Sam Gebhardt is an immersive experience designer and XR entrepreneur with three decades across VFX, computer animation, and interactive media. His career spans 3D environment art, real-time rendering, and game concept design — skills he’s now turning toward something he believes the industry has barely scratched: democratizing the ride film pipeline.

Using Unreal Engine and optimized real-time rendering — deliberately avoiding path tracing — Sam has developed a workflow that lets a handful of consumer-grade machines produce dome and large-format ride content that once demanded industrial render farms and million-dollar budgets. Faster iteration, lower cost, and no waiting days for a frame.

That shift in what’s possible is exactly what drives The Magic Ride Foundation, his nonprofit bringing immersive VR and dome projection experiences to children in hospitals. At SIGGRAPH 2026, Sam shares how cutting-edge real-time pipelines can do more than entertain — they can give a kid in a hospital bed somewhere else to be, something to look forward to, and a few moments where the hardest part of their life quietly fades into the background.