GORAN PAVLES
VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR
STORMBORN VFX | WWW.STORMBORNVFX.COM | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @stormbornvfx | Facebook: @stormbornstudios
Goran is leading the team at Stormborn Studios, an Emmy and VES Award-winning visual effects company based in Vancouver. With over 15 years of experience in the VFX industry, he specializes in complex FX-driven sequences for film and television. Goran has contributed to major features including 2012, Man of Steel, and 300: Rise of an Empire. More recently he supervised the VFX work on acclaimed series such as Yu Yu Hakusho, 5 Days at Memorial, and The Penguin.
PROF. DR. ANDRÉ THOMAS
CO-HEAD IMMERSIVE REALITIES RESEARCH LAB
LUCERNE UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES AND ARTS | WWW.HSLU.CHENLUCERNE-SCHOOL-OF-INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @hslu_luzern | Facebook: @hslu.ch
André Thomas' passion for game-based learning resonates inside and outside of the classroom. A graduate of LCAD MFA in Game Design, he founded and served as the director of the LIVE Lab [http://live.viz.tamu.edu] in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University, where he also tought game design, game development and interactive graphics techniques. In 2014, he founded Triseum [http://triseum.com], where he serves as CEO and leads the creation of its award winning academic video games. He is an EdTech Leadership award winner, National Academy of Sciences advisory board member, and National Arts Education Association lead instructor, and Chillennium Game Jam chair. Andre also has been invited to speak at numerous education and technology events both in the U.S. and abroad, including SXSW, TEDx, ASU-GSV, BETT, Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, Austrian Ministry of Education and European Schoolnet. His game-based learning insights and ideas are featured in the Huffington Post, Austin Business Journal, eCampus News and Learning Solutions Magazine, to name a few.
With more than 30 years in CGI production, André has worked around the world on legendary video games, live action feature films and memorable commercials. Previously he was Head of Graphics for EA Sports Football games (including NCAA, Head Coach, NFL Tour and Madden, the longest running and most successful sports franchise in games industry). He also created graphics for such notable films as Men in Black, Con Air, Independence Day, Valiant, Ant Bully and Tomorrow Never Dies.
TOBIAS HAUCK
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LEAD
ESRI R&D CENTER STUTTGART | WWW.ESRI.COMEN-USABOUTABOUT-ESRISTUTTGART-RD | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @esrigram | X: @esri | Facebook: @esri
Tobias Hauck is a Software Development Lead at Esri’s Stuttgart Research and Development Center. His work is focused on Reality Mapping - turning imagery and laser scans into accurate, large scale 3D Meshes and Gaussian Splats for GIS and digital twin workflows. With Esri since 2016, Tobias previously worked in feature film visual effects and brings a long standing passion for rendering, computer animation, and 3D environment creation.
ANDREY LEBROV
HEAD OF PRODUCTION
LEBROV MOTION IMAGERY | WWW.LEBROV.COM | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @lebrovmotion
I am deeply passionate about cinematography and image manipulation. I love experimenting and exploring visual concepts in the real world and 3D environments, sharing my discoveries through public speeches and YouTube. I am dedicated to building ecosystems, pipelines, and workflows, continuously optimizing and evolving them. I challenge my highly professional team of artists to leave a lasting impact on the world and make our industry a better place for aspiring creators.
CHRISTIAN TANNER
SENIOR 3D ENVIRONMENT ARTIST
VRBN | WWW.VRBN.IO | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @vrbnstudios | X: @vrbnio | Facebook: @vrbnstudios
Christian holds a Master’s degree in Cinematography from the London Film School. After graduating, he worked as a freelance Director of Photography on short films, music videos, and commercials. Over time, he shifted his focus to postproduction, working as a motion graphic designer and creating CG animations as a freelancer.
He joined vrbn two years ago, where he continues to develop his skills and contribute to a range of projects.
MATTHIAS BUEHLER - HOST
FOUNDER & CTO
VRBN | WWW.VRBN.IO | LINKEDIN
Instagram: @ice_conference | X: @IceConference | Facebook: @iceconf
After graduating from ETH Zurich (MSc Arch ETH), Matthias has worked in landscape architecture, architectural visualization and then has been part of the CityEngine development team for almost 5 years. He has a profound knowledge of 3D Modelling, Rendering, Visualization, Digital Sets and VFX in general.
He has held countless international presentations, workshops and trainings. In the field of 3D Urban Design, 3D Geodesign and Master Planning, he has designed key workflows and pipelines. He specialization is in 3D city related services, consulting, training, procedural city modelling, custom CGA rule development and advanced visualization.
Matthias founded vrbn (say 'urban') as a consultancy and service provider which creates 3D cities and procedural content creation technologies for multiple sectors, such as Games, VFX, Architecture, XR and others which need synthetic data.
Further, he co-organizes industry events such as the CityEngine User Meeting, the ICE.ART 3D Environment Conference (a FMX Conference Partner), is the host of the 3D Environment Podcast and is part of the Board of Managers of the German Section of the Visual Effects Society (VES). Matthias was recently also asked to join the prestigious Associates Board of FMX 2026.