A frame from Disney Animation's Encanto, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. I worked on this movie!
A path through a forest, rendered entirely with my hobby renderer, Takua Renderer.
A Scandinavian room, rendered entirely with my hobby renderer, Takua Renderer.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "The Iconoclasts" Art Challenge, for which I got an honorable mention. Blog post coming soon!
My first-place winning entry to Pixar's RenderMan "Shipshape" Art Challenge. See blog post for more.
A frame from Disney Animation's Raya and the Last Dragon, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. I worked on this movie!
Some ferns in a forest, rendered entirely with my hobby renderer, Takua Renderer.
A frame from Disney Animation's Frozen 2, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. I worked on this movie!
A vase of purple flowers, rendered entirely with my hobby renderer, Takua Renderer.
A frame from Disney Animation's Moana, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. I worked on this movie!
A frame from Disney Animation's Zootopia, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. I worked on this movie!

Hello, I'm Karl (or, in Chinese: 黎忆宁)!

Born in Hannover, Germany and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I am a senior software engineer at Walt Disney Animation Studios working on Disney's Hyperion Renderer. As part of the Hyperion team, I've worked on every Disney Animation theatrical release starting from Zootopia. I am very happily married to Harmony M. Li!

My areas of interest cover all things production rendering, including topics such as advanced light transport, renderer architectures, raytracing on interesting hardware, volume rendering, surface appearance, and more.

I am also a Master of Science in Computer Graphics candidate at Cornell University's Program of Computer Graphics. I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where I was part of CG@Penn and a student at The Wharton School. Previously, I have also worked at Pixar Animation Studios and Dreamworks Animation.

News:

2021.11.24: Encanto is out in theaters!

2021.11.16: My entry to Pixar's RenderMan 'The Iconoclasts' Art Challenge got an honorable mention!

2021.10.25: New blog post about the Apple M1 Max chip.

2021.09.07: New blog post comparing SIMD programming on x86-64 and arm64.

Older news...