All of this discussion is a complete waste of time. The burdon is on the publishers of this video to demonstrate these wings in front of a live audience of reputable journalists and engineers. Until then, can we move on?
Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
21–30 of 30 posts
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#22Ignoring impossible feats of physics, the video is fake. There is a comment on the first Wired article which points out incontrovertible evidence of poorly done compositing around the 20 second mark with the guy on the left running "through" the wingtip without bumping it. Uncut, raw video from the side of complete take-off and landing (since there is supposedly someone taking video from the side) would be enough to…
There is nothing strange going on around the 20 second mark. The sun is very low and the wing is almost aligned to the position of the sun. You can also see the left tip is bended upwards, so the guy is clearly running around that tip. But because the lens is zoomed in it's a little hard to see the actual depth.
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#23Ignoring impossible feats of physics, the video is fake. There is a comment on the first Wired article which points out incontrovertible evidence of poorly done compositing around the 20 second mark with the guy on the left running "through" the wingtip without bumping it. Uncut, raw video from the side of complete take-off and landing (since there is supposedly someone taking video from the side) would be enough to…
That 20 second mark is pretty damning - the shadow cast on the wing by the guy on the left is visible before his body is in front of the wing. Thanks for crushing my dreams.
There's a few frames around 20 second mark that look strange - here's one where the guy seems ready to run through the left tip, his left thigh is behind the wing, and his left foot seems to be in front: http://imgur.com/riyjn
Next frame he appears in front of the wing entirely. I don't know - does post processing software do weird things that cause visual artifacts?
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#24"Either this part of the video was made with a real hand held camera, or they have found better ways to 'fake shake' the video."
Good fake camera shake isn't too hard. After you take your tripod shots to add CGI to, also take some actual shaky footage of the same scene, or of anything else about the same distance away. Then motion-track the shake from your shaky footage and apply the same motion to your CGI shot. High-fives all around.
In conclusion: unrealistic camera shake would tell you something, but realistic camera shake doesn't tell you anything. It's like, "yep, these look like real people rather than cartoon characters, so this definitely wasn't faked using old Simpsons episodes ..."
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#25Ignoring impossible feats of physics, the video is fake. There is a comment on the first Wired article which points out incontrovertible evidence of poorly done compositing around the 20 second mark with the guy on the left running "through" the wingtip without bumping it. Uncut, raw video from the side of complete take-off and landing (since there is supposedly someone taking video from the side) would be enough to…
There is nothing strange going on around the 20 second mark. The sun is very low and the wing is almost aligned to the position of the sun. You can also see the left tip is bended upwards, so the guy is clearly running around that tip. But because the lens is zoomed in it's a little hard to see the actual depth.
His "shadow" (CG, no doubt) is on the front of the wing, while he is still "behind" the wing.
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#26Ignoring impossible feats of physics, the video is fake. There is a comment on the first Wired article which points out incontrovertible evidence of poorly done compositing around the 20 second mark with the guy on the left running "through" the wingtip without bumping it. Uncut, raw video from the side of complete take-off and landing (since there is supposedly someone taking video from the side) would be enough to…
That 20 second mark is pretty damning - the shadow cast on the wing by the guy on the left is visible before his body is in front of the wing. Thanks for crushing my dreams.
My pleasure. I worked on the visual effects team for a movie with a _lot_ of compositing. This is cut-rate stuff. Can you imagine what sort of things we will believe if someone were doing this sort of fakery with a real budget?
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#27What's up with all the people trying to discuss the physics involved? The video is blatantly fake, for other reasons entirely: the obvious viral factor, shady YouTube channel, bad acting, fake camera movement, etc. This thing is probably a Red Bull viral, inspired by that other "walking on water" viral.
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That 20 second mark is pretty damning - the shadow cast on the wing by the guy on the left is visible before his body is in front of the wing. Thanks for crushing my dreams.
My pleasure. I worked on the visual effects team for a movie with a _lot_ of compositing. This is cut-rate stuff. Can you imagine what sort of things we will believe if someone were doing this sort of fakery with a real budget?
Exactly - I read the Wired article yesterday and didn't even think to second-guess it even though in general I'm something of a skeptic. I just marveled at how clever and technologically advanced humans have become.
Ironically, this is a demonstration of how clever and technologically advanced we are, but not in the way I originally thought!
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#29Absolutely fake. If this is not obvious to you, learn more physics.
Why don't you bless us with your obviously superior grasp of the laws of nature? If it's so obvious, the math justifying your position should comfortably fit in an HN post.
Why are there no birds even close to the weight of adult human males? Why do birds have a huge keel-like breastbone on which equally huge and powerful flight muscles attach? If energy required to take of scales geometrically with weight, how much force would an adult human need to generate to take flight and which muscles, attached where on the human skeleton, would be used for this?
Re: Analysis of the Human Bird Wings
#30Wouldn't you FIRST test the ability to glide back down before you add motor and power to get in the air?
The lack of any video gliding down from a building etc. immediately made this extremely suspect for me.
Then the fact I use an electric bicycle with a 48volt 1kwh battery for long distances. It's lithium but it's still big and EXTREMELY heavy. So is the motor. And those wings would need even more battery and more powerful motors.