Animating the PsychOdyssey
Our documentary series, Double Fine PsychOdyssey, just added a 33rd episode to its roster, and if you’ve seen even half of the show, it’s quite likely that title song which accompanies the animated intro is now an ever-living part of your very being; an audiovisual ear-worm that will always be with you. It’s also quite likely that you’ve noticed no two animated intros are the same.
These title sequences share a structure and the same fantastic theme song from Drew “Orange Drink” Prusko, but every episode also has a unique animation to kick it off, featuring different characters, and moments which foreshadow the story about to unfold.
This ridiculous undertaking is the work of Michael Firman, an artist who first game to our attention from his fan art of our characters, like Raz, but then later his sketches of Tim and other folks on the team, which he doodled while watching our former docu-series, Double Fine Adventure, and then shared with us on Twitter.
To better understand how Michael went from sketching fan art to working with us so closely, and better share the behind the scenes story, I grabbed some time with the one and only Paul Levering, Producer and co-creator of the PsychOdyssey series, and a founding member of 2 Player Productions, the film crew that lives among us here at Double Fine.
“His style has always felt unique but familiar, it felt as though it could have come from an artist at Double Fine” said Paul when I asked him about how Michael first came to our attention “More importantly perhaps, he somehow captured people like he knew them in person, instead of just seeing them on a YouTube video. Tim and other folks started using them as avatars, and then everyone wanted him to do them next. Eventually it became a right of passage”
Michael Firman portraits and Fan Art - Assorted
It was that particular skill that led us to work with him more purposefully, first on portraits for Amnesia Fortnight 2014 trading cards, all the way up to very recently creating a portrait of everyone at the studio for a special holiday gift last year. We use them everywhere. (Scroll up and you’ll see one of me on this very page!)
Ultimately though, it was his love of Psychonauts that made us think of him for a particularly special task; the Previously on intro video that every player sees when they start Psychonauts 2 for the first time, and which catches them up with the story so far.
“We went to Firman with a simple-ish idea. Raz would be flipping through a notebook that was his fan-made copy of a True Psychic Tales magazine, filled with doodles, telling us about his adventures with the Psychonauts. The idea required only minimal animation, as he wasn’t an animator - we were thinking jiggly 2 frame characters and the occasional page flip. But we knew he was a Psychonauts super-fan, and we felt he could lean heavily into that passion to pull this off” Recalls Paul. “Of course what he ended up making was far more special than we ever imagined it could be”
The Previously on video is such a perfect opener for the game, and I think it’s clear to anyone who watches it that Michael blew it out of the water. It’s important to note that it was the first real animation the guy had ever made!
In summer 2021, with Psychonauts 2 about to go gold, Paul had a new idea to pitch to Michael. The Psychodyssey was taking shape, but it needed an intro of its own.
A test version considered for a section of the intro animation.
“The Previously On video was so good and it inspired me to think of Firman for our own needs. I really liked the idea of having a cozy intro, Cheers style, but was also thinking of shows like The 100 or BoJack Horseman, where each intro would change a little as the narrative moved forwards and be different each time. Not different like The Simpsons couch gags but literally reflecting story beats from the show in the intro”
Michael started to experiment with options and styles, but he wasn’t ever quite happy with how it looked, and it wasn’t until he took an unexpected leap that things truly came together.
Another test version considered for a section of the intro animation, showing Tim in his office.
“At some point Firman disappeared for a little while, and weeks went by with no contact. We started to joke that knowing him and how ambitious he is, he’d probably decided to learn 3D rendering, to make the entire office space so he could rotoscope it…” muses Paul “Then he got back in touch, and that was exactly what he’d done.”
The joke had become a reality. Michael had indeed taught himself Blender and made an incredibly detailed model of our entire office space, having never been there in person, so based entirely on videos of the place. He then captured a fly through of the hallway, and rotoscoped that into an animation, with 2 frames per second.
“We couldn’t believe it. All the rooms, the objects. For someone without blueprints on hand, it was shockingly accurate. He did all of that simply to get the lighting and perspectives right. When you look at a screenshot from it, it looks like actual reality. But when he painted over it, that’s when it became really special. That’s when it feels not just realistic, but conveys the spirit of the place too”
A Supercut of the many easter eggs and moments from the PsychOdyssey
Just like he had done with the Psychonauts 2 animation, Michael went to work filling every shot with in-jokes, easter eggs, and nerdy details about the office, and it brought the whole thing to life. And with one pilot episode complete it was time to start on the rest. 31 in total for the initial run, and every single one of them is different in some way.
The hand-drawn spreadsheet
To keep track of the plot points and in-jokes, Michael hand-drew himself a huge spreadsheet of shots for each intro.
“We tried to plan for ways we could reuse backgrounds and treat it a bit like traditional animation cells- This painting of a room would stay the same but elements could get swapped out, certain decorations and people. The team would make suggestions to Firman on shots that could be reused across episodes, but he just kept making new ones. Every time he turned something in it would make us all laugh, we loved it, so it was clear he had tapped into the winning formula.”
The first 32 episodes of Psychodyssey launched in February 2023, free to everyone on our Youtube channel.
“We would watch the comments and every so often someone would post - “I made it up to episode 15 and I just realized the intros are always different!” and someone else would reply ‘They’re different!?!’ This was both heartbreaking and amusing, since people would either skip the intros or just not pay attention, trained by shows in general to ignore them. It was fun to see people go back just to watch them all.”
Episode 33 was always something we had planned, but we needed some more time to elapse before we started production on it, and then naturally it would need a new intro. There was just one problem - in the time between the launch of Psychonauts 2, and the start of Filming Episode 33, we’d renovated the entire studio space, and taken over some more of our building, adding new spaces too.
Michael’s 3D model was suddenly very out of date. So, of course, he started over from scratch, making new versions of spaces both old and new. This new 3D model is way, way more detailed than you would expect. It has moveable monitor arms, standing desks that actually work, and every single detail is astoundingly accurate.
3D models of the "Lola" meeting room at Double Fine, initial render vs the updated one for episode 33
The Double Fine group photo, built up with individual sketches of everyone in the team.
And then there's the pièce de résistance, the Hallway fly through shot.
“I don’t know exactly how long he spent remaking that hallway shot, but the level of artistry on display is staggering. It’s the kind of thing where people probably won’t even notice it’s new, but the detail and technique is so leveled up from his previous work. He’s the type of person who is always improving his style, but it doesn’t make his old work less great. His voice is always there.”
Fly-through shot for Episode 33, before the draw over
Fly-through shot for Episode 33, after the drawover
Real life fly through of the studio
Michael’s animated intros bring so much to our series. The show itself goes through a lot of ups and downs, and takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions. But each new episode starts with a cozy, charming, and increasingly familiar intro, that in and of itself, it turns out, can deliver a strong dose of emotional impact.
“With Episode 33 releasing last month, fans of the series were returning to it 18 months after the bulk of it was released. So many of the comments this time around were about how just watching the intro made them smile, or even burst into tears. They were so happy to be back with us, and that was so special to hear”
Hats off to both Michael Firman and Drew Prusko (and 2 Player Productions, naturally) for their incredible work on our series. We’re so grateful and lucky to have such talented people to collaborate with. Before you go, please enjoy the various videos and galleries on this page showing the meticulous detailed work that went into animating all these intros, and keep your eyes and ears peeled for more work from these two folks in our future work, I’m sure they’ll show up again before too long.
Oh, and please check out Episode 33 of the Double Fine PsychOdyssey!
Side by side shot of the intros from Episodes 1 and 33, showing the evolution