Henrik Dahlberg

AI and rendering engineering in immersive technology for film, music, and live entertainment.

About

Henrik is an engineer and consultant in AI and computer graphics for film production, live entertainment and immersive experiences. His work spans the full lifecycle of production systems, from research and prototyping through implementation, hardware and software integration, testing, client coordination, deployment, and on-set operations.

Contributor to two Academy Sci-Tech Award-winning projects: Disney's ML Denoiser (2025) and ILM's Lama shading system (2026), both now used industry-wide via Pixar's RenderMan. As engineering lead for the ML Denoiser initiative, he owned scoping, evaluation, and pipeline integration of the AI denoiser that has been used on over 100 films since 2018, including every Pixar film since Toy Story 4. His work on Lama included developing the layerable shaders used for all character and costume rendering on ABBA Voyage, as well as procedural noise systems, dispersion rendering, and hair shading shipped on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, No Time To Die, and Marvel's The Eternals, and now used across all ILM productions and the wider film industry via RenderMan.

Henrik Dahlberg

Henrik built and deployed real-time AI face swap and voice translation systems across film, broadcast, and live events. He developed the neural voice translation pipeline and face swap suite for Eminem's 2023-2024 campaign including the Houdini music video and the 2024 VMAs live performance, served as live operator across 80+ arena shows on Drake's North American tour, built the first live AI voice translation for Cai Guo-Qiang's TED Talk, and delivered voice cloning and holographic face swap technology for the COP28 opening ceremony in Dubai.

Earlier work includes real-time rendering for ILM's StageCraft virtual production system at Pinewood Studios, shipping features for The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and real-time path tracing at Unity Technologies. Henrik holds an M.Sc. in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Aalto University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, with specialisations in Mathematical Statistics and Light Transport Simulation.

News

ILM's Lama Wins 2026 Academy Sci-Tech Award

ILM's Lama Wins 2026 Academy Sci-Tech Award

Lama receives a Technical Achievement Award for its layered material shading framework, now used across the industry via Pixar's RenderMan.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesApril 2026
Disney's ML Denoiser Wins 2025 Academy Sci-Tech Award

Disney's ML Denoiser Wins 2025 Academy Sci-Tech Award

Disney's ML Denoiser receives a Scientific and Engineering Achievement Award. Used on over 100 films since 2018.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesApril 2025

Metaphysic Acquired by DNEG's Brahma AI

Brahma acquires Metaphysic at a $1.43B post-transaction valuation. Metaphysic's voice and face-swap technology becomes part of Brahma's enterprise AI platform.

VarietyFebruary 2025

Eminem's Houdini Wins Two VMAs Including Best Visual Effects

First-ever VMA awarded for a digital character created using an AI-powered pipeline.

MTVSeptember 2024

Selected Work

2x MTV VMA Winner (Best Visual Effects, Best Hip Hop Video)

Eminem

AI Engineer ยท Metaphysic ยท 2023-2024

AI voice and face work across Eminem's 2023-2024 campaign. Built the neural voice translation pipeline and real-time face swap suite for Houdini, PR campaigns with Complex, and the 2024 VMAs live performance.

ABBA Voyage

Rendering Engineer ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2022

ILM digitally recreated the four members of ABBA as photoreal digital humans for the Voyage concert. Four continuous performances were synthesised from the original band members and stand-in actors. I worked on rendering technology and on-set support, and developed the layerable shaders used for all character and costume rendering on the project.

Drake: It's All A Blur Tour

AI Engineer ยท 2023-2024

Live generative AI visuals for Drake's North American arena tour. I served as machine learning engineer and live operator across 80+ shows across North America. Responsible for face swap data curation, model training and deployment, on-site machine setup, system maintenance, client interaction, and real-time operation during each performance.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Rendering Engineer ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2019

Rendering technology and procedural terrain generation using Phasor Noise, a procedural noise function implemented as part of the Lama framework.

The Mandalorian

Real-Time Rendering Engineer ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2023

StageCraft virtual production rendering via the Helios real-time engine for the Disney+ series. On-set technology operations at ILM's LED volume stage.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Real-Time Rendering Engineer ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2022

Developer on Helios, ILM's real-time render engine (Vulkan Ray Tracing) for the StageCraft LED volume. Shipped ray-traced refraction, parallel texture compression, and existence mipmapping with alpha distribution.

Aladdin

Rendering Engineer ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2019

First film with full Lama shading deployment and first ILM production to use the ML denoiser on photorealistic live-action content. I worked on rendering technology and lighting for the CG Genie character and environments.

UNFCCC COP28: Sheikh Zayed Hologram

AI Engineer ยท December 2023

Voice cloning and live face swap pipeline recreating the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan as a hologram for the COP28 opening in Dubai, UAE. The holographic Sheikh Zayed walked on stage and delivered a speech in Arabic to assembled world leaders.

Cai Guo-Qiang: TED2024

AI Engineer ยท Metaphysic ยท April 2024

I built and deployed the real-time Mandarin-to-English voice translation pipeline for artist Cai Guo-Qiang's TED Talk. A custom voice model reproduced Cai's own voice in English, preserving his tonality, timbre, and cadence. The translated speech was output through the PA system as he spoke on stage. A first in TED history.

Still G.I.N. Commercial

AI Engineer ยท Metaphysic ยท 2024

AI face and voice synthesis for the Still Gin commercial by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. The concept featured their interaction with AI-recreated Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in a Rat Pack-era jazz club. We worked with the Sinatra and Davis estates to ensure faithful representation.

Life on Our Planet

Digital Artist ยท Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2023

Rendering and digital artistry for the Netflix nature documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman. Photorealistic CGI creatures spanning 4 billion years of evolution.

Biomutant

Gameplay Programmer ยท Experiment 101 / Goodbye Kansas ยท 2016 (released 2021)

Implemented game mechanics and artist tools in Unreal Engine 4/C++ for THQ Nordic's open-world action RPG.

Technology

2026 Academy Sci-Tech Award (Technical Achievement)

ILM Lama Shading System

Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2018-2021

ILM's layered material shader framework, distributed with Pixar's RenderMan. A modular, physically plausible approach to material composition that expanded shading workflows at ILM and led to broader industry adoption via RenderMan. Since 2019, all ILM CG assets use Lama.

  • Layerable Chiang hair shader (LamaHairChiang)
  • Dispersion rendering (wavelength-dependent refraction)
  • Phasor Noise procedural texture system
  • Sampling efficiency improvements
  • Layering logic and energy compensation
2025 Academy Sci-Tech Award (Scientific and Engineering Achievement)

Disney's Machine Learning Denoiser

Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2018-2021

Engineering lead for ILM's AI denoising initiative. Owned scoping, research evaluation, production testing, and pipeline integration of a U-Net denoiser for Monte Carlo path tracing, developed jointly with Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disney Research. Contributed to pipeline optimisation that enabled large-scale production use and the commercial release in RenderMan 25. Used on over 100 films since 2018, including every Pixar film since Toy Story 4.

    ILM StageCraft / Helios

    Industrial Light & Magic ยท 2021-2023

    Real-time cinematic render engine built with Vulkan Ray Tracing for ILM's StageCraft LED volume virtual production system. Shipped production-facing rendering features and supported delivery in real on-set conditions at Pinewood Studios. Used on The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and other productions.

    • Ray-traced refraction
    • Parallelization of texture compression
    • Existence mipmapping with alpha distribution

    SIGGRAPH 2023 Real-Time Live!

    Metaphysic ยท August 2023

    Presented real-time face swapping technology live on stage at SIGGRAPH 2023 Real-Time Live! in Los Angeles.

    • On-stage presenter and live demo operator

    Publications, Patents & Presentations

    Machine-learning denoising in feature film production

    Henrik Dahlberg, David Adler, Jeremy Newlin

    SIGGRAPH 2019 Talks2019

    Deep Compositional Denoising for High-Quality Monte Carlo Rendering

    Xianyao Zhang, Marco Manzi, Thijs Vogels, Henrik Dahlberg, Markus Gross, Marios Papas

    EGSR 2021 (Computer Graphics Forum)2021

    Huber Loss Reconstruction in Gradient-Domain Path Tracing

    Henrik Dahlberg

    Master's Thesis โ€” Aalto University / KTH2019

    Adaptive sampling using deep learning

    US Patent 12,373,909

    Patent2023

    Metaphysic Live: Real-time Hyperreal Faceswap

    Presenter

    SIGGRAPH 2023 Real-Time Live!Los Angeles