The Met joins Getty Museum in allowing New Horizons players to import real artwork

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You can access The Met's full digital collection and transport images to decorate your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island

(Image credit: Nintendo / Getty Museum)

Update: New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art (known as The Met) has just announced it's making it's complete digital collection available for Animal Crossing: New Horizons players to upload to their games. The Met has adapted the code from AC Patterns which allows players to upload an image, edit it, and scan the QR code to make it available on their Switch. 

Over 406,000 images are available for your use - simply click on the "Share" icon under the image you want to use, then click the well-known Animal Crossing leaf logo. A pop-up will appear that will let you crop the image as you see fit, then generate the QR code necessary for you to scan. For a step-by-step walkthrough on how to upload custom images to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, check out our guide here. 

Original Story: The Getty Museum has created an Animal Crossing: New Horizons art generator tool that enables players to import real artworks into their little virtual worlds. 

The museum, which is based in Los Angeles, is currently closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but now players around the world can appreciate the artworks of famous painters like Vincent Van Gogh and Manet on their New Horizons islands. 

On the museum's generator page, Getty outlines instructions for how to access the artwork images by searching through the Getty Museum's open-access collection or selecting from the gallery of favorites. Much like the AC pattern generator that lets you upload your own images, the Getty Museum art generator creates QR codes of the artworks, which you can then scan using the Official Nintendo Switch Online app and then download the image in-game from your Nook phone. 

— GettyMuseum on April 16, 2020

"With this tool, you can fill your island with art and transform your home into a world-class art gallery," the website says. "Create your own custom patterns featuring artwork from famous art collections around the world. Patterns can be used in Animal Crossing to make shirts, cover walls and floors, make paintings for an easel or canvas, and for display on mannequins." 

You can also find import artwork from other museums if they're a part of the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), which is a technology that shows art online. Lots of museums are a part of IIIF, and all you need to do is get a URL of the artwork and copy and paste it into a field on the generator's site. The Museum also has a detailed step-by-step instruction guide to give you a rundown of what you need to do to get the artwork into your game. 

Looking to add some more designs to your island? Here's our pick of the best Animal Crossing: New Horizons design codes. 

Heather Wald
Heather Wald
Evergreen Editor, Games

Heather Wald is the Evergreen Editor, Games at GamesRadar+. Her writing career began on a student-led magazine at Bath Spa University, where she earned a BA (Hons) in English literature. Heather landed her first role writing about tech and games for Stuff Magazine shortly after graduating with an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University. Now with almost seven years of experience working with GamesRadar+ on the features team, Heather helps to develop, maintain, and expand the evergreen features that exist on the site for games, as well as spearhead the Indie Spotlight series. You'll also see her contribute op-eds, interview-led features, and more. In her spare time, you'll likely find Heather tucking into RPGs and indie games, reading romance novels, and drinking lots of tea.