Digital content creation software: Creativity democratized

Digital content creation is the creation of audio/visual information to entertain, market, or inform—distributed across digital platforms to attract and retain an audience. It is also the production of digital VFX and animation content.

Digital content is ubiquitous in today’s world and can refer to any moving or still images, audio, and text created and distributed using computer equipment and the internet.

The term digital content creation has proliferated in recent years to have divergent meanings. For quite some time, the 3D animation and VFX community has used digital content creation (DCC) to describe the work they do and DCC tools to refer specifically to the software that contributes to 3D effects and animation production, such as Maya, 3ds Max, Arnold, Bifrost, and other tools in the Autodesk Media & Entertainment Collection.

However, with the explosive rise of social media, podcasting, e-commerce content sites, and influencer culture, digital content creation has come to refer more commonly to those smaller-scale pursuits. And digital content creation tools can range from freeware to a suite of high-end software programs to hardware such as a laptop webcam or an 8K cinema camera. The software is easier than ever to use, with the associated costs of storage, processing, and distributing content falling all the time because of technologies like the cloud.

Whether digital content is the work of hundreds of VFX artists on a Hollywood blockbuster or a social media post from an influencer, technology that takes advantage of advances such as connected data, artificial intelligence (AI), efficient workflows, and cloud computing continually change and improve the way content is made.

As the technological infrastructure has expanded, video, vlogs, animation, visual effects (VFX), and other moving-picture art forms have come into their own. The tools have brought the barrier to entry for artists way down, and the low cost of mass distribution gives creators potential audiences that even professional studios in the pre-digital era could only dream of.

With digital content creation tools’ ease of use, creators—even independent VFX artists and animators—can promote their brands by staying visible to audiences, creating and posting often to stay top-of-mind in a crowded marketplace. And if artists hope to make a career in media and entertainment (M&E), there’s no better calling card to studios and producers than a portfolio full of eye-catching work.