Guide your users to AHA moment

Rive? What’s that then?

Around 2022, we started hearing whispers of a magical tool that would solve all these problems.

This tool was Rive.

Initially I was reluctant to try it, After Effects had everything, so why change? It could kick out 99% of the file formats required, and Rive was going to be another fad, lost to time like dubstep and prawn cocktails. But when I finally took the plunge, I realised how much of a stubborn primadonna I was being.

The rumours were mostly true. Rive really seemed to solve all our problems and provide a path forward. And mastering it turned out to be pretty easy.

The big thing about Rive is that unlike MP4s or Lotties, it’s not a file type. It’s more like an interactive game engine. An isolated mini-product or even an application within a site.

Instead of having one linear timeline, motion designers can use Rive to create multiple timelines and artboards which they can then connect in various ways. These are controlled via conditions you specify, giving you ultimate control of what’s going on and when.

Want an object to follow the mouse? Go for it! Want a click on something to trigger another timeline? Ye, let’s do it! Add a hover animation to a button? Be my guest!

Everybody will love you. The designers because it’s vector-based and therefore crispier than Gary Lineker. The developers because the resulting file is smaller than a mouse’s handkerchief.

All this, plus it runs incredibly smoothly, in real-time — even with the final boss, Safari.