Animant 2.0 - Go beyond static presentations

@jonathan_benjamin2 is it smooth when presenting on lower end devices?

@jonathan_benjamin2 Interesting. Any pricing model that you will implement in the near future?

@iamrajanrk thanks!

@webwithsaksham thanks! The current blocker on Android is mainly performance. A chapter can display a 3D model and a video simultaneously, which is quite graphically demanding and doesn't deliver great performance when built with a cross-platform framework. So, Animant is built as a native app. On Apple platforms, Animant uses native Swift frameworks that make use of Metal's GPU optimisations. The goal with a future native Android version is to hopefully achieve the same smoothness as the iOS variant.

@jaber23 hahaha, thanks for your support!

@vouchy thanks! Getting the workflow to feel familiar to everyone has been quite a journey. The first iteration of the app (1.x) had quite a steep learning curve for both 3D professionals and everyday users. So with 2.0, the entire UI was reworked to feel closer to existing slideshow software (e.g. Keynote and PowerPoint). For example, a sidebar lets users navigate through presentation chapters, and users can create a presentation from existing media.

Another way to try and bridge the workflow gap is through the new Animant Guides, which are essentially walkthrough tutorials. Each Guide is a complete Animant Story that contain demo chapters that use various app features. When people launch a Guide, they can add their own content in each chapter to get a feel for how Animant can work for them.

As the platform continues to grow, each piece of feedback will be immensely valuable to understand users' needs and ensure that Animant adapts to a wide variety of workflows.

@cruise_chen thanks! The app tries to make adding interaction as intuitive as possible. Once you’ve added a 3D model alongside audio or video, there’ll be a pop-up button on the media that enables you to add rotation or laser pointer effects. All you need to do is rotate the model just how you want it to appear, then select ‘Add Effect at Current Time.’

Then, when people view your presentation and play your media, the effects will appear exactly at the time when you added them.

@anastasiiazhur thanks for checking out Animant! I've tried to make the app as simple as possible for people to start using it quickly. Coming from an app like Keynote, Animant attempts to mirror as many traditional slideshow metaphors as possible (e.g. the sidebar with slides, templates, and drag-and-drop media).

For the features that Animant does differently, in-app tips should appear that explain those features (e.g. rich text formatting with Markdown). And to see how all the features come together, there's a handy 'Guides' section in the Gallery when you open the app. Each Guide is a completely editable Animant Story that explains features like Magic Effects through demonstration.

When you create a new story, you'll have the option to automatically create chapters from your existing media with Magic Chapter - this would be a great launchpad to see how the app can work with your content in minutes!

@alex_chu821 thanks for checking out Animant! From testing, the accuracy of Magic Effects essentially improves according to the amount of context contained within your media. So yes, it might struggle with a short media clip (e.g. <20 seconds of speech), but if you use Magic Chapter with a media clip that's at least a minute long, that should provide the AI with enough contextual understanding about the topic. With technical terminology (even if it's a word the app has never seen before), as long as it's referenced multiple times in the media then Magic Effects is pretty good at understanding its definition.

In the next update, Animant will gain the ability to manually adjust the timestamps of Media Effects after they've been created for even greater accuracy.