Saku Lehtinen

I was born in 1973 in Helsinki, Finland, but spent the first decade of my life in Nokia (the town from which Nokia company originates and got its name). I have also lived in many other places during my youth, mainly in Helsinki region: Kirkkonummi, Helsinki, Järvenpää and Espoo. Currently I live in Espoo.

Work

I am the Art Director of Remedy Entertainment Ltd. At the moment we are working on Alan Wake, a next-gen game for XBox360 and the PC. I lead the art team being responsible of the audiovisual experience of the game.

Our best known previous products are computer and console games Max Payne and Max Payne 2.

In Max Payne(s) I focused mostly on the game environments and level design, but also many other directing, graphics and design related matters ranging from characters to printed graphics and packaging. One major task was directing of the cut-scenes (cinematics). I have also been heavily involved with the development and design of Remedy's technology and especially our game environment 3D-modeling tools (both in MP and AW).

The PC version of Max Payne was released 7/2001, PS2 & Xbox versions 12/2001 and the Macintosh version 7/2002. Max Payne 2 for PC was released 10/2003 and PS2 & Xbox versions 12/2003. To date, Max Payne games have sold over 7 million units.

Although Remedy was not directly involved, also notable is the 10/2008 release of Max Payne, a movie based on the games.

Other works and studies

I started making computer games relatively young (first published game in 1989) and over time, my hobby turned into my work. I have always been fortunate to utilize my interests in work and vice versa.

I have studied Architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology (begun 1993).

Between 1994-2002, I was involved with most computer related matters of the Department of Architecture. In 1995, I started teaching computers and eventually developing the whole curriculum together with the IT team. Since 2002 I have reduced my involvement, but I still occasionally teach visualization. Over the years planned many courses and taught pretty much anything that has something to do with computers (related to architecture): CAAD, DTP, visualization, web, design, basics etc.

In 2001 the student base voted, for the first time, a "Faculty's Best Teacher trophy", which I was honored to receive.

Hobbies: New, old and often mixing with work

I have always done many kinds of art (with and without computers): paintings, drawings, models, designs etc. Perhaps someday I include a link here, so you can see some of my works.

Computers are my hobby too, because use them in almost everything I do. Amiga was my first machine (1987-94) and PC came second (1990-). Macintosh (1989-) is still my favorite machine on my spare-time.

Soon after getting my first computer (around mid 80's), I got involved with the Scene and was active to mid 90's. With pseudonym Owl I started with Amiga teams and later I joined Aggression on the Atari ST scene. You might know the names Overdose and Brain Damage from the early 90's, which are our best-known demos. The most recent scene-related things I have done with 'oldskool' team Maturefurk. We made an Amiga demo for old times sake (8/2001), Lapsuus (childhood), which won the demo competition in Assembly 2001. Read more about that from Wired.

In addition to lecturing at the university, I have often given guest presentations in various other occassions both in universities and conferences mostly about games and game development. However, in Siggraph 2001 (Los Angeles) and Siggraph 2002 (San Antonio) I was speaking about the Scene.

In my youth, around 1993, I was founding "Spock's Hut", which became the largest sci-fi club in Scandinavia for some time. My main interest was to be the editor of the SHUT's mag Outpost (-1995). This continued my career in writing and publishing, which all started as the editor of school magazine(s) both in junior high and high school (86-92). During my university years, I often worked on the side as a consultant of publishing and DTP matters.

I still like writing and doing page layout (also on my spare time). I have been known to enjoy traveling, photography, filming and editing. I am a cinema aficionado and follow TV, music and various other forms of culture.

My music taste is broad with many styles and languages: English, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, French, classical, pop, rock, alternative, techno etc. My special interest is movie soundtracks.

I took piano lessons for about 10 years and I still play occasionally, unfortunately quite rarely due to my lack of time.

In summertime I enjoy sailing and own a fast, modern 22-feet sailboat with four bunks and a kitchenette. It is mostly sailing on weekends and weekday nights on the lovely waters of Helsinki.

Contact

To send me some email, use the address below. Please remove the bold bit to actually make it work. This precaution is to prevent automatic email snatchers to get my address... Spam sucks :-)