Bob Rafei

Developer BIO

A thirteen-year veteran of the gaming industry, Bob Rafei graduated in ’91 from Parson School of Design, NYC, with a BFA in illustration. His work among the graduating senior class show landed his first professional gig with A&M Records as the cover artist for Blues Traveler: Travelers & Thieves. His traditional work was selected for inclusion in Society Of Illustrators Annual #35.

In 1993 Bob joined Absolute Entertainment, NJ, working on mercifully forgotten titles like Star Trek: TNG for Sega Genesis & Game Boy, Super Battle Tank, for SNES. He then joined Naughty Dog, Inc. in early ’95 as its first employee while in the visual development stage of Crash Bandicoot, which paved the way for CB2: Cortex Strikes Back, CB: ‘Warped’ and Crash Team Racing for Playstation, collectively selling 25 million+ units worldwide, securing 2 top 5, and 1 top 10 selling PS1 titles of all time. Bob played a key role in establishing the look of this series and touched on all aspects of production from modeling & texturing of any and all geometries, to character rigging and animation.

During development of Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, JakII, Jak3 and the soon to be released JakX: Combat Racing for the PS2, he lead visual development that set the look of this award winning franchise as well as contribute to character animations. He was the art & animation director, and lead concept artist at NDI. To date, the J&D games have sold 8 million units worldwide.

He is an advisory board member for Game Developer’s Conference and has lectured at GDC since 2001 and at Siggraph 2005, and has served as panel leader on craft categories of animation and art direction for Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ (AIAS) achievement awards. He has also contributed writings to Animation Magazine and Animation World Network (AWN.com).

In November 20, 2007, he announced his departure from Naughty Dog.
In 2008 he announced the company Big Red Button Entertainment, Inc., which he co-founded with E. Daniel Arey.

Websites

• Bob Rafei - Concept Art & Illustrations -- Archive of professional & personal work.

Games Credited

• Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier (2009), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Daxter (2006), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Jak X: Combat Racing (2005), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Jak 3 (2004), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Jak II (2003), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001), Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.
• CTR: Crash Team Racing (1999), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Crash Bandicoot: Warped (1998), Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd.
• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (1997), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Crash Bandicoot (1996), Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Star Trek: Generations - Beyond the Nexus (1994), Absolute Entertainment, Inc.