When we started out back in 2015, we had a very slow render engine. That wasn’t unusual — it was actually the standard for the time. Still, we needed it to be faster. High-quality animations were achievable but they always came at a cost — they would take hours to render. We wanted to achieve the same results in minutes.
So, we came up with ways to get around that — to ‘cheat’ so to speak. One of the ways we did that was by combining logos and text with already rendered footage, which we would then overlay, mask and colorize with advanced compositing. The end result was that everything looked as though it was all part of the same scene. It was pretty cool.
As time went by we kept finding new ways of pushing the boundaries of that system. Our first templates couldn’t auto-fit text to screen and, if the text was too long, it would simply go off screen. Again, it was challenge accepted. We quickly found a way of scaling down text when users entered in more text and, on top of that, we also improved our render engine to support per-character animation so we could get nicer text effects.
Later, in 2016, we started experimenting with camera tracking and green screens, as well as looking into ways of incorporating live action footage into our templates. It was the most amazing time and I remember it fondly, from the shoots in various locations to the day-to-day challenge of figuring out what and wasn’t possible.
For example, placing virtual objects — or replacing green screen — is already difficult when you know what should be there. But when you need to make sure that whatever asset a user uploads should look as it should, well, that’s another layer of complexity altogether. Nevertheless, we made it happen and this exciting period ended with the launch of our first 100 live action templates (many others have since been released).
The move globally to real-time animation rendering with the newest generation of graphic cards — and even real time ray tracing — also had a huge impact on our work. After we updated our software with these new technologies, we were able to achieve much faster template rendering. And we were finally able to render entire scenes directly, too. In other words, we didn’t need to ‘cheat’ anymore, which while useful still wasn’t a perfect solution (it sometimes resulted in unnatural colours and shading).
Animation style trends
Style wise, over the last five years, we’ve had to increasingly factor in vertical and square videos for animations — especially after Instagram introduced IGTV in 2018. Other trends include a move from dark and cinematic animations to more bright and playful ones. Social media usage has also increased significantly and animations are used a lot for Instagram and Facebook stories.
In response to these trends, we’ve had to adapt. Move with the times. But not always. Some trends we’ve stayed clear of, such as what I’ve dubbed as the “lava lamp mograph” trend. Very popular on platforms such as Instagram, these animations are usually short looping videos that are bizarrely very satisfying to watch. Think objects fitting perfectly through a hole, colourful gooey liquids that drip, and dancing figures covered in colourful feathers… and so on. Very smooth, very pleasing to the eye, but basically useless in any broadcast style of motion graphics, the kind used in YouTube videos for example.
Camera tracking has also become very popular, especially with the technology needed becoming more affordable. A person holding a smartphone with an animation popping out of the screen is a familiar image these days. All you really need is another phone to capture the motion of the subject phone and some free software on a computer to edit it. Similarly, fully automated augmented reality apps for phones now allow users to place virtual objects in their environment in real time. Some of this was either impossible or in its infancy back in 2015. We’ve definitely come a long way.
It’s an exciting time to be an animator. Things are changing all the time and the boundary lines are constantly being redrawn. Every day there’s something new and exciting happening — and not just out there. Here too at Viddyoze we’re pushing forward. And while we keep up-to-date with trends, my team and I are always looking at new ways of doing things, to innovate and to be trailblazers in our own right. The evolution of animation never stops at Viddyoze.
Relja Trajković is Head of Animation at Viddyoze
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