Photos: Being Iron Man, in real time

At Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco, motion-capture specialists work with a system that allows them to shoot video of an actor in a special suit and then have his or her movements reflected in real time in 3D. The idea is that they can superimpose the animation of the actor on just about any kind of background, allowing for a much more diverse, and more efficient, selection of potential settings for a movie scene.

Here, Iron Man is superimposed on a background of a desert setting. An actor in a motion-capture suit can be filmed and his or her movements reflected in real time by the Iron Man character.

Photo by Daniel Terdiman/CNET News

Caption by Daniel Terdiman