Horizons players to turn anything in the museum's open-access collection into a QR code that can be downloaded through the Nintendo Switch Online app. Not only that, the Animal Crossing Art Generator uses an International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) manifest converter, which means open-access art from other museums can also be digitized.
According to the Getty's blog post explaining this Animal Crossing Art Generator, it was designed using the Animal Crossing Pattern Tool's open-source code as a basis — it being one of many fan-made websites dedicated to design sharing and creation. The blog includes step-by-step instructions on how the tool works, and suggests hosting "your very own art exhibition sure to catch Blathers's attention."
While the Getty is not the only large entity to jump on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons hype train, as seen by corporations like Xbox releasing custom designs, the fact that the museum went out of its way to add tons of art, sculptures, and more into the realm of possibility is very admirable and appreciated. The blog post says, "Animal Crossing emulates the joys of the real world, and we especially love going to art museums."
The widespread popularity of this recent Nintendo Switch release has also led to fan-driven innovations and projects in the real world. One player 3D printed a bait-crafting robot designed solely to hit the 'A' button on their console and make it easier to create items in bulk.
However, the in-game creations flooding the Internet from all over the world have been truly awe-inspiring. Many of them, like a full-scale recreation of Melemele Island from Pokemon Sun and Moon, are pieces of art in their own right. Anyone who decides to use the Getty's fine art collection to further accentuate their islands can share their experiences online using the hashtag 'ACArtGenerator.'
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.
Source: Getty Blog, Twitter, Animal Crossing Pattern Tool