Professional portfolio
Discover Pax Dei—a vast, social sandbox MMO inspired by the legends of the medieval era, with community and emergent gameplay at its heart. Pax Dei is the game we’ve been dreaming of making for longer than we care to remember. We can’t wait to see how players will engage with our world, and watch as their stories come to life.
Echoes of Somewhere is an experimental 2.5D point and click adventure game anthology series developed by a group of game industry veterans on their free time.
The project relies heavily on AI generated content and as such is an experiment in itself. We will be documenting the progress here in this development blog. For good or for worse.
Each episode in the series is about 1-4 hours of classic point-and-click gameplay in a new world with new characters. Even the art style will vary from episode to episode.
The episodes will be released for free one by one when completed.
I was recently interviewed on the Adventure Game Hotspot podcast. We talked about Echoes of Somewhere and the potential and the limits of using AI for game production. The post The Adventure Game Hotspot Podcast appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
Sometimes these locations require more art direction. More specific features. In these cases, a lot more work is required. Here is a breakdown for how to direct Midjourney for game locations using it’s vary region and pan / zoom out features. The post Using Midjourney for game locations (city hall part 1) appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
Building Adventure Game Puzzles is fun. This is a very complete breakdown of creating a bathroom scene with its puzzle in under 2 days! (Spoiler alert!) The post Building a Puzzle appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
The original teaser trailer I did way back started to look a bit dated with old character, locations and UI, so it was time for a new trailer! The post New teaser trailer appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
Anamorphic bloom is for sure the most cyberpunk aesthetic there is. I wanted to use it as a use case for learning how to create post process materials for Unity URP. This post explains the process. The post Custom post-process effect: Anamorphic Bloom appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
A really interesting gaming news site, PreMortem Games posted and interview about Echoes of Somewhere. The post Premortem Games interview appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
All throughout the project, I have been slightly tweaking the UI from time to time. Now that I have a better understanding of the functionality of the UI, a more polished look and feel begun to creep into my mind. The post Using AI as inspiration for UI design appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
As I upgraded the render pipeline for the game, I noticed that my custom shadow rendering shaders turned pink. It was time to transition from custom HLSL shading for the environments to a more modern shader graph based approach. The post Rendering custom shadows with URP shader graph & apartment ext location appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
I have been working on the apartment for absolutely forever! I have begun to approach this room as a vertical slice for the game. This post is about some of the features I added this week: simulated cool air mist and fluorescent light flicker. The post Additional effects for the apartment scene appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
I have actually never before done footstep audio set for a game. I wanted the system to be able to play audio from animation events and work on multiple different surfaces. Read how I ended up doing it. The post Footstep Audio appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.
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 |
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.
I worked on some of the game background scenes as a 3D modeler.
A random selection of my work for the project.
Iron Danger is my debut PC/PS5/XBOX game as a game director.
It is a game all about maximising your actions in combat with the help of infinite redos and intuitive trial and error. It is basically a gamified combat sequence animation tool (so cool)!
Gamescom 2019 Best experience: Winner
Best creative achievement of the year 2020: Winner
Big screen game of the year 2020: Nominee
Finnish game of the year 2020: Nominee
Best of E3 2019: Nominee
A lot of games market themselves as being built around a “unique” mechanic. And while 90% of the time these mechanics are not in fact unique, every so often you get one that’s the real deal, and this tactical RPG with functional time travel is certainly one of ’em.
Iron Danger was released for PS5 and Xbox S/X in 2023. Gamepad controls were finally added to the game and I think this is the best way to experience the game.
Iron Danger is a tactical combat game with a unique time manipulation mechanic. A never before seen combination that blends the tactical depth of turn-based games with the exciting action of real-time games.
Tackle challenging encounters with your party of two characters, using a variety of skills and highly interactive environments.
Maybe you will set an enemy on fire and kick them into a grain field for a proper barbeque, or set up a trap and fell a tree on top of them. The options are endless and it is you who will be deciding your own approach!
The core of Iron Danger is its unique time control mechanic. You can rewind time for up to 5 seconds whenever you want, trying different strategies and combinations of moves until you find the right one for the task at hand.
The time manipulation allows us to combine real-time combat gameplay with controls from more traditional, tactical turn-based combat games. This gives tactical combat a puzzle-like element, as you can continuously keep trying new approaches to turn impossible odds to your advantage and synchronize the actions of your characters for the perfect outcome.
You will die, but you will not fail!
Iron Danger is set in a world of lofty fells, primeval forest, and placid lakes… as well as living gods and monsters of steel. The city of Kalevala, home of the humans who rebelled against the gods and forsook their protection, shines in the middle of this world, surrounded by towns, sea lanes and and woodlands under its protection.
But from the frozen north, a witch queen is leading her army on a quest for vengeance against the lords of Kalevala. Ancient ruins from the days when gods dwelled on the earth are opening to unleash forgotten powers, tempting humans and striving to overtake the world.
You’ll take on the role of Kipuna, a sharp-witted village girl, who becomes imbued with an ancient power that grants dominion over time and death. You must use your wits to control it as you’re drawn into the midst of a war between the city of Kalevala and the armies of the Northlanders driven by their witch queen Lowhee.
Your task is to master the power, in order to use it for mankind’s protection, while your enemies will seek to harness it in the service of total destruction.
Use unique time-rewind mechanics and experience a new take on tactical combat combining best aspects of real-time and turn-based combat.
Use highly interactive environment for your advantage to succeed against impossible odds.
Adventure in a world of steampunk fantasy and meet its unique inhabitants inspired by Finnish folklore.
Fight epic boss monsters on the path to fulfill your destiny.
No grinding; character progression pace is controlled by the story and every fight matters.
15+ hours of gameplay
PC Invasion – 90
“Iron Danger is a fun game that takes us to fantasy Finland and lets us play with time. This is a surprisingly good combination before you take interactive environments and the vibrant art style into account. If you want to play a fantasy RPG that’s lighter on the RP and heavier on G(ameplay), try this one out.”
DarkStation – 90
“From its inception to the execution, Iron Danger showcases a rare, coherent vision where everything comes together to form a unified experience, not least because of truly novel gameplay that holds it all together. I’m afraid that Iron Danger has spoiled other games in its genre for me. I can no longer imagine playing formulaic fantasy tropes with rigid combat and eternally repeated, tired systems.”
Player2 – 83
“Iron Danger feels like a breath of fresh air for CRPGs. While not a perfect game, its unique, time-based combat system is a pure joy to play with and worth the price of admission alone.”
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.
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.
A promotional video created for a mobile VR app startup.
The video is actually made to be experienced in 360 VR.
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.
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.
Trailer for Quantum Break, showcasing some of the work we did for the cinematics in the game.
Quantum Break is a blockbuster game with time-amplified action and a suspenseful storyline brought to life in a way never done before by fusing gameplay and a gripping live action show. Time itself becomes fractured in a time travel experiment, Jack Joyce fights the secretive Monarch Solutions to put things right before it’s too late. The actions you take and choices you make shape your experience in the show, creating a new and unique entertainment experience.
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project: Nominee
My company, VAU, produced the visuals and the tools for all the stages at Slush 2015.
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.
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:
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
A trailer for the VR game Pollen. Directed by Jukka Salo.
Retry was the best thing I ever worked on at Rovio. A perfect game! It is a shame it can no longer be downloaded from Apple App Store. Thank god the soundtrack is available!
Retry is a free-to-play retro-styled side-scrolling video game developed by Rovio LVL11 and published by Rovio Entertainment.
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.
A corporate video created for Nokia Siemens Networks.
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.
Silver
Shortlist
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.
A music video for Maija Vilkkumaa. Directed by Pete Veijalainen.
A music video for Collarbone. Directed by Jukka salo and me.
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.
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Director of Photography: | Toni Pasanen |
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.
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.
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 |
I created the level background art for this classic N-Gage game.
A music video for Retropop.
For the longest time I had this idea of a music video with very very small planets. I tried to shop it around for quite a while without finding a great song to make it for. Then Universal luckily had a song about small planets as well and the rest is history!
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Screenplay: | Lauri Konttori |
| Puppets and Miniatures: | Lauri Konttori, Jussi Kemppainen, Antti Kemppainen |
| Wardrobe: | Mirkka Kallio |
| Gaffer: | Toni Pasanen, Lauri Konttori |
| Grip: | Antti Kemppainen, Jyrki Kemppainen |
| Drawings: | Lauri Konttori, Tommi Ojala |
| Thanks: | Jyri Sääksjärvi, Tero Ahonen, Riitta Kemppainen Roosa Saarinen, Alex Keskitalo, Vanessa Riki, Markus Kallio Topi Kemppainen, Anna Kemppainen, Mikko Haapala, Arttu Kotisara |
Audience Choice Winner
These photos are from my archives from all the way back in 2007
A music video for Pooma. Shot by me, my dad and brother Antti at our summer cottage during one rainy night using self-built camera wire rig and a dolly.
I actually had to shoot the cabin sections twice, because it was so dark and the image vas unusably noisy on the first go. GH5s or Alpha 7 s camera would have been a something!
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Grip: | Christoffer Forssell, Juuso Kemi, Antti Kemppainen, Jyrki Kemppainen |
| Thanks: | Jere Leskinen, Arttu Kotisara, Tuire Lukka |
Honorary Mention
Squad Command is the only PSP & Nintendo game I have worked on. I did the 3D production planning for the project and modeled many of the characters and other 3D assets for it.
The nicer part of it was that the game production was sold to Games Workshop using a prototype I produced together with Sebastian Aaltonen and Vesa Halonen.
Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command is a turn-based tactics game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, released on November 16, 2007, for the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS. It was developed by RedLynx. The game features three Space Marine Chapters pitted against three Legions of Chaos (two and two for the DS) battling it out on the planet of Ruhr III. The game features units from the tabletop wargame.
A music video for Valvomo. I did all of the Prost production for this.
Our second Pathway to glory game. My responsibilities were the same as with the first game: 3D assets, UI, characters and terrains.
Pathway to Glory: Ikusa Islands is a tactical turn-based game for the Nokia N-Gage, published by Nokia and developed by RedLynx, released in late 2005. The game is a sequel to the original Pathway to Glory.
This was the first game project I ever worked on full-time.
I mostly worked on the 3D assets for the game: tanks, soldiers, weapons and structures. But I also created the UI and terrain textures.
World War II in Southern Europe, 1943: the struggle for Europe is at a critical point. Special forces are urgently needed, and you're going to lead a platoon of them. But be prepared for full immersion: one look at the painstakingly researched uniforms, weapon types, and locations, and you'll be itching to get on the battlefield. With intuitive controls and nearly innumerable variables in gameplay, Pathway to Glory is like any great game - it takes a moment to learn, and a lifetime to master. PATHWAY TO GLORY is the most anticipated N-Gage title for 2004, and rightly so - it's built to deliver more depth in detail, emotion, and playing experience than any other mobile game made before.
Best N-Gage game: Runner-up
Best hand-held game of the year 2004: Winner
