Skyliner Virtual Message Writer Version 3

It took several years before we decided to create a new Skyliner. Why? Well, the first two versions seemed to be selling well, the knock-offs had disappeared from the scene and things were moving along. However, the rip-off units did their damage overseas by under-cutting our price making it difficult for us to sell in European markets. Luckily for us, as is often the case, the knock-offs were inferior in every way. They didn't work consistently, were difficult to program and had lousy packaging. Plus there was no "customer service". We do pride ourselves on the prompt customer service we've provided over the years.

You should know that 99.9% of our customer service responses were usually a simple explanation concerning program or battery replacement. We've sold quite a few Skyliners and had very few defective units over the years. Mostly due to our careful attention to details, using quality parts, batteries and circuitry.

New Skyliner Version 3 - Virtual Message Writer

So, when it came time to design a new Skyliner at the request of DisneyWorld, our largest customer at the time, we thought, why not, and also figured it would knock any of the old copy cats still around. This time, however, when I designed the unit in 3D I also added our Versatile Visions/Skyliner website information to the side of the unit, on each frame. This means that anyone who wanted to steal the animation would be advertising our site, unless they were going to take each frame and paint out the web address.

Once again, this animation was created in form-Z, electric image and composited in After Effects. There were some additional challenges as this new unit had tri-color LED's and I wanted to represent that clearly in the animation.

It only took me a few days to create, animate, composite and tweak this new Skyliner animation, which to my knowledge has only been used by folks who were selling the new unit, with our permission.

Take a close look at the unit as it spins to see the website address.

Hal