The issue here is not that the trees look like clones, ie same age, height, growth pattern etc. The issue is that they all look like the same individual: the exact same leaves in the exact same positions. Take a look at the profiles of the top of the crown. They are exact copies.
I know that you have never seen that in California or anywhere else on Earth, it just can’t happen. The slightest variation in the depth or position the seedlings were planted or any variation at all in the soil will ensure that the leaves will develop at different rates and different orientations. At leat two of these trees have put out exactly the same leaves at exactly the same minute for the past 15 years.
It’s a fairly silly error really, since it would take far less time to draw a couple of new trees than to draw the UFOs themselves.
The program they used for the trees is called Vue Esprit (play the trailer, the same palm trees are displayed in it a few times). It uses a method called “incidencing” where you can specify a single model, and get it to repeat it across a surface, randomly, creating forests or grasslands or cities (depending on what the models chosen are) without it being unduly hit with processor slowdown.
What this particular person seems to have done is create the entire animation in Vue (as it is excellent for realistic lighting effects and natural textures) but neglected to randomise the palm tree models.
My suspicion is they are a part of a viral marketing campaign for something, though not Halo 3 like many are guessing. Something else. Possibly a new TV show or movie, or a different video game.
Then again, maybe it’s just some opportunist having a laugh.
Has anyone mentioned the Ratchet and Clank commercials yet? They look pretty realistic but are obviously cgi because they depict some impossible things happening. Some of the ones that just show an explosion might be special effects, but the one where they turn a girl into a cow, and the one with the tractor beam are clearly cgi.
I’ve never understood the “viral advertising” explanation often trotted out for this kind of thing. How would videos like this work as viral advertising for anything at all anyway?
I would have thought that they would form the beginning of an increasing onslaught of UFO videos, looking more and more like an invasion, where it finally reaches a design of craft that matches those established in the game. Then, if the game has a backstory about how the aliens first arrived, and it matches what the YouTube videos show, there’s an air of “authenticity” to the game.
That’s how I was imagining it, anyway. Shame it wasn’t the case.
Person 1: Hey, look at this UFO video I found!
Person 2: Yeah, I heard that that’s a viral advertising scheme for Halo 3.
Person 1: Oh, they’re coming out with a Halo 3? I guess I’ll have to buy that.
The absolute beauty of it is, it doesn’t even matter if the person who made the video had any connection to Halo 3 at all. All the folks at Bungee Software have to do is find a UFO video already out there and make a few YouTube comments to get the rumor started. And they might not even have to do that.