Some (maybe new !) ideas about Isaac photos.

[Gfamad]

First at all, let me introduce myself. I'm Gfamad (David IRL) and I live in France (so sorry for my bad English  ) near a town called Lyon

I have since a long date a great interest for the UFO phenomen. I also know since about twenty years CGI: On Atari ST with GFA raytrace, On Amiga with Real 3D, and on PC with PovrAy, 3D Studio, 3DSmax, Lightwave, Cinema 4D..., and of course Blender ! But I'm only an amateur, because I'm really not an artist at all.

Three days ago I discovered the Drone story and I found it very impressive. I read many topic of this forum (and the FAQ, of course !) and I like the way you study the phenomen: The scientific way.

It's important for me to say that I really hope the drone phenomen is true because those photo are simply amazing.

But I'm gonna raise some strange points about some photo, and I hope you will find the way to destroy my doubt. Again, I'm not here to say those photo are fake. But I will bring what I know about CGI in order to (maybe) help you in your quest (understanding the drone phenomen).

Let's begin know !

-First at all, you speak a lot about radiosity. But you need to know that there are today some new rendering technic better than radiosity, they are called 'Unibiased render engine' and they are a great milestone in CGI. Those program can compute a picture wich will take time to render (in fact, the time is infinite, but you can stop the rendering process when you reach the quality you want) but you will obtain a photorealistic picture.
I give here 2 links for Indigo and Luxrender. Visit the gallery if you want to discover what they can do:
http://www.luxrender.net/
http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/

-Know, if you don't mind, I would like to speak about the Isaac photos. (And I sincerly hope you will say I'm wrong !!!)

When I saw those photo first, I said to myself 'Hey, some great render with AO' (ambiant occlusion). AO is a technic to create an ambient light that came from everywhere. It's the same effect that Radiosity (or Unbiased render technique) with a sky dome around.

This why to light the scene is easy to recognize because:
*There is no specular Highlight
*There is no preferred direction for the shadow.

When I look at the Issac photo, that's the first thing that hit me: No specific light, no specular point, and all seems white around.

If it's a real photograph, maybe you can help me to understand: Is it possible indoor to put light everywhere to have the same effect ? (ie no specularity). I understand how to make this in CGI, but not IRL. Surely I missed something ! (Outdoor, you could have this effect with no sun, and an uniform white sky...)

A last thing, about Chad photo (again, I'm not an expert photograph !), in fifth photo of Chad (scannedimage-4.jpg), is it logic that the UFO is sharp and the tree is...well less sharper ? (I'm not talking about the 'aliasing problem' on the spike !). Should'nt they have the same level of sharpness ?

That's the end. Sorry to have bother you with those problem, but I'm really interested about this phenomen, but there are so many hoaxer on the net that it's important to analyse before believing.

Thanks for your attention and I hope one day the truth about the drone will be known.

Gfamad

[leviathan]

Welcome Gfamad.  Your questions have all been asked before and they are good questions.  As to the A1, in product photography, light tents that reflect light against a white diorama background have been used for years and achieve the same result.  This is a complex and mutilayered subject and has many detractors and debunkers that have their own agendas.  If you are new to this, then it will take you a while to come up to speed, but you have come to a good starting place.  Take your time to learn of this subject, I promise it will not disappoint and I can tell there is much life left in this event.  Somewhere someone is working hard on what they think will be the next round of this mystery.  The only thing is some are well aware of this diligent work and are preparing for it.  You may have come at an interesting time.
Be seeing you in time
L E V I A T H A N

[tomi]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The trees being less in focus could be a solid reason for the camera to have been set on autofocus.  Please see this link:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-autofocus.htm

[HPO]

Welcome Gfamad,...always good to have another CG expert/user.

About the scanned image 4,...like Tomi said this can be explained by autofocus, I don't know the camera model of the chad photo's but on lots of camera's you can set the autofocus on "spot metering" mode, this way only the center of the picture gets in focus.
Here's an example of some  different auto focus metering modes.



But another option is the totally opposite of course, the camera may have been an older analog SLR model with no autofocus option and the photographer had to adjust the focus manually through the viewfinder; it's an scanned image afterall.

[Gfamad]

Thanks Leviathan and Tomi for your answers.

I've never heard about Light Tent and I must admit that you're totally right: Those pictures could be some photo made in this kind of tent. Very interesting !

The autofocus could also explain the second problem I talk about.

I'm trying to do my best to understand and summarize all the work made since one year. Not easy ! But highly fascinating.

But one thing I can't understand: Hoaxer. Why by the hell are they doing such things ? They create false pictures, they post false sights at MUFON, and then, they pollute what could be a real scientific study. I think of course of guys like Walter and his Oregon and Michigan drones...

I really don't understand. Creating false UFO, OK, but then, say it !

I hope that Chad and the others are not hoaxer, because it would be than a great waste of time for the DRT.

Whatever, congratulation to the DRT for your work.

Gfamad

[Nemo492]

LightBox. One of the many models..

[nekitamo]

Picked the wrong illustration?
The above descriptions are about light metering modes for autoexposure, not autofocus... here are some usual autofocus options:

http://blog.epicedits.com/2008/04/21/understanding-your-autofocus-options/

[Gfamad]

Don't worry, I've checked about autofocus on the link Tomi gave me so no problem !

Gfamad

[10538]

A last thing, about Chad photo (again, I'm not an expert photograph !), in fifth photo of Chad (scannedimage-4.jpg), is it logic that the UFO is sharp and the tree is...well less sharper ? (I'm not talking about the 'aliasing problem' on the spike !). Should'nt they have the same level of sharpness ?

Depth of Field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

But what's important about Tomi's point is if the Chad camera is using autofocus (which most cameras these days use) what is the camera focusing on?  Certainly not focusing on the French Broom bush.   What would be the focus state of the bush if the drone was not actually there?  Would the camera try to focus on the bush or would it instead try to focus on the blank sky?  If it try to focus of blank sky how far out of focus would the bush be?  Of course aperture setting and focal length would be factors.

[majicbar]

But one thing I can't understand: Hoaxer. Why by the hell are they doing such things ? They create false pictures, they post false sights at MUFON, and then, they pollute what could be a real scientific study. I think of course of guys like Walter and his Oregon and Michigan drones...

Gfamad, this is just like graffiti, the "artist" is leaving their mark, just like a dog, it is their nature. These persons have no regard for science, truth or society: they only desire that they express their existence and everyone else recognize that existence, even if it be obnoxious and negative.

Mod edit : fixing Quote

[tomi]

Objects probably photgraphed in lightboxes with various light effects: sharp and industrial to soft outdoor light.

http://www.canstockphoto.com/search.php?term=object&type=0&orient=all&cat=&exclude=&hex=&search=Search&pg=2&pg=3&pg=4&pg=5

[HPO]

Picked the wrong illustration?
The above descriptions are about light metering modes for autoexposure, not autofocus... here are some usual autofocus options:

http://blog.epicedits.com/2008/04/21/understanding-your-autofocus-options/

OMG  ,...your right,... sorry about that, I went through the autofocus pages in the pdf manual of my camera to find the picture of the spots in my viewfinder, I went a few pages to far in the manual, that's about the meteringmodes for autoexposure. (I didn't even read the text, I was in a hurry  )

What I meant of course is that you can select the center spot in the viewfinder in lots of camera's, so the camera only focuses on the center object, not the plants aside the object in the picture that are closer to you.

[10538]

(I'm not talking about the 'aliasing problem' on the spike !).

The jaggies are covered in the faq http://ovnis-usa.com/drone_investigation_FAQ.pdf

[img]

[Diouf]

I hope that Chad and the others are not hoaxer, because it would be than a great waste of time for the DRT.

Hi Gfamad and welcome,

No, it would'nt be a waste of time at all !  Searching for the truth is never a waste of time, some of us on this board would be disappointed but also happy at resolving such a case. What a ride it's been so far !
 

[Gfamad]

Yes 10538, I have already completly read the FAQ, so that's why I said "I'm not talking about the spike".

For Diouf: OK, it's not completly a waste of time because we will learn a lot of thing about CGI and photo, but for the UFO case, it should be ... a waste of time... 

Gfamad