Why this matters
Map Studio is a dedicated workspace for short-form geographic storytelling. Start from a project library, search the bundled atlas for countries, cities, continents, seas, mountains and other natural features, then add detailed regions or accurate point markers. Capture camera views and edit them directly on the Story timeline, resize the workspace around the task, and choose Editorial, Dark, Light or built-in NASA satellite imagery. Projects autosave to Vidorio with a private device recovery, and videos render as H.264 MP4 with attribution preserved on every frame.
What changed
Build portrait map animations in Vidorio with camera moves, timed regions, routes, markers, labels, arrows, measurements, editable map styles, and 1080 × 1920 MP4 rendering.
Direct maps from complete narrated thoughts
Auto reads the narration as a continuous story, so a journey or comparison can begin inside one cut and continue across several others. Spoken word timings guide the scene when available; otherwise Auto estimates timing from the narration. It chooses geographic passages that help explain the story, uses the map catalogue for places and icons, and keeps captions tied to what is actually said. Best parts controls frequency, while Video percentage aims for coverage using complete suitable passages; even 100% leaves unrelated material with its existing visuals. Each completed map is saved as an editable source project and placed at its own time range on Video+.
Create a miniature railway journey
Choose a train in Icons > Realistic, then open Travel and choose Draw a route or Follow a drawn path. Railway under route is enabled by default for the new electric express, steam locomotive and panoramic alpine train; switch it off to keep only the moving train. The rails, sleepers and end buffers follow the full route and appear in exported frames. Add recognizable landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal or Colosseum to give the journey a setting.
Follow the journey
Select a drawing path, arrow or measure, or an icon with Travel enabled, and choose a Follow style in Camera follow. Overhead keeps a steady north-up view, Chase turns with the journey, Side track watches from the side, and Orbit sweeps around the subject. Your camera zoom sets the starting distance. The camera follows the visible tip or icon, including flight height, and eases back to your camera views when the object ends. When follows overlap, the object that starts last takes priority.
Build documentary scenes with timed firing
Open Icons > Realistic to find the new models. Select an armed model and enable Firing > Fire weapon, then choose One shot, Bursts or Nonstop. Start after sets the delay in seconds from the icon appearing; Fire for sets how long repeated fire lasts. Rotate the model to aim along its barrel and adjust Range or Flash size to suit the scene. These visual effects are saved with the project and appear in both preview and rendered video. The existing Soldier, Tank, Cannon and Warship also support firing. Unarmed rescue, supply and field-support models expand the scenes you can build around them.
Explain people and places with pictures
Photo callout frames a landscape image in white with a tapered pointer. Photo card uses rounded corners and a fine stem. Both support your own uploads, adjustable crops and frame thickness, a staged reveal, and a quiet sound controlled by the map's automatic sound effects. Auto chooses image surfaces to explain the narration, preserves photo credits, and leaves the geography intact when a picture cannot be found.
Prepared maps for your country
Data maps is a library of maps already prepared for the highlighted place. Select Map category, then the + button on the same row. There are no custom uploads or live publisher searches. The library includes population-density maps for 230 countries and territories; Czech Statistical Office maps preserve detailed municipality and city-district geography for population, average age, education, employment and other census measures. City maps show the mapped urban centres covered by each dataset. Available maps vary by country: the picker lists only maps that have actual bundled data. Give each map its own start, ending and animation, then review the entrance and exit. Projects keep a reference to the same immutable map version so it remains aligned and repeatable in preview and export.
Bring water to mapped shores
Choose Icon, place an item on the map, then search Symbols for Water surface. Drag its water handle to move the area, and set Width and Depth in metres. Wave strength and Wave speed control the surface; Beach wash lets waves advance onto mapped beaches and recede. Water follows mapped water polygons and keeps mapped buildings and bridges clear. Beach slope supplies an approximate beach height where terrain elevation is unavailable. The effect works on flat maps, follows the object timing, and is included in exported frames.
How to use it
Open Maps
In Edit, move the playhead near the moment you want and open Maps.
Select a part
Drag Start and End or enter exact times. Each part can be up to 20 seconds, and the narration excerpt shows what is selected.
Listen before adding
Select Listen to hear only the chosen part, then adjust the range if needed.
Add more parts
Select Add map to save the part, then choose another range and add it without closing Maps.
Create or edit
Select Auto on a saved part to create its map, or Open to start blank in Map Studio. Use Auto all for narration-wide placement.
Review the result
Play the added map scenes on Video+. Open Saved maps to inspect or edit their source projects in Map Studio.
Add a prepared map
In Map Studio, select a highlighted country or city and open Data maps. Choose Map category and select the + button beside it. Only maps already added for that place appear in the picker.
Set the map timing
Set Appears at (s) and Ends at (s), then choose Map surface, Entrance and Exit. Each added map has its own timing.
Review the animation
Select Preview entrance or Preview exit. Save the project; it keeps the same version of the prepared map for playback and export.
What has changed over time
- Improved
Work the ground inside highlighted countries
Earthquake / erosion can cover a whole highlighted country or region with sandy soil and animated cracks. Blue ploughing tractors, red combine harvesters and bulldozers follow routes, leave wheel and plough lines behind them, and raise dust while moving. In Coverage, choose Whole highlighted region; under a machine's Travel controls, enable Work the ground and choose Work inside to keep its marks within a highlight. Worked ground remains after the machine passes and appears in preview and export.
- New
Watch historical borders change through time
Add a historical boundary such as the Roman Empire and turn on Through time in its panel. The territory grows and closes in through every snapshot of that state with the Grow out animation, while a date in the middle of the highlight counts up or down to each change. Pick which years to include, type the date each one should show, drag the markers on the timeline to line every change up with your narration, and drag the date anywhere on the map.
- New
Add waves that follow mapped shores
Water surface adds a movable water area to flat maps, with animated waves, shoreline foam and optional beach wash. Adjust its size, wave strength, speed and beach slope, then keep the same motion in preview and export.
- Improved
Illustrate map stories with real photos
Add white photo callouts and rounded photo cards to your maps. Auto can find attributed images of named people and places, then use them in photo markers, country fills, photo badges or object close-ups.
- Improved
Add ready-to-use maps for your country
Data maps now offers a prepared country library: choose a map and add it with +. Population-density maps cover 230 countries and territories, with detailed Czech census maps and global city maps for infrastructure, land use and climate.
- Improved
Build industrial and city scenes with 16 animated miniatures
Map Studio now includes six utility vehicles and ten industrial, energy, communications and logistics models. Work vehicles steer progressively along routes, while lifting equipment operates in stationary scenes. Robot joints, conveyor rollers, radar antennas, turbine blades and cable cars have their own animations.
- Improved
Stage animated ground, air and naval scenes
Twenty new low-poly models add soldiers, artillery, armored vehicles, helicopters, armed aircraft, ships and field support. Armed models now offer timed muzzle flashes, tracers, smoke and recoil, with single shots, bursts or continuous fire.
- Improved
Make every automatic map stage the actual point
Automatic maps now carry the narration’s meaning into the scene: routes stay continuous across successive destinations, line lengths become readable measurements, blocked subjects receive clear visual verdicts, repeated actors form uncluttered crowds, and captions no longer cover the geography they explain.
- Improved
Make automatic maps follow what the narration means
Auto now understands the full narration before choosing its strongest map-worthy moments, keeps labels and visuals tied to spoken context, and can add credited portraits for clearly named people instead of filling scenes with keyword guesses.
- Improved
Choose the exact moments your maps should cover
Maps now lets you select and listen to an exact part of the video before adding it. Each part can be up to 20 seconds, and you can queue several parts, create them automatically, or open them in Map Studio.
- New
Keep moving map subjects in frame
Camera follow tracks drawing paths, arrows and measurements or travelling icons with four shot styles: Overhead, Chase, Side track and Orbit. Follow shots ease in and out and are included in saved projects and rendered video.
- New
Highlight the regions inside a country
Search a country to find its regions, states and provinces, then highlight them individually or together. Regional flag fills are available where a matching flag is in the catalog, including all 14 regions of Czechia.
- Improved
Choose from more original 3D map models
Icons > Realistic now includes two patrol cars, an airliner with airport support vehicles, three fleet vehicles, two ships and four village houses.
- Improved
Build railway journeys with animated trains and world landmarks
Add three animated trains and ten landmark miniatures from Icons > Realistic. Draw a train route to lay a complete railway automatically, with carriages following bends and wheels following travel.
- Improved
Let complete narrated thoughts direct your maps
Auto now chooses geographic passages across cut boundaries, times camera moves, place highlights, labels and relevant icons to the narration, and adds each finished scene to Video+. Your original narration continues underneath, and editable source projects appear in Saved maps.
- Improved
Build map scenes with true 3D symbols
Transport, weather, conflict and place symbols now render as complete miniature models from every map angle, while abstract marks stay crisp and flat. Built models keep their full proportions in previews, on the map and in exported video.
- Improved
Add atmosphere and depth to map stories
Map Studio now adds timed rain, snow, fog, storms and sunshine, richer ink and neon looks, cinematic ink-sweep style transitions, and more detailed plane and truck icons for travel scenes.
- Improved
Tell richer map stories with icons and labels
Map Studio now adds animated travel icons, photo pins, counting labels, flexible label stems, and a space backdrop so places, routes, and figures can carry more of the story without leaving the map.
- Improved
Style map stories with richer visual treatments
Map Studio now adds preset looks, shaped and hand-drawn arrows, circle markers, photo-backed labels and regions, glow and smoke treatments, single-map borders, and smoother transitions between style moments.
- Improved
Explore history with year-specific map highlights
Map Studio now searches 53 historical world snapshots from 123,000 BCE to 2010 alongside present-day places. Add a named historical boundary as a highlight, search by year or era, and use a sourced period flag where one is available.
- New
Let the narration place maps automatically
Choose Auto in Maps to find places in the spoken narration and create map videos across the strongest moments or a chosen percentage of the edit. Best parts offers Light, Balanced and Often pacing, while 100% adds a narration-grounded map to every cut.
- Improved
Build sharper maps with real routes and place shapes
Map Studio can now follow real roads, add multiple selected areas as one highlight, draw cities and seas by their footprint, trace rivers as blue centerlines, and render maps at higher final quality.
- Improved
Create sharper satellite and globe stories
Satellite and Globe now use Vidorio-managed high-definition imagery by default, so creators get sharper close-up map stories without connecting a personal provider key.
- Improved
Create sharper maps with cinematic backdrops
Editorial, Dark, Light, Satellite and Globe now use Vidorio-managed high-definition map sources, while zoomed-out highlights stay clean and optional 3D square backdrops add depth around the map.
- Improved
Map highlights now follow geography more closely
Country fills retain finer shoreline detail, and named rivers use denser paths so close map views track bends instead of cutting across the landscape.
- New
Turn places into animated map stories
Build portrait map animations in Vidorio with camera moves, timed regions, routes, markers, labels, arrows, measurements, editable map styles, and 1080 × 1920 MP4 rendering.
- Improved
Build map stories faster and more smoothly
Map Studio now searches the full bundled country atlas, keeps new objects visible as you add them, and makes preview playback, timeline editing, recovery, and browser rendering more responsive.
- Improved
Build detailed map stories with faster controls
Map Studio now opens with a project library, searches thousands of countries, cities and natural features, includes built-in NASA satellite imagery, and adds resizable panels plus direct camera-point editing.
- Improved
Animate globe stories with richer map graphics
Map Studio now adds cinematic Globe views, timed basemap changes, animated boundary and route treatments, one-click country flags, and the existing text-preset animations, blend modes and map-attached 3D labels.
- Improved
Add animated maps straight to any cut
The Edit workspace now includes Maps directly after Avatars. Choose a saved Map Studio project, edit it first, start a cut-matched blank map, or create a cut-aware draft from the current narration and visual direction; Add to Cut renders it back into the exact source cut.