Professional Projects
Walt Disney Animation Studios' state-of-the-art, in-house production physically based renderer, used on all productions since 2014.
I joined the team in 2015 and work on all parts of the renderer, including core architecture, geometry traversal, lighting and shading, volume rendering, and much more!
The 64th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Coming to theaters November 2025.
On project from late 2023 to present.
The 63rd feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Worked on water rendering, volume rendering, shading, traversal, next-generation tech, and more! Released November 2024.
On project from late 2022 to late 2024. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 62nd feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, celebrating 100 years of Disney Animation. Rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Worked on stylized rendering, next-generation tech, shading, traversal, and more! Released November 2023.
On project from late 2021 to late 2023. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 61st feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Worked on volume rendering, next-generation tech, shading, and more! Released November 2022.
On project from mid 2020 to late 2022. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
Disney+ series by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2022.
On project from early 2021 to early 2022. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
Disney+ series by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released June 2022.
On project from early 2021 to early 2022. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 60th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2021. Worked on next-generation rendering, camera features, shading, and more!
On project from late 2019 to late 2021. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 59th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released March 2021. Worked on lights, camera bokeh, volume rendering, renderer performance, and more!
On project from early 2018 to late 2020. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 58th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2019. Worked on lights, shading, volume rendering, path guiding, and more!
On project from mid 2017 to late 2019. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 57th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2018. Worked on volume rendering, geometric complexity, BVH rebraiding, traversal, core renderer architecture, and more!
On project from late 2016 to late 2018. Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
Featurette by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2017. Worked on volume rendering, traversal, photon mapping, and more!
On project from late 2016 to early 2017. Credited for special technology development as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 56th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released November 2016. Parts of Hyperion I worked on for Moana: lighting/rendering, curve rendering for feathers and vegetation, geometric efficiency, and more.
On project from mid 2015 to late 2016. My first film credit! Credited as part of the Hyperion Renderer team.
The 55th feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, rendered entirely using Disney's Hyperion Renderer. Released March 2016. I mostly did support and minor bugfixes to the renderer, since I was very new to the studio at the time.
On project in mid 2015. Uncredited.
Publications
Authors: Yining Karl Li, Charlotte Zhu, Gregory Nichols, Peter Kutz, Wei-Feng Wayne Huang, David Adler, Brent Burley, and Daniel Teece
DigiPro '24: Proceedings of the Digital Production Symposium 2024, Jul 2024. Article No. 6. DOI: 10.1145/3665320.3670993. Denver, CO, USA, July 27, 2024
Authors: Brent Burley, David Adler, Matt Jen-Yuan Chiang, Ralf Habel, Patrick Kelly, Peter Kutz, Yining Karl Li, and Daniel Teece
Course Notes for "Path Tracing in Production, Part 1",
Pages 26-34. ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Courses. DOI: 10.1145/3084873.3084904. Los Angeles, CA, USA, July 30-August 3, 2017
Selected Personal Projects
A high-performance, physically based renderer written in C++11 with a focus on state-of-the-art light transport, material models, and advanced production-quality features. Also used to explore renderer architecture ideas and concepts.
Developed 2011 to present. I continue to work on Takua in my free time as my primary personal hobby/research project.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "Lost Things" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by Pixar. My piece got an honorable mention.
Created in 2023. Done just for fun.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "NASA Exploration" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by NASA and Pixar. My piece got an honorable mention.
Created in 2022. Done mostly for fun but also as a vehicle for experimenting with RenderMan XPU.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "The Iconoclasts" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by Pixar. My piece got an honorable mention.
Created in 2021. Done mostly for fun but also as a vehicle for experimenting with new RenderMan 24 features and for learning to write RenderMan plugins.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "Magic Shop" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by Pixar. My piece won third place!
Created in 2020. Done mostly for fun but also as a vehicle for learning RenderMan, XGen, Substance Painter, and other tools.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "Shipshape" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by Pixar. My piece won first place!
Created in 2020. Done mostly for fun but also as a vehicle for learning RenderMan, Substance Painter, and other tools.
My entry to Pixar's RenderMan "Woodville" Art Challenge. Responsible for creating everything on top of base models provided by Pixar. My piece got an honorable mention.
Created in 2019. Done mostly for fun but also as a vehicle for learning RenderMan, Houdini, ZBrush, Substance Painter, and other tools.
An experimental fluid simulator written in C++11 from scratch, based on the popular PIC/FLIP fluid solver algorithm. Includes exact raycast-based fluid-solid boundary detection, meshing via OpenVDB, and Houdini integration via Partio.
Developed in 2013 and 2014. Originally written for a class final project, then expanded out of personal interest.
Prototype/experimental GPU pathtracer written in CUDA from scratch. Developed to explore the feasibility of building high performance physically based renderers on GPUs. This was before GPU pathtracing was very common!
Developed in 2012. Written for a class final project in collaboration with Peter Kutz.
A Semi-Lagrangian fluid simulator written in C++, capable of simulating multiple liquids with various properties interacting with an environment and each other. Based on the paper Multiple Interacting Liquids by Losasso et al.
Developed in 2012. Written for a class final project in collaboration with Dan Knowlton.
A Semi-Lagrangian smoke simulator and integrated volumetric renderer written in C++. The smoke simulator uses MAC-grid advection and a preconditioned conjugant gradient solver. The volume renderer is a simple raymarcher with blackbody emission and was written from scratch.
Developed in 2011 and 2012. Originally written for two classes and then extended out of personal interest.
A mass-spring damper system capable of simulating multiple interacting jello cubes, along with environment-jello interaction.
Developed in 2012. Originally written for a class project that only required a single jello cube interacting with a plane, and then heavily extended out of personal interest.
My old projects page can be found
here.
