u/LowOperation3187

Hey everyone,

I've been working on an idea for a while and wanted to get some honest feedback from people who actually make animated maps.

I find GEOlayers 3 a bit heavy and expensive for what I sometimes need. If I'm just trying to make a clean 2D map animation, the workflow can feel more complicated than it needs to be.

I originally considered making an After Effects extension, but working with lots of vector layers directly in AE can get pretty sluggish. So I'm considering a standalone desktop app instead.

The idea is pretty simple: create 2D vector map animations and export them as high-resolution videos with transparency, ready to import into After Effects, Premiere, or DaVinci Resolve.

I've already built a rendering engine using Python and Rust with GPU compute shaders, so the main thing left is building a usable interface and turning it into an actual product.

Before I spend more time on it, I'd really like to know:

1. Would something like this actually be useful to you? Would you be comfortable using a separate app for map animations, or is working directly inside After Effects too important to give up?
2. What would you realistically pay for it? Would you prefer a one-time purchase, or would a subscription make more sense?

I'm a university student, so I don't have unlimited time to work on this. I'd rather find out whether there's genuine interest before committing to the whole thing.

Any honest feedback is welcome, including reasons why you wouldn't use it. Thanks!