What is Lottie?
Lottie is an open-source animation file format developed by Airbnb that allows designers to export animations they have created in After Effects and render them natively on mobile and web.
Instead of exporting animations as video files, Lottie uses JSON files and a JavaScript library called Bodymovin to export the animations. This allows the animations to be rendered as lightweight, scalable vector graphics rather than raster images.
Some key benefits of using Lottie animations:
- Small file sizes compared to video files, saving bandwidth
- Scales smoothly to any size without losing quality
- Interactive and customizable with code
- Supported across platforms including iOS, Android, and web
Lottie is becoming widely adopted for interactive animations in apps and websites. Its open-source nature means it is free to use and continues to be improved by contributors. The JSON export through Bodymovin gives designers flexibility to export After Effects animations while allowing developers to manipulate them programmatically.