In Being Human, Syfy's Americanization of the UK horror series (airing Mondays 9/8c), we still have a vampire (Aidan, played by Sam Witwer), werewolf Josh, played by Sam Huntington) and ghost (Sally, played by Meaghan Rath) living together. However, it's Boston instead of Bristol (though shot in Montreal), and the tone is less terrifying, among other things.

Not surprisingly, the centerpiece of the VFX (done mostly by Montreal-based Oblique Effects), is Josh's CG wolf. The rest of the show's vfx revolving around the vampire and ghost and various victims serve a more supporting role and are far less involving.

But the full-on wolf won't be revealed until the eighth episode, "Children Shouldn't Play with Undead Things," which airs March 7.

Meanwhile, we've witnessed Josh's transformation several times, which is more realistic-looking and seemingly more painful for the character than his British counterpart. "We've intentionally not watched the original series because we don't want to be influenced by what they've done," admits Mario Rachiele, the overall visual effects supervisor. "We wanted to leave the artists completely free. Of course, they looked at Twilight and all the other shows where they have werewolves. It's not a werewolf that you expect, I must say. He has very human-like shoulders and upper arms and thighs. We tried to keep some humanity in the wolf. We have kept the actor's actual eyes, which we reproduced in the final wolf. We were trying to keep human parts, but, still, he's supposed to be a bit scary and out of the ordinary. He's going to be a surprise."

The design process began with about a dozen artists trying out different ideas. Of course, there are lots of considerations about depicting various body parts. After some back and forth, the artists took a second pass and the third time around they modify, mixing and matching different aspects more like a Frankenstein monster. In terms of software, they use a bit of everything, including Softimage and Maya. "The example I always give is when we have to motion track a shot, some motion tracking software will automatically track a shot while others won't," Rachiele adds. "You just change a shot and that software will work better for that kind of shot. Again, for animating the wolf, the principal animator uses Softimage because he's used to it.