More fakes

I had some free time today, so I started playing with some graphic software. Y'know, these things are just too easy to create these days; it's really time to demand a higher standard of fake UFO pictures.

So was it hubcaps you used?

Originally posted by rand
I had some free time today, so I started playing with some graphic software. Y'know, these things are just too easy to create these days; it's really time to demand a higher standard of fake UFO pictures.

All the look what I can do threads arn't helping,they're hindering.

Originally posted by AlBeMet
So was it hubcaps you used?

Nope, been here in the dungeon -- I mean 'office' -- all day.
Blender3d + Gimp

Originally posted by rand

Originally posted by AlBeMet
So was it hubcaps you used?

Nope, been here in the dungeon -- I mean 'office' -- all day.
Blender3d + Gimp

I rest my case.

rand Nice image but.....I don't know that threads like this are really that useful. This is the 2nd one I've seen like this posted in a week. It will more than likely catch the ire of some on this forum.
Validating how affordable or free software can be used to create hoaxed images kind of runs counter to the idea of analysing specific posted photos or videos posted as proof.

For me, it's a given that a very high percentage of UFO-Alien pics/videos posted are outright hoaxes. To a lesser degree others are simply unidentified objects. Software examples like this may encourage the former rather than help explain the later.

--

Creative Venting?: If people had a place to 'vent' their creative UFO/Alien pics,videos, and stories on an ATS gallery, they might be less prone to posting materials as legit just to have them explained away.



[edit on 1-9-2006 by nullster]

Originally posted by kuhl
All the look what I can do threads arn't helping,they're hindering.

Originally posted by nullster
I don't know that threads like this are really that useful.

I have to disagree there. If people are to learn to spot a fake, isn't it better to have a range of true fakes to examine?

Proving that a UFO pic/vid/recording is not genuine is at best an excercise in futility, not only because the source material is still going to be loudly proclaimed as smoking-gun proof in multiple books and websites, or because because most UFOs are unprovable at all, but mainly because the viewer is forced to attempt to prove a negative, which is never an easy job.

Creative Venting?: If people had a place to 'vent' their creative UFO/Alien pics,videos, and stories on an ATS gallery, they might be less prone to posting materials as legit just to have them explained away.

Good thought but perhaps not so much 'venting' as demonstrating. An archive of known fakes, to examine and disect without having to convince at the same time. Maybe we need more how-to-make-a-UFO tutorials from the real graphic gurus who hang around here.

There need to be more people with CG experience, the more the better. Computers give us the tools we need to recreate the images that we've been spoon-fed for decades, and in the process perhaps learn how they were made, if they're fake, and more important, might allow us to find the precious few that which are genuine.

In that vein, anyone know the main problem with these images (besides the unmoving foliage -- I only had one landscape pic available)? Hint: it's the same kind of problems Disney had with "The Flight of the Navigator" -- and, no, it's not PeeWee Herman.

Originally posted by kuhl
All the look what I can do threads arn't helping,they're hindering.

Originally posted by nullster
I don't know that threads like this are really that useful.

I have to disagree there. If people are to learn to spot a fake, isn't it better to have a range of true fakes to examine?

Proving that a UFO pic/vid/recording is not genuine is at best an excercise in futility, not only because the source material is still going to be loudly proclaimed as smoking-gun proof in multiple books and websites, or because because most UFOs are unprovable at all, but mainly because the viewer is forced to attempt to prove a negative, which is never an easy job.

Creative Venting?: If people had a place to 'vent' their creative UFO/Alien pics,videos, and stories on an ATS gallery, they might be less prone to posting materials as legit just to have them explained away.

Good thought but perhaps not so much 'venting' as demonstrating. An archive of known fakes, to examine and disect without having to convince at the same time. Maybe we need more how-to-make-a-UFO tutorials from the real graphic gurus who hang around here.

There need to be more people with CG experience, the more the better. Computers give us the tools we need to recreate the images that we've been spoon-fed for decades, and in the process perhaps learn how they were made, if they're fake, and more important, might allow us to find the precious few that which are genuine.

In that vein, anyone know the main problem with these images (besides the unmoving foliage -- I only had one landscape pic available)? Hint: it's the same kind of problems Disney had with "The Flight of the Navigator" -- and, no, it's not PeeWee Herman.

There's a bunch of stuff wrong, the worst being the alpha channel masks. The fringe area of the tress is real bad. Reflection would be wrong if there's ground below it. Sharpness of the disc vs the trees is wrong too.

Originally posted by jritzmann
There's a bunch of stuff wrong, the worst being the alpha channel masks. The fringe area of the tress is real bad. Reflection would be wrong if there's ground below it. Sharpness of the disc vs the trees is wrong too.

Man, JR, you're good.

The tree overlap was added in with just a "darken only" layer, no alpha-channel as such, although the effect is about the same, and I didn't take time to do a proper mask. You hit the reflection problem dead on; it's apparently difficult to get a proper set of reflections unless one builds a fully-realistic 3-d model first -- in frames I've seen from "Navigator" it's definitely visible, the reflections are just not "right" some how. Sharpness: as I said, I only had the one image to play with and it started out fuzzy; I haven't figured out how to get Blender to render a fuzzy image yet (mist or ambient occulsion, perhaps?).

The thing that struck me in "Navigator" was the difference between the CG mirror surfaces and the live-action chrome, and it's a problem here, too. Once you're aware of them, Fresnel effects become really hard to ignore, and are hard to get just right (at least they are for me, so far).