From a reporter to a troll: Daily Newser and daughter try out motion capture technology used on 'The Hobbit'

From a reporter to a troll: Daily Newser and daughter try out motion capture technology used on 'The Hobbit'

WELLINGTON, New Zealand â€" Glancing into the monitor screen, it was amazing to see what the performance capture wizards at Weta Digital â€" the special effects house behind “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” â€" could do to with this Daily News reporter.

Through the miracle of cutting-edge technology, I turned into a very convincing troll in a ridiculously tight costume of gray Lycra pocked with reflective markers.

Unfortunately, it turned out I was looking into a mirror, not a monitor.

As director Peter Jackson’s hometown was getting ready for the world premiere of the first installment in the prequel trilogy to “The Lord of the Rings” movies, my 8-year-old daughter, Naomi, and I were getting a behind-the-scenes look at the technology that brought characters like Gollum to life.

Taking us through the performance-capture process (the artistry formerly known as motion capture or “mo cap”) were four-time Academy Award winner Joe Letteri, the head of Weta digital, and Eric Saindon, the visual effects supervisor on “The Hobbit.”

As for the actors who were turned into convincing Na’vi warriors in 2009’s “Avatar” or trolls in “The Hobbit,” these Lycra suits with reflectors were used to translate Naomi’s and my movements into computer-animated “digital puppets” that move the exact same way.

“My first shot in ‘Lord of the Rings’ was 6,000 feet up on Mount Ruapehu (a very active volcano in New Zealand) in a very skintight spandex suit in front of 200 people, so it was quite exposing,” Andy Serkis, Gollum himself, warned me a day earlier.

There were only 25 witnesses â€" mostly technicians â€" to see me in a suit so tight that it doesn’t leave much to the imagination. I instantly regretted some of my past lifestyle choices, particularly an affinity for Buffalo wings.

These getups are tight for a reason: Those 60 or so reflectors have to be close to key points on the body when they’re picked up by the dozens of special cameras lining an area called “the volume.”

Inside the volume, the cameras triangulated the data as we move, feeding into a computer program that plots out a three-dimensional figure, moving the same way as the actor. In Naomi’s and my case, it’s a dwarf and a troll.

Our scene was simple: As three other trolls (played by Weta regulars) and I sit around a cauldron of soup, Naomi’s dwarf sneaks up behind them and stabs my troll in the rear. As my character hops around on one foot, she brings down her broadsword â€" spotted with reflective markers of its own â€" on my giant foot and runs off as a severely annoyed troll hobbles after her. Colored tape marks the spots we’re supposed to stand or run.

Because of the difference in scale between the giant troll and the dwarf hero, Naomi is actually jabbing her prop in the air and hitting a gray foam “foot” about five yards away from me. Through the magic of camera angles, the computer will read the movements of a creature more gigantic than I am next to a warrior of Naomi’s height.