Reel 2020
Kuuhyppy
A short film we created with our daughters when they were 3 & 8. Both of them also drew the characters they acted. This was a lovely little weekend project!
| Animation: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Screenplay | Myy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen |
| Illustrations: | Myy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen, Jussi Kemppainen |
| Voices | Myy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen, Jussi Kemppainen |
3D Characters for Sanoma Pro
I modelled, textured and rigged a set of 3D versions of 2D characters created for Sanoma Pro Educational books. They are used on AR content on an ABC book called “Ystävien Aapinen”, ”Ystävien Lukukirja” and an English language book series, “Come With Me”, with 3 installations rolled out.
I also developed the scripting for the Unity scene-flow and asset bundle loading, user interactions and the Morph-based facial animation workflow from Blender to Unity.
Character animations by Janne Roivainen.
Iron Danger – Teaser Trailer
I created this trailer from a level I made for Iron Danger. The VFX, models and animations I used we from the game, but naturally I had to create custom animators and special versions of the particle systems to create a frozen in time effect. An effect the game leans heavily on, as time stands still while you plan your next moves.
My debut PC/PS5/XBOX game as a game director. A game all about maximising your actions in combat with the help of infinite redos and intuitive trial and error. Winner of Best Creative Achievement of the year 2020 at Finnish Game Awards.
Iron Danger – Shard of Time
Olavi Elää
A cool album cover for a Finnish rock album from Olavi Uusivirta. I did the layout and rendering and 3D scanned model cleanup for this project. The director of the project was Tero Ahonen.
Aallonmurtaja
The title sequence for a Finnish TV show Aallonmurtaja. Directed by Tero Ahonen.
Virtual Traveller
A promotional video created for a mobile VR app startup.
The video is actually made to be experienced in 360 VR.
2D Characters for Pikku Kakkonen
I was commissioned to design and create modernised versions of the classic characters in the Pikku Kakkonen children’s programming logo.
In addition to the modernised logo characters, I designed the 2D version of one beloved puppet character.
For this, I did extensive research on the different visual styles and technical solutions for different children’s TV programming. 2 versions of each character rig was created, one for realtime applications in Unity, and one for pre-rendered animations in After Effects. They used the same sprite sheets I created in Affinity Designer and the animator controls were the same. But for unity I scripted them using C# and for After Effects I used AE Expressions.
The work was built on top of my previous Angry Birds rigging, completing the “just a head” rig for the birds with full body controls.
Big Bang Legends Character Models
A set of 3D versions of 2D characters created for Lightneer’s Big Bang Legends game trailer. I also created some motion graphics for the company.
Slush 2015
My company, VAU, produced the visuals and the tools for all the stages at Slush 2015.
Animatics
Remedy logo animations
For Quantum Break I also got to create a set of various motion graphics. Mainly logo animations and in-game branding for Monarch corporation.
The Quantum Break branded logo animations were created in After Effects with Video Copilot Element 3D & Trapcode Particular, carefully mimicking the look of the in-game stutter effect created by Janne Pulkkinen.
I also created a bunch of in-game used branding content for screens in various levels.
Ainola Alive
A live visual VJ set for Meidän Festivaali celebrating Jean Sibelius and especially his wife, Aino. Together with my brother we produced visuals for 4 concerts in total.
We did not know of the performances in advance, so I built a live visual set capable of adapting to any type of music. All effects were reactive to the music being played and we could control things by hand as well during the live performance. 2 persons were required to control the visuals and keep them going at all times. It felt like playing an instrument as a member of the band. We could play off of the performers and they of us as they were encompassed by the screen.
I also designed the stage which was a first for me.
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Illustrations: | Antti Kemppainen |
| Director of Photography: | Toni Pasanen |
Stage previz renders
Behind the scenes
Iron Danger Proof of Concept
A proof of concept trailer directed by Sami Timonen for an Iron Danger movie. This is a standalone piece separate from the game production with the same name.
Behind The Scenes
Celebrating 20 Years of Remedy
A fun marketing video for Remedy. Learn how to do the Max Payne face(tm)!
Post effects, grading and logo animations by me.
Michael
A video installation of Michael Jackson created for Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.
I worked on the face replacements for the wide shots. We painstakingly created this with Nuke & Maya well before the time of AI face replacements.
| VFX Production Company: | Troll VFX |
| Artist: | Adel Abidin |
| Director: | Sam Shingler |
| Technical Director | Juuso Kaari |
Angry Birds Toons Rigging
In this presentation I describe the creation of the 3D-like rigging in Adobe After Effects to produce 2D animation with hand-drawn qualities for Angry Birds Toons.
Check out the end result while you are at it:
A short movie that introduces a new bird into the flock.
Meet the Pink Bird
Technical direction for a TV show based on the Angry Birds mobile game.
Angry Birds Toons
Interviews
Adobe: How did Rovio Animation get started? Kemppainen: After Rovio’s amazing success in mobile gaming, the company decided to expand its offerings to include more entertainment and publishing offerings. I founded a studio in 2007 named Kombo, which Rovio purchased in 2010. I then became one of the co-founders of Rovio Animation and was responsible for creating an Adobe After Effects rigging system for the characters in the Angry Birds Toons cartoon. provideocoalition.com
Bloopers
Pollen – Trailer
A trailer for the VR game Pollen. Directed by Jukka Salo.
Meet the Pink Bird
A short movie that introduces a new bird into the flock.
For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.
Angry Birds Toons
A teaser trailer for Angry Birds season 1. created at Rovio Animation Studio (Which was Kombo, merged in to Rovio).
Watch all episodes
Uneton 48: Härkämiehet 2
An entry we did for the uneton 48 movie competition where the idea is to make a movie in 48 hours. This time the jury failed to see the greatness of our masterpiece.
Angry Birds Space Intro
An intro / trailer created for the Angry Birds Space -game.
For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.
Angry Birds NASA
An Angry Birds Space announcement video. Actually filmed in space! Most viewed video I directed to date: over 30 million views.
Uncut version at NASA’s channel.
Angry Birds Wreck the Halls
A fun little Christmas themed Angry birds holiday greetings video.
Another Angry Birds short I worked on. For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.
Angry Birds Seasons Ham’o’ween
A short movie to accompany a halloween themed update for Angry Birds Seasons.
This was my first project at the new internal Rovio animation studio. I did the technical direction, character rigs and a bunch of compositing for this piece.
Missä Kuljimme Kerran
A historical movie set in Helsinki in the period from 1905 until 1944. Among its motifs are the often vain search for happiness, love and prosperity. It tells the stories of the aristocratic Lilliehjelm family, the middle-class Widing family and the poor Kajander family from the Finland’s independence through the Civil War and the Roaring Twenties, and ending during the Second World War.
Behind the Scenes
Ella & Aleksi – Yllätysynttärit
A trailer for Ella and Aleksi. The whole movie was Created at Kombo (with one sequence produced at Anima).
At first, we were fully expecting to produce the show in Cinema 4D, but as the character animations needed to be 12fps but the camera animations 24fps. This was not easy to do in Cinema so I ended up creating our animation tools and rigs on top of After Effects, where this sort of time posterization was a lot easier.
Nokia N9 “Swipe”
Film for a website showcasing Nokia N9 UI features. Direction by Gang Of Three.
The FWA
Site of the Day 4.1.2012
Nokia Siemens: Flexi
A corporate video created for Nokia Siemens Networks.
Uneton 48: Hyvää Syntymäpäivää
An entry we did for the uneton 48 movie competition where the idea is to make a movie in 48 hours. We won the audience choice award.
Uneton 48 2011
Audience Choice Winner
Finalist
Halton
A corporate video created for Halton indoor climate solutions. I did the direction on this one.
We made a number of different company presentation videos at Kombo, many of them very nice in their respective ways like this one, but they are almost all lost to time.
W3 Awards 2011
Silver
Vuoden Huiput 2011
Shortlist
Dieport
Dieport is a fun short film by my friend Lauri Konttori. I was on the camera and did the color grade, among other things.
Aktia PS
A TV ad for a bank.
Cosmic Avenger
A short animated film about 2 mail-robots that encounter an abandoned package. I was contacted by the director duo Mariko & Ismo after they had seen my music video Pieni ja Ihmeellinen. They loved its style and wanted to create an animated movie using the same visual style.
This time we went even bolder with matching various animation styles and we introduced traditional stop motion puppet animation and servo controlled robots. We also expanded our use of costumed live action elements as parts of puppets.
Behind the scenes image gallery
Veikkaus: Yllätys
A set of advertisements for a finnish national betting company. Character design bt Lauri Konttori. Directed by me.
Angry Birds Trailer
The original Angry Birds game trailer. Directed by Lauri Konttori.
MTV3 MAX – WW2
A ad for donations to help the finnish war veterans. Created from actual war-time photographs.
Fun facts: Made from concept to final video in 3 days in a very high fever with a laptop at home. 1 day / setup. Uses basic camera projection techniques, but I wanted to move the camera "too much" to make it more interesting.
Flora Christmas
A miniature based advert for a vegetable spread.
This ad is almost completely made with miniatures. We built a small globe and filmed it spinning. The actors were shot on a crane. 3D elements; like the cars, ships, road and water; were overlaid on the globe to add life to the scene.
Kauppalehti
The animation and post production for this film celebrating an update of a Finnish financial magazine was created by me and Ilmari Hakkola in one week. We combined 3D, after effects and some filmed elements.
Biisi Liisi & Kurittomat nuotit
A teaser video for a new kind of note reading teaching method. Created at Kombo in the year 2008.
| Director | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Screenplay | Lauri Konttori |
| Illustrations | Lauri Konttori |
| Director or Photography | Toni Pasanen |
| Producer | Katja Kostiainen |
| Compositing | Jussi Kemppainen, Ilmari Hakkola |
| 3D Modeling | Jussi Kemppainen |
| 2D Animation | Lauri Konttori |
| 3D Animation | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Costume Designer | Anna Vilppula |
| Voiceover | Jarmo koski |
| Editing | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Color Grading | Jussi Kemppainen |
Non Stop Living
Video content for Nokia Non Stop Living website. Shot and directed by me. This was my first commercial advertisement job. And this case actually prompted us to found the animation studio Kombo.
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Audio: | Ilmari Hakkola |
| Art Direction: | Marko Vuorensola |
| Production: | Cao Quintas |
Cannes Lions 2008
Shortlist
Vuoden Huiput 2007
Honorary Mention
The FWA
Site of the day 8.10.2007
Ugly to the Bone
An animation that I created as an extra piece for my graduation thesis from Lahti University of Applied Sciences – The Institute of Design in 2006. The background painting was done by artist Pekka Veikkolainen and the sound design was done by Joonatan Portaankorva.