Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge brings the world of the original series to life with 456 contestants competing for a $4.56 million prize. Behind the scenes, the production team focused on achieving a high level of realism and authenticity. For the show’s second season, most visuals were captured on set, but post-production artists enhanced the footage with detailed set extensions and digital effects to closely mirror the look of the scripted series.

To accomplish this, Studio Lambert partnered with VFX studio Lux Aeterna, which contributed visual effects to five of the nine episodes. “Working on a reality series presents unique challenges,” explained Lux Aeterna executive producer Emma Kolasinska. “We often have limited time to capture shots, so we needed efficient methods to ensure every scene matched the original series while preserving the genuine reactions of the contestants. Lidar scanning was essential in delivering highly realistic and detailed visuals.”

Throughout the five episodes, Lux Aeterna used a range of post-production techniques, including:

• Rotoscoping contestants to remove crew members from shots
• Adding strip lighting for visual consistency
• Creating CG environments to extend physical sets

These tasks required careful asset creation and quick turnarounds. “With such a high volume of shots, maintaining consistency across scenes and artists was a top priority,” said Tav Flett, compositing supervisor at Lux Aeterna. Studio Lambert’s VFX supervisor Glenn Kelly and production assistant Josephine Churchill played key roles in organizing the workflow and ensuring quality control.

Due to the fast-paced production, the team often lacked metadata from the original shoot, such as camera settings. To overcome this, Kolasinska and her team relied on lidar scans, which provided detailed 3D representations of the sets. “Lidar scanning was invaluable,” Flett noted. “It gave us precise information about set dimensions and positioning, allowing us to accurately recreate and extend environments in 3D.”

This approach was especially important for the “Mingle” challenge in Episode 4, where contestants stood on a rotating carousel and raced to avoid elimination. While most of the set was physically constructed, the distinctive “big top” ceiling was missing. Using lidar scans, the VFX team created a CG ceiling that matched the set’s dimensions and lighting, ensuring seamless integration with the live-action footage. “The Mingle sequence was one of our most challenging and rewarding projects,” Flett said. “The team handled the technical demands of compositing the CG elements within tight deadlines.”

Bringing the visual effects of a scripted series into a reality competition is a rare achievement, but Studio Lambert and Lux Aeterna succeeded in making viewers feel as if the contestants were truly part of the Squid Game universe. “This project was quite different from our usual work,” Kolasinska reflected. “It was extremely rewarding, and using lidar scans as the foundation for our effects was a unique and exciting challenge.”

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