Rayman's training

Rayman's training
	The possible title to Rayman's Training
Published by	Ubi Soft
Developed by	{{{developed by}}}
Directed by	{{{directed by}}}
Produced by	{{{produced by}}}
Designed by	{{{designed by}}}
Programmed by	{{{programmed by}}}
Art by	{{{art by}}}
Written by	{{{written by}}}
Soundtrack by	{{{soundtrack by}}}
Release date	February 1st, 1998 (presumed)
Genre	Short film
Gameplay mode	{{{gameplay mode}}}
Languages	{{{languages}}}
Platforms	{{{platforms}}}
Ratings	{{{ratings}}}
Distribution media	{{{distribution media}}}
Game engine	{{{game engine}}}

Rayman's training is the title of a computer-animated short film produced by Ubi Soft in 1998. Made for an European trade show/film festival hybrid by the name of IMAGINA 1998, Rayman's training was never given any form of home release or any official acknowledgement, falling into obscurity for over two decades after its premiere. Aspects of the short are still shrouded in mystery, in part due to a lack of credits and information.

The short was made before and during the transitional period of Rayman 2's development from the 2D prototype to the 3D game, reusing much of the same assets and having apparently originated as pre-rendered cutscenes before being transformed into a short film.

Plot

Starting with a cold open, Rayman is training with a punching bag with legs on top of a log in the forest. After getting nearly knocked out by the bag, Rayman pretends to jump off the log. Thinking he has fallen to the pits, the punching bag starts searching for him only to be greeted by a surprise attack. The two then taunt, parry, and fight until the bag starts rushing at Rayman. The bag misses, to which Rayman responds by suplexing it on the log. Readying himself for a final blow, the punching bag blacks out. Rayman then follows suit, as the camera pans out. Several Lums can be seen whizzing by the scene, and the scene fades out to black.

Production and originally known sightings

Very little is known about the production of the short, and who specifically worked on it. Any information pertaining to Rayman's training has been inferred and speculated upon from a sparse collection of partially defunct online resources and asset reuse, with little concrete information to go off of.

Production of the short is believed to have started alongside Rayman 2 around 1996 to 1997, as evidenced by the 3D Rayman model being first used for a Maths and English with Rayman advert, a French newsreel about Ubi Soft in 1996 showing the production of the cutscenes of the original Rayman 2 and Rayman's training, and clips of the short later appearing in two French Rayman adverts from 1997. Various clips from the short can be seen in a GamesMaster reel from 1997.

Infamously, the most well-known example of Rayman's training's presence would be clips being used in the E3 1998 trailer for Rayman 2, which was after the original 2D Rayman 2 was cancelled. Due to this timeframe, it can be speculated that some of Rayman 2's original cutscenes were later completed as a animated short, which would become Rayman's training.

The sole known credit that can be given for Rayman's training would be a sound design company by the name of Farra Vox Studios, evidenced by a webpage on their website containing a photograph of the short with the name "Rayman training". The website of the French National Audiovisual Institute, ina.fr, lists the short as "Rayman's training", and is the only other source of the short's name. It lists a date for the film (February 1998), gives a much longer length of two minutes and fifty seconds (the film is one minute and forty-four seconds long), and credits it to the Imagina multimedia festival. The festival was held in March 4-6, 1998, but no mentions of the short are present in contemporary media. Notably, a concurrent Tonic Trouble trailer also attributes itself to having been shown at Imagina 1998.

There are no other known presences of Rayman's training. None of Imagina's home media has the short included, Ubisoft makes a passing mention of it on 2024's Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition, and the short was never seen in full as clips were only used as ancillary material for commercials. One known piece of concept art is known to exist, depicting Rayman and the punching bag on the log. It was believed to be lost media until it was found with no sound in the files of the August 14, 2003 PlayStation 2 prototype of Beyond Good & Evil and uploaded to YouTube on March 12, 2022.

The short was the subject of a collective search by the Rayman fan community, where a 2021 forum thread was created on the Rayman Pirate-Community forums following a now-deleted Twitter thread about the then-untitled short that previous year. Information regarding the short is still recalcitrant, and current discussion relies on educated guesses about the short itself.