Blur Busters History: Making of UFO Logo

NEW for 2017: Discussion about the testufo.com Blur Busters Motion Tests. Widely used by enthusiasts, display tweakers, YouTubers reviewers, monitor manufacturers and VR headset makers!
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Blur Busters History: Making of UFO Logo

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 15 Jan 2014, 20:46

UPDATE: Read this newer article instead:
Why Are TestUFO Display Motion Tests 960 Pixels Per Second?
The Making of the Blur Busters Logo
HeLLoWorld wrote:may I ask where that funny alien of yours come from? Always makes me smile. It might go down in history :)
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(C) Copyright 2012-2019 Blur Busters.
Registered Trademark (TM) -- USPTO #88500148
(a part of Rejhon Technologies Inc.)

You've seen this on many display testing sites, that use TestUFO Motion Tests.
If you've seen this UFO anywhere on the Internet, that's my creation, as founder of Blur Busters and TestUFO!

Where did this UFO come from?

I made this 8-bit art from scratch. People have sometimes asked where I have come up with the UFO, now a recognizable logo among LightBoost users, as well as by people who frequently visit discussion forums relating to gaming displays. Now the official logo of Blur Busters, it has a long and storied history behind the scenes.

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The UFO also doubles as a motion test pattern

I started development of http://www.testufo.com in early November 2012 (more than six months before I made it public), the original cause of my invention the UFO. I am born of the golden gaming, the 8-bit era, where everything used to be silky smooth during scrolling on CRT displays (especially platformer games). So, naturally, an 8-bit mascot was born.

The old PixPerAn motion test, is the original inspiration of the UFO. It has the cute racing car, so I came up with the cute UFO. Pixel art like this conjures up computers and gaming, which badly needed motion blur elimination abilities not available until recently (e.g. LightBoost, ULMB, etc). It illustrates the computer/gaming friendliness of modern strobe backlights.

Multiple Tiers of Intentional Motion Blur Weaknesses

This UFO was intentionally designed for motion tests, with special optimizations specific to motion tests, that also still looked cute and didn't obviously look like a boring test pattern.
  • Three single-pixel eyes for detecting tiny motion blur (really blurs at >1ms persistence)
  • White dots in UFO base for detecting medium motion blur (really blurs at >2ms persistence)
  • Two landing legs at UFO bottom for detecting large motion blur (really blurs at >4ms persistence)
  • Alien character that becomes a totally unrecognizable motion blur mess on non-strobed displays.
  • Yellow dome as a torture test case for LCD ghosting
  • Primary full-bright R/G/B colors, combined with full-white and full-black, for simplicity.
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As pictured above, of the tiered sensitivity motion blur in the UFO logo -- you can see how the eyes begins to blur first, then the white dots in the UFO base, then as things gets more blurry, the landing legs begin to really blur. It is also easy to watch for inconsistencies like asymmetry in the blur (like differences between leading & trailing artifacts) -- commonly found as ghosting, smearing, coronas, etc -- like those found in LCD Motion Artifacts 101 and LCD Overdrive Artifacts.

The Origin Of Blur Busters Name

The "_____ Busters" is a long time marketing phrase, such as the DustBuster vaccuum (1979). Early on, I recognized that LCDs were ghosting/blurring badly, and I knew that it was now technologically possible to practically eliminate this display ghosting/blurring.

LCD motion "blurring" is often called "ghosting", and I've always had loved Ghost Busters. So a parody of the "Ghost Busters" name was created, as "Blur Busters", in the parlance of the long time "_______ Busters" tradition of marketing. I originally registered scanningbacklight.com instead, but I long prefered "Blur Busters". Once LightBoost was discovered, I immediately wanted to rename to Blur Busters. Eventually, I decided a new logo was needed.

It ties well in with the UFO abduction theme, with lots of opportunities for humorus and lighthearted parodies -- "eliminating" motion blur, "annihilating" motion blur, "exterminating" motion blur, "extinguishing" motion blur -- of alien stereotype parlance. The diagonal roundel crosses-out the blurry trail of the UFO, indicating the elimination of motion blur, thanks to the timely arrival of LightBoost and modern gaming friendly strobe-backlight LCDs (e.g. G-SYNC ULMB, EIZO Turbo240, and BENQ Blur Reduction, Sony Motionflow Impulse, etc) which finally allowed LCD, for the first time, to escape the dark LCD ages -- formerly a big problem for CRT motion clarity lovers.

Formerly, many people did not believe it was possible for LCD to successfully achieve CRT motion clarity, except a few people such as iD Software/Oculus' John Carmack whose tweet reply to me, was the very genesis that started Blur Busters in September 2012.

And the "escaping motion blur" logo became part of history, publicly introduced on March 11th, 2013 while TestUFO was still undergoing private beta. TestUFO was July 15th, 2013. Even though Blur Busters launched the logo first, TestUFO.com domain name registration actually predates BlurBusters.com

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Blur Busters in early 2013 wrote:[2013 Announcement] Our lovable alien mascot, in “8-bit” style, is also the flagship test graphic of our upcoming motion test app that is a 21st century equivalent of PixPerAn that works on PC and Mac’s. Launching in April!
The alien mascot, invented as a motion-test pattern -- for http://www.testufo.com -- has become the familiar Blur Busters icon, and I've now been using it as my forum avatar everywhere else to be recognized (even long before TestUFO launched) -- so Blur Busters is most likely recognized everytime someone sees the UFO at least a few times.

Some Famous History of TestUFO

Did you know? TestUFO was actually born before Blur Busters was, although Blur Busters publicly launched before TestUFO was. TestUFO Motion Test was undergoing a 6-month beta testing period. Some famous industry veterans, most particularly the virtual reality industry, used TestUFO to convince the industry to go low-persistence virtual reality (How Blur Busters convinced Oculus Rift to go Low Persistence), even well before TestUFO publicly launched.

Copyright Notice

"Blur Busters" and the UFO graphic is a trademark of Blur Busters (C) Copyright 2012-2019 Blur Busters (a part of Rejhon Technologies Inc.)
All Rights Reserved. For linking and embedding permissions for your articles and videos, see Permission to Use TestUFO in Media / Embedding
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

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Re: Blur Busters History: Making of UFO Logo

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 26 Feb 2017, 14:00

Moved this thread to the TestUFO forum.

March 11th, 2017 is the 4th anniversary of the public introduction of the Blur Busters UFO logo.

TestUFO.com has since moved to become the most popular display motion testing website, even used by display reviewers. Most websites formerly using PixPerAn ghosting-test images, are now using TestUFO images (e.g. TFT Central, etc), often combined with a pursuit camera.

See Reviewers Using Pursuit Camera -- including TFTCentral, TomsHardware, RTINGS, TechPowerUp, PCMonitors, SWEClockers, HDTV UK, HDTV Poland, etc.

The Blur Busters UFO logo was invented November 2012 as an intentionally-designed motion test pattern, that amplifies visibility of LCD ghosting artifacts during TestUFO tests. It has since been incorporated as the Official Blur Busters Logo since.
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

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Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

User avatar
Chief Blur Buster
Site Admin
Posts: 11647
Joined: 05 Dec 2013, 15:44
Location: Toronto / Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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Re: Blur Busters History: Making of UFO Logo

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 16 Mar 2019, 18:58

Bump. Happy 6th birthday of the public unveil of the famous UFO logo!

While I edited in 2012 for a private TestUFO beta, the logo was publicly revealed for the first time on March 11, 2013, before it launched July 15, 2013.

I've updated the article and I am pleased to announce.... You can EMBED TestUFO on your website!

Here's embedding instructions.


UPDATE: Read this newer article instead:
Why Are TestUFO Display Motion Tests 960 Pixels Per Second?
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on Twitter

Image
Forum Rules wrote:  1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
  2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
  3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!

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