the Wayfinders

Creating a Epic Family Fantasy

The Wayfinders are band of unlikely heroes journey through a fractured realm in search of unity, purpose, and power. This is a wonderful family fantasy series that looks fantastic and never stops entertaining. As the show started to form in editorial, it was clear that many more VFX shots were needed to fully tell the tale, so we arrived late to the party. We were firstly tasked in bringing to life, the initial painful transformation of hero Kevin into becoming the Werebear. This involved several steps, such as adding dynamic deformations to his skin as his skeletal structure changed. Additionally, veins in his face grew and pultruded as his teeth slowly turned into canine-like fangs.  Other work included our bringing realistic fire, disintegration and environmental extensions to the forest set. We also aged-down the ancient hag to the alluring Queen. The most difficult set-piece by far of the series was handed to us for episode 5, where the heroes are attacked by deadly spiders. We had to 3D track a continuously moving shot (dark with no tracking data/markers) of a dark passage way filled with dozens of leaping CGI spiders. The large spiders, created in 3DS-Max were liquid-filled and emitted light as they moved across the walls, jumping on everyone. Due the choreography, each spider was rendered in Corona and composited as a single pass.