Sky Painting

Sky painting is a glitch that causes visual effects such as blurring and smudging to appear instead of normal sky in certain out-of-bounds areas. This glitch is specific to PS4 version of Journey.

General information


As you can see below, the typical fading visual effect is missing in the PS3 and PC version. At least one Skypainting place looks different on PC compared to PS3 too. Maybe those effects appear somewhere else, but its still under investigation.

Skypainting happens in areas outside the Sky box, where any movement gets suspended on the sky for a moment as a still imagery. You could also call it blurring, and you scarf starts looking like a hand fan

You will be flying around and create images with your body and scarf as well as surrounding imagery. Every movement of your wayfarer or the camera will create new patterns blurred together with previous frames.



How and where to do it
Sky Painting can technically occur in every level, but visual effects are more dramatic on certain maps due to lighting.

Sky Painting occurs outside the Sky Box (a huge cube that defines level boundaries for lighting purposes on PS4 and PC) and is best observed near its edges. The following sections show some prominent Sky Painting examples on different levels.

Some Sky Painting places are very high up (above the Sky Box) and for a newcomer they are not easy to reach.

Broken Bridge
Sky Painting in the Broken Bridge level is very easy to locate. Just head west anywhere along the side of the map and soon you'll exit the Sky Box. East side is likely to produce the same result (not tested; however, on PS4 the game sometimes crashes if you go too far east).

Sunken City
In Sunken City, the Sky Box ends rather close to the northern end of the map (approximately halfway through the huge barrier at the edge of the map, right after the pit).

This point is shown in the video below, and is rather easy to reach. For more details about this location see Sunken City article.

Paradise
There are plenty of ways to get outside of the Sky Box in Paradise level. Those on the west, east and south sides of the level are the easiest.

PC version differences
The sky is not so dark, both in the PS3 and the PS4 versions. On PC the entire sky is as black as in that picture.

Trivia
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Quotes
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