On Real-Time Rendering

June 1, 2026

After fifteen years in VFX production — from lookdev and lighting through CG supervision — the most profound shift I've witnessed isn't a specific tool. It's the collapse of the feedback loop.

The old pipeline

Traditional VFX pipelines run on a rhythm of overnight renders. You'd tweak a light, submit the frame, come back in the morning, adjust, and repeat. The relationship between cause and effect was slow, which meant you built strong mental models — you had to, because you couldn't just see it.

That slowness had a hidden benefit: it forced you to think before you acted. Every choice had cost.

What changes when you see it live

When I moved into real-time work and started running LED stages, everything accelerated. Directors could respond to what was actually in front of them, not a simulation of a simulation of it.

That's genuinely powerful — but it also surfaces a different set of problems. The tools became faster. The decisions didn't.

In practice

Here's an example from WASTELAND, a short film I directed that was fully previsualized in Unreal Engine before a single frame was shot:

The ability to walk a director through a complete edit in real-time, adjusting camera angles and lighting live, fundamentally changes the conversation on set.

The artist in the loop

Real-time rendering changes the job description for everyone. The gaffer, the DP, the VFX supervisor — everyone needs to understand that what they're seeing is also the output, at least in part.

What I find interesting is how much of the old discipline still applies. Understanding light, understanding material, understanding the relationship between a lens and a sensor — none of that goes away. The iteration is just faster, which means good taste matters more, not less.

When the feedback loop collapses, you no longer have overnight renders to hide mediocre decisions. Everything is live. The room sees it. You have to know what you're doing, and you have to know it quickly.

More on this when I've had time to think it through properly.