Lighting and rendering

Lighting, rendering and compositing

I light shots to guide the eye and set the mood, from 270° stereo renders and stylized character scenes to 16mm film sets.

Lighting reel 2026 · 35 seconds

Girls Trip

Blender · look development and lighting

A miniature 3D version of an album cover, lit to match its soft pink and purple mood. See project →

Light rig

Girls Trip scene in clay with the light rig visible: area and spot lights around the car — 1. Clay and light rig
Blender viewport
Area lights and spot lights placed around the car and the girl, with a painted sky card behind.

Girls Trip scene with materials in the viewport and the light rig visible — 2. Materials
Viewport look development
Materials and colors checked before the lighting pass.

Girls Trip scene in rendered view with pink and purple lighting — 3. Lighting pass
Rendered view
The pink and purple mood from the album cover, built with the lights.

Final

Final lit scene

Look development and lighting

Lighting and color built to match the mood of the original album cover.

Backrooms

Blender · lighting and compositing · solo project, in progress

A teaser frame from my Backrooms animation, from clay to the final lit and composited frame. See project →

From clay to final

Backrooms scene in gray clay: walls, fallen chairs, a stop sign and a figure — 1. Clay
Layout and shapes
The rooms and props in plain clay, before materials and light.

Backrooms scene with materials and flat light — 2. Materials
Before lighting and compositing
Yellow wallpaper, carpet and ceiling tiles, lit flat.

Backrooms teaser frame with buzzing ceiling lights, deep shadows and a dark figure — 3. Final teaser frame
Lit and composited
Some ceiling lights off, hard shadows and a sick yellow green grade.

Controlling the lights

Blender shader nodes for the ceiling tiles: a Brick Texture grid, White Noise from a LightSeed attribute and a Less Than node feed the emission — Ceiling light control
Shader nodes
The ceiling material splits the tiles into a grid with a Brick Texture. White Noise driven by the LightSeed attribute and a Less Than threshold decide which panels glow, and the LightOn attribute from Geometry Nodes sets how many are on. I can choose when and where the lights turn on.

Compositing

Blender compositor nodes: Tune Image, Dithering, Vignette, Streaks, Bloom and Film Grain — Compositing
Blender compositor
Tune Image boosts the color, then Bayer dithering, a vignette, light streaks, bloom and Super 35mm film grain give the old camera look.

Beyond TCG: Alien vs Mech

Blender · lighting, rendering and compositing

I light, render and composite the Alien vs Mech poster, from the light rig to the final frame. See project →

Poster, light rig

Alien vs Mech poster in the viewport with materials, smoke and the light rig visible — Materials and light rig
Blender viewport
The lights placed around the mech and the alien before the lighting pass.

Alien vs Mech poster in rendered view with blue and pink lighting — Lighting pass
Rendered view
Cool blue fill, pink rim and glow from the alien, and haze in the background.

Poster, step by step

1. Blockout

2. Materials, smoke and fire

3. Lighting and mood

4. Final poster

Poster compositing

Blender compositor nodes for the Alien vs Mech poster: Render Layers into a Glare node set to Fog Glow — Blender compositor
Glare node, Fog Glow
The poster render goes through a Glare node set to Fog Glow, which gives the fire, the aura and the alien glow their soft bloom.

APPOT: A Long Jog

Blender, Cycles · 270° stereoscopic short

I lit and rendered a 3-minute stereo short for the CMU ETC CAVERN, about 6,000 frames from one panoramic stereo camera. See project →

Final lit shot

The full 270° view, flattened

Bright, readable daylight so the audience can follow the action across a wraparound wall.

First forest render: very dark and hard to read — Before: first wall test
Too dark on the real screen
On the CAVERN wall the dark greens fell apart and the scene was hard to read.

Final forest: bright low-poly pine trees with Gilbert — After: relit forest
Brighter, cleaner values
I pushed the colors brighter, removed the darkest areas and gave the forest its own space.

Testing in the room

Color, brightness and staging

I test renders on the real wall and tune them, since the screen reads very differently from a monitor.

End of the forest scene with Gilbert on the left — Staging the eye
Where the audience looks
Each new scene starts where the eye already is, using light, color and placement instead of camera moves.

Unreal and volumetrics

Unreal Engine, Blender

Lighting in a real-time engine, and light inside volumes.

Lit close-up

Unreal Engine, MetaHuman

Planned where the light comes from in each shot for a 6-minute animated short.

Nebula

Blender, volumetrics

A procedural nebula where light scatters through volume shaders.

On-set lighting

Live-action film

Before 3D, I learned light on real sets, with real lamps and film stock.

Glitchy title card reading Exit to Infinity

Exit to Infinity

Short film · Lighting Designer

Lighting that makes familiar spaces feel uneasy. YouTube ↗

Black and white 16mm still of three people asleep on a couch

Delusion

16mm black and white · Cinematographer

Mood shaped with practical light and contrast. Vimeo ↗

Black and white 16mm close-up of a hand beside a coffee maker

Coffee

16mm black and white · Cinematographer

Shot and lit on a Bolex camera. Vimeo ↗

More work: 3D & Animation, VFX, Film & Content