Hello Awesome People!
As 2025 wraps up and 2026 is about to start, we'd like to lift a corner of the curtain and take a peek at what to expect from Animaze in the following year. You may already know this, but since we are a small team, the order of bullet points in the following list is not set in stone (priorities may shuffle in the future).
Tracking focused iOS Animaze app
We know many of you mainly use the iOS app as an external tracker camera. YES, it currently takes a bit of time to go into settings to connect, having to scan the QR code, having to move your phone from a desk stand, maybe you have to do all these very quickly because of some unexpected mid-stream event.
We want to provide a better option for the external camera use-case. 4 reasons indicate that a new, lighter, and more specialized app is the right direction for this task:
- We don't want to overencumber the UI on the current iOS app even more in an attempt to "fix" these issues
- The current iOS app is a beast, which does a lot of stuff, but from the context of just using an external camera for the Windows PC app, all this stuff is just *bloat*.
A separate tracker app would not be concerned, for example, about how to render 3d models or load 2d avatars, which directly translates into better loading times, performance, and fewer potential fault points
- The user flow should be as simple as VMC maybe, set up the IP and network port number once, then use it as long as the iOS app sends data.
- finally, a new iOS app will open the possibility for the long-awaited Android version of an external camera (see [Mediapipe] section below)
We want to emphasize that the current iOS app is not retiring; we're just creating a more streamlined external camera functionality into a specialized app, that does only that.
Mediapipe Tracking
We have had our eyes on Mediapipe for some time now (actually since 2020). It's undeniably a high-fidelity tracker, but its main downside has always been poor runtime performance and lack of first-class support on Windows. As you may know, Mediapipe was designed for Mobile and Web. It looks like on Windows, it is locked, running its ML inference on CPU with no plans to move away from it.
That being said, we will dedicate some research time to trying to offload some of the Mediapipe work onto the GPU/NPU. Some early tests in this direction indicate this task is achievable, but as always, our biggest hurdle is compatibility with older devices.
Circling back to Animaze, a specialised Android app running Mediapipe being used as an external tracker, can be a good way to free some of the CPU load on your Windows PC
Blender importer
When we first started development on Animaze, 3DS Max, Maya, and implicitly.FBX files were the industry standard and seemed the logical choice for our main importer. Today, Blender rapidly became the #1 go-to program for many 3d related workflows, and so we would like to support importing .blend files directly into Animaze. This opens many possibilities, but some obvious examples are:
- avoid having to deal with import file management, like many files for separate textures, animations, and so on
- ability to attach additional metadata to different 3d objects, which current file formats do not support. (I.E. Blender's "Custom Properties")
- avoid having to go through the Editor for predictable imports (many of the custom Editor functionality could be read directly from the .blend file)
- ability to import anything that Blender can import
... and more
Obviously, this is a huge task that requires careful consideration and development.
Compatibility & Performance
Compatibility with older devices was and still is a priority for us, some of our systems are using code paths that prioritize compatibility rather than performance. We are reserving some development time for modernizing core systems without sacrificing compatibility. Notable mentions would be: GPU blendshapes (currently CPU only), animation system rework (which would go hand-in-hand with Blender importer), some OpenGL modern features (which could be used conditionally if available)
Animaze Historical DLC
Each year, we usually release a historical snapshot DLC alongside a major update. This year, we have not done that, since most of this year’s work went into bug fixes and stability improvements. Charging for a new DLC in this situation didn’t feel right, so the 2024 DLC is still up to date with all that has happened in 2025.
So, somewhere between the aforementioned updates, Animaze 2024 will become fixed in time, and we're going to continue with a new "logical" DLC in 2026, but as far as 2025 goes, all that functionality will be present in the 2024 DLC too.
A call to action
Animaze's technical scope has expanded beyond the typical game. As this scope broadens, it's harder and harder to test and account for every combination of avatar/background/app settings/hardware settings/hardware drivers/etc... (to name a few). You will see more "opt-in" features, rather than overwriting old ones, as we are trying to minimize faulty points inside the app.
That being said, we want your feedback, opinions, and confirmations in order to make this service better for everyone.
To summarise what to expect next year:
new iOS app, which simplifies the external camera workflow
tracking research and updates (with a tracker Android as a stretch goal)
Blender file importer,
core performance updates
That is it. We hope you find all these as exciting as we do.
We wish you happy holidays and happy streaming!
The Animaze Team,
Catalin, Alex, and Dragos.