Virtual tuning, colloquially known as 'chopping', is the 2D graphical modification of automobiles, with the use of raster graphics editing

Raster graphics editor

A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “bitmap” or “raster” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF....

 software. Modifications such as aerodynamic body-kits, wheels, front mount inter-coolers and carbon fibre body panels, are super-imposed on a stock image in order to increase its aesthetic appeal. Whilst some designs are realistic in nature, one of the reasons why virtual tuners chop, is to try modifications that may not be possible to produce in real life. Virtually tuned cars are the ultimate imaginative makeovers of ordinary cars.

Artists

Artists who undertake virtual tuning, usually refer to themselves as 'choppers'. For the most part they do it for their own pleasure - as a hobby - however there are a small percentage of artists who earn an income from their talent.

A large number of choppers come from highly developed economies such as the United States of America, the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. However, a majority of choppers stem from European nations such as the Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, Bosnia, Macedonia

Republic of Macedonia

Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

 and Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

 as shown by the existence of a number of virtual tuning forums dedicated only speakers of these languages. In addition to this, large numbers of choppers originate from South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, particularly from Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

.

The gender distribution is heavily weighted toward males.

Popular tools

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...

 is the tool of choice amongst most choppers. Other raster graphics editing

Raster graphics editor

A raster graphics editor is a computer program that allows users to paint and edit pictures interactively on the computer screen and save them in one of many popular “bitmap” or “raster” formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF....

 software such as GIMP

GIMP

GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...

 and Corel Paint Shop

Corel Paint Shop Pro

Paint Shop Pro is a raster graphics editor and, later in the series, a vector graphics editor for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system that was originally published by Minneapolis-based Jasc Software. In October 2004, Corel Corporation purchased Jasc Software and the...

 are also used by choppers as an alternative to the highly priced Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...

.

History

Virtual tuning, or "chopping" as it more commonly known, is a relatively new art, although it has been a popular amongst car enthusiasts for over 10 years. Throughout this time, a large amount of artwork has been produced in this style, with many of the featured artists moving on to worldwide fame, producing technical renders for respected car tuning companies. When a manufacturer releases speculative artwork of their next model, there is a high probability that the person who produced this artwork was once a member of the ever growing chopping community. Currently active choppers are known to have completed promotional imagery for Lexus, Audi, Chevrolet, and Ford to name a few.

The first mainstream and popular website to feature this type of art as a hobby, was Digimods, which closed down in early 2009. This was the first established Virtual tuning forum.

Chopping, or virtual modifying consists of taking a stock image of a vehicle and transforming it into whatever you want using programs listed in the tools of the trade. The more skilled artists will take their own sketch of a concept, and go all out to produce their own render with unrivaled talent, and a lot of these renders will be plastered all over the internet being mistaken for real cars. Virtual modifying is all around us, and has been for a very long time. Every time you see a car in a magazine, or a car wallpaper for your desktop - chances are it has been tampered with by an artist.

World Team Battle

The concept of the World Team Battle (often referred to as WTB) has virtual tuners competing in teams for their country . The idea originated on the website PhotoshopedUp in 2008, where the competition was moved to PhotochopWorld in 2009 but only the first round was completed. Since 2009 and the subsequent closing of PhotoChopWorld, the World Team Battle has been hosted on autemo. Results for 2008/2009 are unavailable due to the loss of data in the closing of PhotoshopedUp, but the results of WTB 2010 are as follows:

Country	Placing
Belgium	1st
Slovakia	2nd
Poland	3rd
Germany	4th

Other Competitions

Many Virtual tuning websites will host their own competitions on a regular basis. These typically consist of a base image chosen by either staff on the website or the previous competition's winner. The competitors are then given a period of time to complete a "chop" of this base image and submit it for judging. The contest entries are usually judged by members themselves in a very democratic system, or sometimes by judges given authority due to their expertise in the art.

An example of a competition which follows this basic principle are the Autemo Championship Competitions.

Careers

Choppers do a lot of their artwork simply because they enjoy virtual tuning. However, with the skills built from virtually tuning cars there are a number of ways artists can make money with their skills. Most advanced choppers have at least once done freelance work for car owners or a design project on Autemo. Some also work for tuning companies, and car magazines.