sunalei,

personally i think it's kind of nonsense, although just judgeing from a msn chat snippet i might misunderstanding what he meant. but just just because "isaac" said "I'm using the alias Isaac" to think that he must be working with rendering software, because of alias|wavefront? weird thought imo.

antialiasing having to do with the company alias is bs, because the term was used in the 70's already.

the use of the caret in ascii tables just means that the character is a control character. eg. ^D (end of file/transmission) or ^M (carriage return) etc. it doesn't have anything to do with unix or whatever, especially not as you don't enter it like this; you rather use the ctrl key (ctrl-C, ctrl-D etc).

Becker44 good post, that's one way to do it. I was starting to get 'search the proper source' kind of panic here

Originally posted by PsykoOps

Originally posted by 11 11
I can find flaws on this CGI render all day...

You're of course assuming it's cgi, if it were a photograph I wouldn't be at all surprised to not to see highlights.

How can that be? As glossy/reflective as that surface is it should have white hot highlights firing off the tops of the parts.

Springer...

Originally posted by 11 11
He was talking about how the "language" or "charachters" have multiple meanings and funcitons. It striked me right then and there, that he is talking about "Variables". Which are used in computer programming langauges to hold different valuse and different functions.

i disagree strongly, what he said about how the "language" works is actually pretty much the opposite. a variable is a container, nothing more. what he was describing sounded more, if at all, like some kind of autonomous program objects which would change their function and contents regarding to the context they are in.

You can eliminate highlights and reflections of specific parts by using 1 polarizing filter on the camera and if you want to get rid of all highlights from all reflective surfaces you use one polarizer in the light source too.
Then there's of course the possibility of using product tent and such.

Originally posted by 11 11
You are correct, it does depend on the material. But this object is already reflecting the light from the white background. If the light source is reflecting off of the white background on to the object, then you SHOULD see the light source "highlight", every reflecting object in the world has the "highlight" from the light source. Just look around your house.... find anything reflective and put it under a light, and look for the brightest spot on the object, it will be the "highlight".

i think you have a point there; frankly i'm not well versed enough in optics (at all) to judge it - someone else step in please

[edit on 29-6-2007 by Lamâshtu]

Originally posted by Springer
How can that be? As glossy/reflective as that surface is it should have white hot highlights firing off the tops of the parts.

Springer...

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't black absorb light to some degree?

While, being as honest and unbiased as possible, I have to believe this is CGI (not so much on the basis of the pictures, just on the basis of the likelihood of the whole story) I do not think any CGI artist or skeptic is going to be able to definitively, and I mean definitively prove this is CGI.

It's not a lack of "trust", or even a lack of evidence. If were are going to evaluate this it has to be done judicially, in a similar fashion that any court case would be conducted. All the evidence must be weighed up both by itself and in context.

The truth is, no one CGI argument can be the smoking gun, in the same way that no counter-argument can be 100% watertight. Pointing out shadows, highlights, discrepancies, similar pictures or examples, whilst useful in evaluating the CGI, do not definitively 'prove' anything. I can't think of any CGI argument which is going to make my jaw drop and say "that's it, that's the proof". I think all the arguments must be duly noted - they are compelling and offer slivers of proof that this could very easily be CGI. Anybody, however, who thinks that they have or even could find 'the smoking gun' to prove these as hoaxes is misguided. When it comes to images, the evidence is always sketchy and objective. It's the same as arguing about marked rocks on the moon pictures, or the shadows in Lee Harvey Oswald's photo. Sure, it's interesting, to some it may even be compelling. But, it's not proof. At no point has any piece of evidence become irrefutable, because visual evidence can be subject to so much manipulation, scrutiny and bias these days that any picture can be faked, or any genuine anomaly occur in an otherwise unrealistic looking photo.

The very fact that, to this day, so many people argue about the shadows and shading and composition in other photos is proof that waving your arms saying "this can't be real!" doesn't really help. Whilst I welcome the arguments both for and against CGI (and myself lean towards the conclusions that, as much as I wish it wasn't, this very likely is CGI) this thread is starting to descend into a bit of a "two camp" scenario - where one camp is becoming to desperate to prove their theory that they simply do not listen to and actively distrust the other camp.

We should be working together to solve this one, and any other hoax. What we should be doing, instead of banging our heads against walls screaming "it's definitely CGI, you're an idiot if you can't see it", is admitting that the CGI/not CGI argument isn't a strong or conclusive enough strand of this thread to make an overall claim on.

To cut a long story short - we don't yet have the necessary evidence to make a complete argument. I think we all have the right and even the obligation to post up our observations and ideas, but I'm starting to read posts which do little more than defend one viewpoint and offensively attack another. If you want to change opinions, you have to bring a well rounded, clear argument to the table. Unfortunately, you can't pick one piece of evidence and keep hammering it to people, and shouting at them when they dispute it. Nobody, believer or non-believer, can make the case for this yet, and instead we should be discussing the merits of arguments, not just shouting out the same arguments repeatedly. I think the CGI arguments are compelling, but they aren't definitive proof of this being a hoax. Therefore, we have to look elsewhere.

I think we're just going to have to wait on this one, and keep discussing (the operative word being 'discussing') the pros and cons in the meantime.

Originally posted by jbondo
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't black absorb light to some degree?

energy, but not "light" per se ... like a black sportscar, it will get mightily hot inside in the sun, but still reflect the sunlight.

With the curvature and color of the parts I would think that light would wash down over it as apposed to reflecting off of it?

i perfectly agree with corda.

(on a sidenote, and my last post regarding cgi, is that in the 80's you might as well as today have tweaked the photo. not in photoshop, but on the print films ... so every kind of highlight or shadow or whatever could have been manually added, removed, or altered by conventional lithography means, for effect or clarification or aesthetical reasons or whatnot - which actually is exactly what photoshop does digitally.)

edit for typos.

[edit on 29-6-2007 by Lamâshtu]

The images Becker44 showed us the "clarity" or reflective value of the knife blade is horridly dull (like they may have sprayed it) and nothing like what we see in the CARET images that lack highlights.

Additionally, the images in the photgraphy school site DO have highlights, everyone of them, some are very slight but present none the less.

The CARET images show a crystal clear reflect surface (no diffusion at all on that shiny surface) that is so clear it's reflecting the opposite side of the part but ZERO highlight, it's the exact same light quality all over the surface.

That's simply impossible with those huge blobby shadows under them, light box or not. I used lightboxes back in the '80s and we either had spray oil to dull the chrome surfaces (Harley-Davidson Chrome) or cut the light down to a point where there were no shadows.

Springer...

Originally posted by 11 11
The object should show highlights of each light around it. If this is such a reflective surface enought to act like a mirror, it should be mirroring the actual light source, but it isn't. This is because CGI rendering software tend to ignore the actual highlight of the light source.

Besides the obvious lighting, and mirror reflecting errors, this object just so happens to be using blob shadows and a default white background used by many many many rendering software packages...

You are flogging a dead horse here, 11 11.

As others have tried to tell you, it is possible to take photos of highly reflective objects featuring a shadow without having highlights. It is done ALL the time for product catalogues. What is less usual is to find a 3D rendering package that will leave those highlights out, unless each surface texture is created to have a high reflectivity and no specular highlight. It certainly wouldn't be on any kind of default setting, and you do not have to create such aspects of a scene's "reality" independently.

Edit to add:
Springer, it can be done relatively easily AS LONG as you don't mind the shadows. It is only hard to achieve if you want a pure white background without shadows. Then it is almost impossible to have the required level of exposure on the background with a diffuse enough light source.

A reflected or polarised light-source (google honeycomb filters to see a very cheap way of polarising studio lights) could give a diffuse enough light source to eliminate harsh highlights, as would have been done in this case to enhance clarity of detail. See how "soft" the shadows are? That's because they were caused by a diffuse light source. Hard edged shadows and no highlight? That would be suspicious. These are not.

I would assume two large soft-boxes were used, one on either side , or possibly shooting at a flat white ceiling If this were not diffuse enough, turn the soft-boxes away from the subject and reflect the light off large flat-white reflectors. The area behind the photographer is kept as black as possible for as wide an area as possible. With a decently equipped studio of a decent size, the lighting is not, in my opinion, unahievable or even uncommon.

[edit on 29-6-2007 by Karilla]

Is that a RP 'bleach bottle' launcher under the UFO? Looks weird to me (first piccy chewer).

I just noticed a very interesting detail in one of the report photographs: one of the circular elements laid out appears to be broken. This would back up the idea that these artefacts were recovered from crashes. Has anybody, Springer in particular given your obvious experience running these boards, ever seen this level of detail in a hoax before? Not that that necessarily confirms it, record's are there to be broken.

Originally posted by Karilla
You are flogging a dead horse here, 11 11.

As others have tried to tell you, it is possible to take photos of highly reflective objects featuring a shadow without having highlights.

No, I am not flogging a dead horse. Also, no, you are completly wrong, it is not possible to take photos of highly reflective objects featuring a shadow, without having highlights... PERIOD.

Show me one example and I will believe you...

I don't think you guys understand that "hightlights" are the actual reflections of the light source itself. Unless you get rid of the light, you will ALWAYS have a highlight. Always!