(EDIT) Okay, someone in the looong drone thread linked to the debunking:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
That pretty much has everything that can be said about these fakes and I completely agree with "the secret web". The drone pictures are fakes
created by a relative beginner using default settings in his programs.
As for my creditentials, I've got 9 years of experience in computer graphics, with last 3 years spent working as a Photoshop artist in a special
effects company.
(/EDIT)
I think there was some mention of somebody making a re-creation of the pictures. I too would like to find those pics.
Anybody with experience with 3D can say the drone pictures are hoaxes. The lighting, the shapes of the craft*, they just scream out it's made on a
computer. Unfortunately it's very hard to explain that to someone who hasn't got the experience.
Show the drone pictures to some computer graphics professional and they say "that's a hoax, they've used Global Illumination". Show them the Haiti
UFO videos and they go "This has to be a hoax, but how did they do it?". But the Haiti videos had a smoking gun in the form of the tree models, that
was easy to show to people. But when it's just overall crappiness it's so much harder to prove.
This drone stuff pisses me off professionally, because the guy who made them is not nearly good enough to get this much attention. Not to mention the
morality of a lot of people buying into an obious hoax.
*The lighting.
It's a technique called Global Illumination. It basicly has the light come from a dome - like outside on an overcast day. This creates realistic soft
shadows and looks very pleasing to the eye. It's often used for test rendering of models because it shows off detail very nicely. However it's very
recognisable once you've seen a lot of images using it.
The shapes.
Pretty much every 3D program has some basic geometric shapes that you can use to build a model. You start with a disc or a box and then you start
modifying them. Inside the program these basic shapes are built out of polygons, that's triangles. Most often they are handled as squares (two
triangles but together). Once you construct a shape of these basic shapes you can add details to them easily by selecting these individual squares
inside you can then "bevel" them, raising or lowering the squares and adding tapering to the edges etc. This is how extra detail is often created to
3D models. Now the drones (especially in the first pictures) are constructed of mostly basic shapes that have then been modified by tapering, beveling
and cutting holes - all very basic tools of 3D modeling.
As I said, there isn't a smoking gun here. It's hard to understand these things if you've never made a 3D model yourself. Once you do it you start
to spot the pieces and techniques that are used building the models, like a construction worker or architect would recognise different kinds of bricks
and elements used in building a house.
[edit on 31-5-2008 by Toveri]