Introducing Deep Nostalgia™ Special Animations

Deep Nostalgia™ is the magical MyHeritage feature, powered by D-ID, that allows you to see the people in old family photos blink, move their heads, and smile. Deep Nostalgia™ has taken social media by storm, with millions sharing their animations and reactions to seeing photos of their beloved ancestors come to life. Since its launch 5 weeks ago, 72 million animations have been created on MyHeritage.

This feature is based on different sequences of gestures that can be applied to a photo, each originating from a pre-recorded driver video that we’ve prepared in advance using MyHeritage employees. When we launched this feature, 10 such drivers were available. Today, we’re excited to announce that we have doubled the number of drivers. The 10 additional drivers released today, which we call special animations, allow you to see your ancestors express a wider spectrum of gestures and emotions, for example, smile wholeheartedly, blow a kiss, nod approval, and more. The special animations are available exclusively to subscribers on the Complete plan.

Many of our users were moved to tears to see their ancestors look around and smile at them. Now you can enjoy this even more, with the new special animations. 

How to select the new animations

The 10 new special animations expand the selection of movements and expressions you can apply to your old family photos: 

• • Smile
  • Dance 1
  • Dance 2
  • Kiss
  • Thankful
  • Kiss and wink
  • Eyebrows
  • Approval
  • Sideways
  • Compassion

They add on to the previous 10 general animations that are simply numbered from #1 to #10.

When you animate a photo, the initial animation is selected by default so as to match the pose and angle of the person in your photo perfectly. That initial animation is always one of the first 10 general animations  and is never one of the special animations. The special animations need to be selected manually.  

The Deep Nostalgia™ feature is accessible from 3 locations:

• The Deep Nostalgia™ landing page (www.myheritage.com/deep-nostalgia)
• The Photos section in the family site
• The MyHeritage mobile app for iOS and Android

Selecting a special animation is not available from the landing page, which is only meant for quick animation and sharing, and is only available from the other 2 locations, where more advanced functionality is at your disposal.

On the family site

To access special animations from your browser, visit the Photos section of your family site (“My photos” under the Family tree tab in the navigation bar) and click on the photo you wish to animate.

Click on the animation button above the photo to bring up the new animation panel on the right side of the screen. 

New: Animation Panel

Select a new animation from the list of “Special animations”, or if you wish, select one of the first 10 general animations.

Here are a few examples of the special animations in action: 

Kiss:

Dance 1: 

Compassion:

On the mobile app

To access special animations via the MyHeritage mobile app, open the app and access the “Photos” section by tapping the “Photos” button on the home screen or in the main menu. Then, click on the photo you wish to animate.

Click on the animation icon to animate the photo, as shown below:

After a default animation is selected, click the Animation name at the top of the screen to select a different animation.

You can choose from the 10 general animations, or the 10 new special animations. 

Who can use special animations?

Special animations are available exclusively to subscribers with a MyHeritage Complete plan.

Non-paying users can still enjoy using Deep Nostalgia™ with the general animations and create several animations for free. If you wish to try out special animations, or to animate an unlimited number of photos, you’ll need the MyHeritage Complete plan.

Conclusion

MyHeritage continues to introduce new photo features that help you connect to your ancestors and family history in a whole new way. Many users have found the experience of using Deep Nostalgia™ to see their ancestors and loved ones in video deeply moving and meaningful. With the addition of the special animations, users now have the opportunity for an even deeper, more personal, and more poignant experience of Deep Nostalgia™.