AFTER EFFECTS vs RIVE vs CAVALRY

As professional Motion Designers we are called to choose our Tools, among the enormous amount of Animation software out there. Some years ago, Adobe After Effects was the king in the industry but now the situation is different. Sometimes we just need to adapt to the software used by our agency or our client, but in some cases we are free to choose and therefore totally responsible for our choice. What is the best motion design software? Is this not scary enough??

The choice between After Effects, Rive, and Cavalry depends on the type of animation work we do and our specific needs.

1. Adobe After Effects

• Best For: General motion design, compositing, visual effects, and 2D animation.

Thanks to its enormous ecosystem, made by extensions, plugins, script and templates, it is rather easy to create something complicate animations, by just investing some money in buying the right tool.

It has been on the market for decades, meaning that the base code is indeed old and not optimized to current standards. This explains why you may need a rather powerful machine to make it run fast enough on bigger projects.

Nevertheless, this is still my main tool, where I create and sell scripts that are used by hundreds of designers.

After Effects Pros:

• Industry standard for motion design and visual effects.
• Huge library of plugins and integrations.
• Powerful tools for compositing, keyframing, and animation.
• Supports both 2D and limited 3D animations.
• Large community and extensive tutorials.

After Effects Cons:

• Can be overkill for simple animations.
• Resource-intensive, often requiring a powerful computer.
• Subscription-based, which can be costly over time.
• Not real-time, so renders can be slow depending on the project size.

2. Rive

• Best For: Real-time interactive animations, especially for web and apps.

Rive is having gaining every day new happy users. This web based designer application allows to create smooth interactive animations. In some ways, it wants to take the place occupied in recent years by After Effects with the Lottie plugin. The animations created in the Rive App, can be used in a growing number of client applications.. websites, mobile apps, unreal, games, Figma,… the basic membership is free, while you need to pay for more advanced or team functionalities.

Rive Pros:

• Focused on real-time animations for interactive platforms like websites, apps, and games.
• Lightweight animations, which can be exported as code (WebGL, Flutter, etc.).
• Allows live, interactive animations that respond to user inputs.
• Free plan available, with paid pro options.

Rive Cons:

• Not suitable for complex video editing, VFX, or compositing.
• Limited to 2D animations.
• Smaller community compared to After Effects.

3. Cavalry

• Best For: Procedural motion design and data-driven animations.

Cavalry has been around for some years and is steadily growing. The base code is more recent and optimized compared to After effects. If you feel that 2D procedural animation is your thing, Cavalry might be your best choice, with faster previews and internal functionalities that are only available through external plugins in After Effects.

It is completely vector based, and you will surely appreciate the possibility to import SVG images, while this is not possible in After Effects.

Cavalry Pros:

• Strong procedural animation tools that allow you to create complex animations with minimal effort.
• Node-based workflow, ideal for data-driven design.
• Fast and intuitive, with real-time feedback, which is great for iteration.
• Can handle both vector-based 2D animations and more complex parametric animations.

Cavalry Cons:

• Still growing its user base and learning resources.
• While it has some 3D capabilities, it’s not as robust as dedicated 3D software.
• Less well-known and not as universally adopted as After Effects.

Conclusion:

• After Effects is ideal for general motion design, visual effects, and any work that requires a wide range of tools and compositing features. It’s perfect for freelance projects that need versatility. As a freelance motion designer, this is still a compulsory tool to find a decent number of clients.
• Rive excels in interactive and lightweight animations for web and app platforms, and is great if you’re working with developers to create real-time animations. If you are old enough, you may remember Flash was doing similar things. Well, it looks that Rive is doing it better.
• Cavalry is perfect if you want a more procedural approach to motion design, particularly for data-driven or parameterized animations.

What is the Best tool for Commercial Projects?

When it comes to money, and not only technical aspects, we need to consider how many designers use rive and Cavalry. In big studios and Agency, all of the designers know After Effects and it could be tough to use new applications, whose formats are not compatible with the industry standard. This will change overtime, as more specific projects will be done with the tool that works best, but for the moment, After Effects rules.