For those of you unwilling or unable to download Skyland from iTunes, as suggested in the earlier post, I submit the following pictures with commentary.

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The environment of Skyland is unique and compelling - though unrealistic. The concept in its basic form is chunks of a shattered earth floating around a gravitational core. These chunks have small farms and residences on them. Travel between chunks is handled by flying vessels that in some cases bear a strong resemblence to ships and in other cases to airplanes and even motorcycles.

Example of a flying vessel of the ship variety. This one looks much like a trawler or something. Note the backgrounds and the atmospheric effects. Because the whole scene is done as CGI before it is converted to cell shading, the backgrounds are very detailed and organic, while still retaining the hand-drawn look.

Another example of lighting, background, atmosphere and technology. The “bikes” in the foreground have a strong retro look to them and are detailed in such a manner as to show wear and aging, though not really visible in this shot. The haze of the atmosphere is well rendered as the engines of the ships in the background recede in the distance.

Shots like this, that frame the bike in the atmosphere casting a shadow against in the haze of light, underscore how well the lighting effects can be pulled off.

A still image doesn’t translate the surreal sense you’ll get when watching tracking scenes like this. The CGI by itself would lack warmth and realizim by itself. Yet combined with cell shading the effect is really quite good. Though the scene is obviously stylized animation, there’s a sense of the scene being organic, alive. The natural settings are quite nicely done, in contrast to the:

Characters are rendered flat, unrealistic. Though motion captured, certain things such as mouth movements and sightlines don’t seem right. The characters movements and gestures are good as would be expected from motion capture but there is little subtlety to facial expression. Pretty much the only part of the face capable of expressing emotion is the eyebrows. Lame.

Another really fantastic example of the use of lighting effects and compositional capabilities made possible by rendering in computer.

Overall the artist vision of Skyland is outstanding. I suspect the choices made regarding the characters themselves have more to do with technical limitations than with directorial dictation.

What does this show us about media in general? There is the ability now to produce animated media that contains quite extraordinary visuals, in fresh and compelling environments. This makes it possible for visions that would have been difficult and expensive to realize just a few years ago to be turned into reality at a realitively low cost.

I’d like to think that as techniques such as those used in Skyland improve and become more mainstream, more directors will be given the opportunity to express their vision in this manner.