Thijs Smeele graduated from the Netherlands Film Academy in 2025 as a VFX artist and immersive media creator. From a young age, Thijs has been fascinated by the intersection of art and technology, making the VFX & Immersive Media program a perfect fit. During his studies, he developed into both a creative and technically skilled artist.

In 2023, Thijs contributed to the virtual production of A Taste of Friendship (X-Project, Class of 2024). This project sparked his strong interest in Unreal Engine and real-time VFX.

During his internship at Planet X, he helped create digital environments for productions including the television series Bij Heldere Hemel. One of his key responsibilities was developing a system capable of generating more than one hundred unique, photorealistic houses. He also worked on the short film Close Your Eyes Hind, a story about a young girl set entirely in Palestine. For this production, he built a procedural environment that brought a war-torn city to life. During filming, he worked as the Unreal Engine operator, controlling the LED volume and ensuring the virtual environments were displayed correctly in real time.

Thijs graduated with the immersive film project Helleveeg, an interactive narrative in which the user steps into the role of a healer in the year 1596. For this experience, he recorded motion capture and facial capture performances from multiple actors and developed the game logic required to play them back in a realistic and interactive way.

Now he already has more than 5 years of experience in professional film making and virtual production. And more than 3 years experience working with LED technologies.