Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Ruby leads editorial, operations and initiatives at Newschecker. In her former avatar at New Delhi Television (NDTV), India’s leading national news network, she was a news anchor, supervising producer and senior output editor. Her over a decade-long career encompasses ground-breaking reportage from conflict zones and reporting on terror incidents, election campaigns, and gender issues. Ruby is an Emmy-nominated producer and has handled both local and international assignments, including the coverage of Arab Spring in 2011, the US Presidential elections in 2016, and ground reportage on the Kashmir issue since 2009.
Newschecker received the video on our WhatsApp tipline (+91 9999499044) to be fact checked.
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Fact
Newschecker began by conducting a search on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) with the keywords “New York” “Octopus” and found that the same video was shared by many users with similar claims. We noticed that one such video, shared by the handle @Mark45dominic, had a watermark on the bottom right corner, which read @ghost3dee.
We looked up the handle on X, and found a page associated with it. The bio revealed that the page belonged to a VFX artist. The same video showing the octopus crushing the car was also pinned on the page with the hashtag #VFX.
The page also carried another video showing the VFX simulation of an octopus climbing something, likely the same octopus.
We found the same post on Instagram handle linked to the Twitter profile, and the caption further indicated that the video was a work of VFX.
“Another Churro sim that i’ve been putting on the backburner for a while that combines several solvers and techniques, including nested point deforms, fake rbd vellum tricks and a massive exploitation of vellum constraints. Tet fiber constraints where used to compress tentacles and crush the proxy softbody car that hinges and shakes on 4 static wheels.
Again, i didn’t use a single keyframe in the entire scene and kept everything procedural. I’ve learned a lot about sim checkpoints help avoid resimming the entire timeline just for a small change that needs to happen late in the sim. Although some parts of the sim were challenging, the most time was spent on the compositing stage. I lost faith in AE for the past few years and did most of the stuff in Nuke, which is major change in my personal pipeline. AE started to remind me of Max with countless bloated plugins upon plugins that make the software crash because of incompatibilities when used together,” the caption read.
The sim here refers to the simulation, and Churro is the name of the alien octopus which is a recurring theme in the artist’s work.
The post also carried hashtags such as #simulation #cgrender #fxtd #cgparticles #animation #motionprocess #cgcreature and #creatureanimation which once again confirmed that the video is a work of animation.
Result: False
Our Sources
Twitter post by @Mark45dominic, dated September 29, 2023
Twitter post by @ghost3dee, dated September 27, 2023
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Ruby leads editorial, operations and initiatives at Newschecker. In her former avatar at New Delhi Television (NDTV), India’s leading national news network, she was a news anchor, supervising producer and senior output editor. Her over a decade-long career encompasses ground-breaking reportage from conflict zones and reporting on terror incidents, election campaigns, and gender issues. Ruby is an Emmy-nominated producer and has handled both local and international assignments, including the coverage of Arab Spring in 2011, the US Presidential elections in 2016, and ground reportage on the Kashmir issue since 2009.
