Creating the Disco Light Effect for Lilo & Stitch

Senior Lighting TD Jonathan Wai at Industrial Light & Magic breaks down how he created the disco light effect for the Lilo & Stitch live-action film. He built an animated light texture in Nuke using Glint, Distortion, and chromatic aberration driven by noise patterns, then exported the sequence for use in Katana. Multiple Rect Lights were parented to the disco ball with individual cookie textures to simulate realistic spinning. Animation was extended to 300–400 frames with offset timing to prevent pattern repetition across shots, enabling the setup to be reused by other artists throughout the sequence.