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ssidbroadcast
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Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:32 pm

Hey guys,

So I randomly came across this image when I was putzing around on the web, and after the first 3 to 4 seconds of "oo pretty" a second thought occurred to me. Mainly, why would someone photograph that? That immediately follows "who would have a perfectly polished set of custom cogs, anyway?"

Logically, I came to the possible conclusion that the image is "fake" that is to say, a computer-generated 3d render. Why else would someone take the time to place these objects in a scene but to show off their raytrace renderer? That said, if this is the case then I am mightily impressed. My trained eyes have seen some pretty fancy-schmancy stuff but are pretty good at detecting the barrier between reality and otherwise.

Anyone know if this image is physically real or not? Do you think it's real or generated?

Edit: Bah. The image in question:

Image
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FireGryphon
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:06 pm

I think it's fake, but there's no indication on the page that it's supposed to be a photograph to begin with -- except if you know it's on "shack pics", which I guess implies photographs. This proves once again that the line between reality and computer-generated is being blurred. We'd actually need some pretty powerful software to tell for sure if it's fake...



+10 for the irony here
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DreadCthulhu
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:13 pm

Am I the only one who isn't seeing an image or a link to an image?
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FireGryphon
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:18 pm

DreadCthulhu wrote:
Am I the only one who isn't seeing an image or a link to an image?


Yes.
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BoBzeBuilder
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:24 pm

DreadCthulhu wrote:
Am I the only one who isn't seeing an image or a link to an image?


No. I don't see anything either. Can I aslo get flip-mode to confirm this is not another rick-roll prank?
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DreadCthulhu
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:32 pm

Interesting, I opened this up in Internet Exploder (I normally use Firefox 3.0) and end up getting a broken link image (box with red x in it), right clicked on box, got properties, found address, copy pasted to url bar, and got working image. And yes, it does looked shopped, I can tell by the pixels, and seeing a lot of shops in my time.
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Inkling
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:53 pm

DreadCthulhu wrote:
Am I the only one who isn't seeing an image or a link to an image?

I don't see anything except the word "Image".
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scare
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:57 pm

[quote="ssidbroadcast"]Edit: Bah. The image in question:

[img]http://www.shackpics.com/files/glass_77smsqlkgm1nyta8p3q8.jpg[/img][/quote]


That's the url.

It just looks like pretty 3D model to me. You don't see any hint of a reflection of the camera taking the picture.
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rbattle
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:04 am

It's either real or we are a lot closer to virtual reality as an absolute substitute than I thought. Very nice either way!
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:06 am

OK, it's there now. I say CG.
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Heiwashin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:13 am

It's definitely CG. The most solid point i have is parts of the shadows clearly break into 3,4 or 5 parts, whoever did it probably used a sample rate of maybe 7 on an area light and it caused that unwanted effect.

Also the use of sphere's in 3d models to show off the surrounding objects is unrealistically common. Also that'd be the first time i'd seen a reflection from above that looks like that :lol:

Also again the ground being a greyish color is to give the reflection a silver-ish metal feel, something that's otherwise extremely difficult to do. If the ground were a lighter/dark color it would be a more obvious fake.
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mortifiedPenguin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:49 am

Heiwashin wrote:
The most solid point i have is parts of the shadows clearly break into 3,4 or 5 parts, whoever did it probably used a sample rate of maybe 7 on an area light and it caused that unwanted effect.
Seconded, the shadows are rather blobby as well. Something lit from above with such high intensity should produce sharper shadows.

The spheres are also rather unreal as well, as scare mentioned, if it were a real photo, you'd be able to see the camera. It could be suggested that the camera is just pretty far away from the scene, however, to produce an image with no trace of the camera in any reflections, we would need a pretty long lens. Which in turn would flatten the image and give it almost no depth of field.

Also, the semi-transparent looking "plate" in the foreground is producing far too dark shadows for its opacity. Something of that level should be producing a very light shadow, but sometimes transparency is ignored when calculating shadows in cheaper 3D work.
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drsauced
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:58 am

I think it's real, even though I wish the photo was higher resolution. The blotchy shadows I believe are from the texture of the paper that the parts are on. In the large ball in the back of the scene you can see the 'roof' with two lights in it--the camera lives there. There is also something 'heavy' about the way the gears are meshing.

If it ain't real, then dayamn.
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blitzy
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 5:15 am

my eyes tell me its not real, just doesnt look right
 
steelcity_ballin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:07 am

Nothing but works, link borked?
 
Turkina
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 6:21 am

The smaller gear looks like it has a smudge on it, between the "lowest" interlocked stud and the one thats being partially obscured by the small ball bearing (in the foreground). Just a little black mark...if thats not real, then thats some incredible detailing. Of course, I could also be imagining it.

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steelcity_ballin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:00 am

Oddly enough when I hit post reply and check out the list of quotes, I can see the image, not before then. This looks fake. I can tell by the pixels and by having shopped a few whoppers in my time.
 
[SDG]Mantis
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:30 am

While a photo could certainly be cleaned up, the file carries a Photoshop CS3 tag in it.

It also has the feel of a CGI demo. Look at the transparency in the bar at the bottom, shadows, reflection in the sphere, small glass marble at the top, refraction through the glass marble at the bottom, etc.
Image
 
jobodaho
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:31 am

Its fake, just nice rendering. The random piece of glass in front gives it away. They used an HDRI map for the environment, similar to this rendering I made a few weeks ago while experimenting with 3DS Max and V-Ray:

Image
 
Heiwashin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 9:01 am

Actually yours is significantly higher quality jobo. I wouldn't be surprised if theirs was rendered with very basic ray tracing. The reflections don't have any special features from normal reflective mapping and the shadows are horrible quality, well below any 3rd party lighting.
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ssidbroadcast
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:59 am

Heiwashin wrote:
Actually yours is significantly higher quality jobo. I wouldn't be surprised if theirs was rendered with very basic ray tracing. The reflections don't have any special features from normal reflective mapping and the shadows are horrible quality, well below any 3rd party lighting.


Except I can see the polygon silhouette of those spheres which is the dead giveaway.
 
jobodaho
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:03 am

ssidbroadcast wrote:
Heiwashin wrote:
Actually yours is significantly higher quality jobo. I wouldn't be surprised if theirs was rendered with very basic ray tracing. The reflections don't have any special features from normal reflective mapping and the shadows are horrible quality, well below any 3rd party lighting.


Except I can see the polygon silhouette of those spheres which is the dead giveaway.


I wasn't claiming mine to look "real", it was just an example of HDRI environment mapping.
 
Aphasia
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:28 pm

Also, there are some parts to the top surface that just doesnt ring true. Look at the reflections on the upmost part on the upper ring. Why is the reflection broken with each tooth. Of course, one could probably manufacture a wheel like that, but its easier not too really and get a smooth surface to boot. Then you have the inside line that isnt round. I would imagne most things like that are really done with with some form of rotating material, then the tooth are cut out afterwards with a certain stepping.


mortifiedPenguin wrote:
Heiwashin wrote:
It could be suggested that the camera is just pretty far away from the scene, however, to produce an image with no trace of the camera in any reflections, we would need a pretty long lens. Which in turn would flatten the image and give it almost no depth of field.
Although, too be honest, the DOF can be lenghened with a smaller aperture, so that by itself doesnt really say anything. But the flattening effect just isnt there. The relative size of the tooth farther away compared to the closer one gives that away.
 
Heiwashin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:37 pm

I noticed that inside line/top square polygons too but i'm not familiar with the manufacturing techniques for that so i left it alone. Especially since someone that's taken the time to model that should have taken no time to fix something simple like that. And i didn't say the lens thing, i barely know anything about them yet :lol:
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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Aphasia
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Fri Jul 25, 2008 11:38 pm

LOL - of course you didnt :wink:
 
mortifiedPenguin
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:07 am

Aphasia wrote:
Although, too be honest, the DOF can be lenghened with a smaller aperture, so that by itself doesnt really say anything. But the flattening effect just isnt there. The relative size of the tooth farther away compared to the closer one gives that away.
My point was that there shouldn't be any depth of field if it was a long lens at this sort of distance , which it obviously isn't one due to the lack of foreshortening. Perhaps I should clarify my statement. To make a camera sufficiently small that it disappears from a reflection would require a really long lens (because the camera is really far away). Such a lens would create the flattening effect as you noted, but would also have a very long depth of field; a DOF far longer than the distance from the front of the scene to the back of the scene. What I was attempting to convey was that the picture has depth of field, meaning that it couldn't possibly be such a lens even if there was the flattening effect.

I understand the misunderstanding though. I just reread my post and realized that I wrote "Which in turn would flatten the image and give it almost no depth of field." Obviously a wrong statement (it is in fact improper phrasing), I believe what I meant with that particular statement was the depth of field effect, meaning the blurriness not the quality of sharpness.

Sorry for the confusion. :roll:
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ludi
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Re: Real or not? You decide.

Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:54 am

Ray-trace, and a pretty basic one.

The choice of objects, the positioning, the choppiness of the reflected shadow...typical of someone messing around with Pov-Ray or what-not. A friend of mine used to throw together things like this just to kill time. And that sheet of glass or plastic or whatever it is, is particularly bad in terms of how it is handling the light.
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