Koi UFO Video 106 : Small UFO near ground with shadow (Erik van Helvoirt)
[DEBUNKED] Koi UFO Video 106 appears to show a small rotating UFO with numerous moving claws moving in the sky, giving an almost organic living appearance to the object. It moves around over a small clearing, with a shadow appearing to be cast on the ground.
In fact, as detailed below, this video was created in or around 2009 by Erik van Helvoirt, a talented concept artist at Guerilla Games. In 2015, he kindly provided me with details of the processes he used to create the video. He explained that the video was an exercise for him to composite computer generated objects on to real footage. He created the video in about 20 to 30 hours using several software packages (specifically, Syntheyes, Cinema4d and After Effects). This video has never, to the best of my knowledge, gone viral - despite being more convincing than many "UFO" videos that obtain hundreds of thousands of views. This may be due to the fact that the creator of this particular video, Erik van Helvoirt, has always made it clear that it was created using various software packages. Sadly, many UFO hoaxers are second- (or third-) rate computer graphics artists, creating UFO videos very quickly and with a lack of attention to detail, obtaining lots of views because they add deceptive descriptions to their videos rather than because of the quality of their work. It is all too rare for us to be treated to UFO created by people with a lot of talent or patience like Erik van Helvoirt (although my series of items on infamous UFO videos seeks to focus on the better artists rather than mass producing basic hoaxes...).
Sections below:
2. Stories and claims relating to this video
3. The real background to this video
4. Relevant online discussions
1. The relevant video
This video appears to show a small rotating UFO with numerous moving claws moving in the sky, giving an almost organic living appearance to the object. It moves around over a small clearing, with a shadow appearing to be cast on the ground.
Screen shots from this video are included below for ease of identification.
2. Stories and claims relating to this video
This video has never, to the best of my knowledge, gone viral - despite being more convincing than many "UFO" videos that obtain hundreds of thousands of views. This may be due to the fact that the creator of this particular video, Erik van Helvoirt, has always made it clear that it was created using various software packages.
3. The real background to this video
I contacted the creator of this video, Erik van Helvoirt, in 2015. He kindly provided an outline of the process he used to create the video in about 20 to 30 hours using several software packages (specifically, Syntheyes, Cinema4d and After Effects).
"The shot itself was an exercise for me to composite computer generated objects on to real footage, the subject for this was a tiny UFO. The camera movements of the footage has to be analysed so I can export them to a 3d program (This process is called 3d tracking or match moving), then I can add any 3d cg objects I like, and it will line up with the camera movement of the footage.
I shot a simple video where I tried to make the footage as easily trackable as possible. This means capturing a lot of parallax in the footage it self.
The footage is tracked by a program named syntheyes.
I also created an HDR probe on location. An HDR probe is an image that gives a complete 3 dimensional 360 view of the environment. It also captures the intensity of light so I can use that for reflections and lighting later on.
Then I moved on to construct the object it self. I used the software called cinema4d to build it. The form of the object it self is also very simple, just a squashed hemisphere. As for the legs, I just created one, animated it, duplicated it a couple of times, and off set the animation per duplicate. I also added some tiny spikes for dramatic effect smile emoticon
The texture of the object is very dark, and most of the definition of the texture comes from the reflection and specularity. The reflection uses a fersnell shader, that means the more angled the surface is in relation to the viewer, the stronger the reflection becomes, this gives a very realistic effect.
The intensity of the specularity and reflection is also masked by a texture. This looks something like this:
http://www.realpolygons.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/texwall03.jpg
I also added tiny panels in the texture.
Now I animated the model, I wanted it to move around sporadically.
The model, texture, animation, and camera movement extracted from the footage I filmed is now combined. After this I rendered it in cinema 4d. This gives me the animated ufo(without the background) so I composited it on top of the recorded footage.
The composting is done in a program called after effects. In this phase it's important to blend the raw render together with the footage and make sure, the colors, motion blur and values match up.
Motion blur is an extremely important element, without it, you can instantly see it's fake. After effects has a simple plugin called Re:Vision motion blur that basically automatically calculates the motion blur, I only need to adjust the intensity so it matches the footage.
Matching the darkness and color of the shadow of the UFO was also crucial. As a reference I used the tree, I tried to give it exactly the same values.
Add the end I added a simple color correction overall so the lights look more yellowish and the darks more blue-ish, this ties everything together quite nicely."
" think this one took about 20 to 30 hours to make (very rough estimate)"
4. Relevant online discussions
Relevant discussions online include the following:
Discussion on Vimeo started in or around 2009 when Erik van Helvoirt posted this video on that website.
