Working on Jackass for PSP and PS2 was the first title I worked on from start to finish. While I had done little bits and pieces on the tail ends of both Melbourne Cup Challenge and Gripshift XBLA/PS3, Jackass was the game that I still feel fairly connected to. People might look at the game now (or even when it released) and wonder how I could feel attached to a mini-game collection based around the franchise that has 20 something year olds injuring themselves for fame and fortune, but production was a hell of a lot of fun. I got to check out a bunch of mocap sessions, helped direct (if only a little) sections of the cutscenes and then worked them from mocap data through to in-game cutscenes. While it wasn’t in any Game of the Year lists, it did manage to sell rather well and was pulled from shelves for reasons unknown (it was still selling well so it wasn’t that).

The majority of my time spent on Jackass was tidying up mocap, facial and finger animation for cutscenes as well as the piecing together of mocap for cutscenes but I did manage to get quite a few keyframe animations in for some mocap we didn’t have for the main characters as well as random NPCs and crumbling objects, and, as it was my first real project, seeing the items getting put in-game put a smile in my face and solidified the reason I wanted to stay firmly in this industry. Creating is fun, even if you’re creating for a rather niche audience.

The above trailer is filled with animations created by the entire animation team.