<Projects
Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis (2006)
Company: Rockstar Games, San Diego
Role: Animator
Time on project: May 2005 - June 2006
Lead: Ferdinand Fontanilla
Senior: Kirk Cumming
"I have known Josh for over 5 years. He has been a good friend and colleague. Josh is a very talented animator and works well independently and in a team setting when tasked with large scale projects and tight deadlines. This is achieved by his diligence and excellent organization skills. I would recommend Josh to any animation department."
- Kirk Cumming, Senior Animator at Rockstar Games, San Diego
Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis was the passion project of Rockstar Games president Sam Houser, who was a huge table tennis fan. When it was revealed that the company famous for the violent Grand Theft Auto franchise was making a table tennis game, there was a lot of curiosity about how we'd do it. In the end, there was very little we stylized about the game; there was only an "in the zone" power meter which filled as you built up your rally, characters and environments were modeled with ultra-realistic detail (down to the sweat glands), the music was low-key. Animations, although realistic and without much time allowed for flash, had to smoothly blend together and cover a wide range of world space locations with pinpoint accuracy. Each player character had their own subtle variations in playing style and range of motion, which required most to have unique animation sets. The game was very fun to play as we developed it, and a good portion of the studio also played the real-life version every day on the studio's two tournament-quality tables. To this day, I still have my paddle with custom rubber (pips on one side, smooth on the other). The game is a great example of how to keep the scope of a game small, in order to be executed at a high level.
Notable Animations:
Liu Ping player animations
Jesper player animations
Line judge animations
Acclaim:
Metacritic Metascore: 95
"Best Individual Sports Game" nomination, 2010 Spike Video Game Awards
Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis (2006)
Company: Rockstar Games, San Diego
Role: Animator
Time on project: May 2005 - June 2006
Lead: Ferdinand Fontanilla
Senior: Kirk Cumming
"I have known Josh for over 5 years. He has been a good friend and colleague. Josh is a very talented animator and works well independently and in a team setting when tasked with large scale projects and tight deadlines. This is achieved by his diligence and excellent organization skills. I would recommend Josh to any animation department."
- Kirk Cumming, Senior Animator at Rockstar Games, San Diego
Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis was the passion project of Rockstar Games president Sam Houser, who was a huge table tennis fan. When it was revealed that the company famous for the violent Grand Theft Auto franchise was making a table tennis game, there was a lot of curiosity about how we'd do it. In the end, there was very little we stylized about the game; there was only an "in the zone" power meter which filled as you built up your rally, characters and environments were modeled with ultra-realistic detail (down to the sweat glands), the music was low-key. Animations, although realistic and without much time allowed for flash, had to smoothly blend together and cover a wide range of world space locations with pinpoint accuracy. Each player character had their own subtle variations in playing style and range of motion, which required most to have unique animation sets. The game was very fun to play as we developed it, and a good portion of the studio also played the real-life version every day on the studio's two tournament-quality tables. To this day, I still have my paddle with custom rubber (pips on one side, smooth on the other). The game is a great example of how to keep the scope of a game small, in order to be executed at a high level.
Notable Animations:
Liu Ping player animations
Jesper player animations
Line judge animations
Acclaim:
Metacritic Metascore: 95
"Best Individual Sports Game" nomination, 2010 Spike Video Game Awards
Gameplay
Cleaned mocap and finaled animation for both characters shown below using Autodesk Maya
Cleaned mocap and finaled animation for both characters shown below using Autodesk Maya
Rockstar Games Presents: Table Tennis credits
