Bridging The Wall And The Rig: Dynamic IBL Workflows In Virtual Production

Introduction by Lou Wallace, Written by Rune Sørgård

Anyone who has lit a process-car shot knows the drill. Somebody watches the driving plate, notes every streetlight, every tunnel entrance, every stretch of tree shadow, and then builds all of it back up as cues on a lighting console. Then the director asks for a different plate and you start over.

Rune Sørgård takes a different approach. Using ASSIMILATE LIVE FX, he can pull lighting information directly from the image and send it to fixtures around the subject. The plate already contains the changing light of the environment, and LIVE FX provides a way of using that information as part of the physical lighting setup.

That is Image-Based Lighting, or IBL. The idea has been around for a while. What follows is a look at how Rune has been using Assimilate LIVE FX in his work, including the Netflix series Blood Sacrifice and a joint virtual production demonstration in Stockholm with VP Nordic, Ljud & Bildmedia and Independent Studios.

Rune Sørgård

I have worked in the live entertainment industry for 30 years, across stage, lighting, sound and technical production.

Today, my work includes virtual production, Image-Based Lighting, playback, technical workflows, education and demonstrations. I also still do traditional lighting programming for film, theatre and live entertainment.

I am a Senior Creative Technologist, Virtual Production and Image-Based Lighting specialist, educator, and ASSIMILATE Live FX Ambassador. I also work for Molkoms Folkhögskola in Sweden, where I manage Studio Molkom.

ASSIMILATE LIVE FX is my preferred tool for both LED playback and Image-Based Lighting.

With LIVE FX, image content can be used as a source for IBL. Lighting fixtures can be mapped to areas of the image, and that information can be sent to the lighting system using sACN.

That means the LED playback and the IBL can be handled within the same environment and based on the same source imagery.

One of the things I particularly like about LIVE FX is the way it handles fixture patching and profiles. It follows concepts that are already familiar from traditional lighting consoles, and it is the best implementation of this I have seen in this type of software. If you already know your way around a lighting console, the approach in LIVE FX becomes familiar very quickly.

Another very important part for me is color management.

When LIVE FX samples an image for IBL, it is not limited to simply taking the RGB values from the source and passing them directly to a fixture. The source image can have its own color space and transfer function, while the fixture can be defined with its own color space and transfer function. LIVE FX can manage that transformation as part of the IBL pipeline.

Individual fixtures can also be color graded after the image has been sampled, which gives me additional control over how the sampled image information is reproduced by the lighting system.

This sits alongside the broader color-management and grading tools in LIVE FX, where the LED output itself can also be color managed and graded in real time. For me, having the playback, IBL and color tools within the same software environment is a very important part of why I like working with LIVE FX.

And Live FX has a virtually unlimited number of universes to use (about 32.000 universes is the limit on sACN). In Live FX, universes refer to standard DMX lighting universes consisting of 512 control channels used to patch, coordinate, and communicate with physical fixtures on set. They stream real-time pixel data from virtual backgrounds over network protocols like sACN and Art-Net so physical studio lights seamlessly match the virtual environment’s ambient color and intensity. 

Blood Sacrifice

One of the clearest examples of my work with ASSIMILATE LIVE FX is the Netflix series Blood Sacrifice, which was produced under the working title The Case.

I worked on the production together with VP-Nordic, using LIVE FX for both LED playback and Image-Based Lighting during the driving sequences.

For the IBL setup, we used four RuPixels 2×4 fixtures around the vehicle, giving me 16 DMX universes of pixel control. An Aputure STORM 1000c was used as the directional sun source.

On Blood Sacrifice, we managed to shoot 14 scenes in one day using two camera setups, which is quite a substantial number to achieve.

The series premiered on Netflix in the Nordics on August 20, 2026 and has remained on the Netflix top lists for a long time.

The Stockholm VP partnership and demo

The work on The Case / Blood Sacrifice also became part of a broader collaboration between VP Nordic, Ljud & Bildmedia and Independent Studios.

The three companies describe the partnership as bringing together LED technology, lighting, cameras and set design in one production environment.

The collaboration began during the production of The Case, which was shot at Studio 55 at Independent Studios, with camera and lighting from Ljud & Bildmedia and LED walls from VP Nordic. That collaboration later continued with the launch of a new dedicated virtual production stage in Stockholm.

On February 19, 2026, the three partners held an opening event with live demonstrations throughout the day. The event was presented jointly by VP Nordic, Ljud & Bildmedia and Independent Studios.

I took part in the demo with my work centered around ASSIMILATE LIVE FX, playback and Image-Based Lighting. My role also included planning the lighting rig and leading the work around setup and execution.

The connection between Blood Sacrifice and the Stockholm demo is straightforward: I had already used LIVE FX for LED playback and IBL on the production, and the demo gave me the opportunity to present that work publicly.

The partners

VP Nordic
vp-nordic.se

VP Nordic brought the virtual production and LED side of the collaboration.

For the Stockholm partnership, VP Nordic built and operates the 14 × 4 metre LED wall and provides the virtual production workflow around it. They were also the company I worked together with on Blood Sacrifice.

Ljud & Bildmedia
ljud-bildmedia.se

Ljud & Bildmedia brought the camera, lighting and grip side of the collaboration.

For the Stockholm demo, they supplied the professional camera and lighting equipment used in the setup. They also supplied camera and lighting for The Case / Blood Sacrifice.

Independent Studios
independentstudios.se

Independent Studios provided the physical studio and production environment.

The partnership uses their Stockholm facilities, including two sound-treated stages, production infrastructure, access for large builds and scenography support through Independent Dekor.

The Case / Blood Sacrifice was shot at Studio 55 at Independent Studios, and the new VP stage was later launched there by the three partners.

My part in the collaboration

My role in the February demo was focused on ASSIMILATE LIVE FX, playback and Image-Based Lighting, as well as planning the lighting rig and leading the work around setup and execution.

That is the same area of work I had used on Blood Sacrifice, where LIVE FX was used for LED playback and IBL for the car-process work.

The production and the later demo therefore give two concrete examples of the same work: one carried out on a Netflix production, and one shown publicly as part of the joint Stockholm VP setup.

Rune Sørgård

I have worked in the live entertainment industry for around 30 years, across stage, lighting, sound and technical production.

Today, my work includes virtual production, Image-Based Lighting, playback, technical workflows, education and demonstrations. I am a Senior Creative Technologist, Virtual Production and Image-Based Lighting specialist, educator, and ASSIMILATE Live FX Ambassador.

I live with my wife, three children and two cats outside Karlstad, Värmland, Sweden.