Get an animated illustration as a video, a GIF, or a Lottie animation.

ONLY for an illustration whose media_types includes "animated" - check a search_illustrations result first. A static illustration has no animated format, and every format here answers "not found" for it.

THIS is what you publish. The animation links in a search result are a 368px preview with no transparency, and watermarked unless the account is entitled to the illustration; the file this tool returns is full size, transparent, and never watermarked. Reach for the search links while choosing, and for this tool once the choice is made.

Formats, and where each one actually plays:

• "webm" (default) - VP9 with an alpha channel. Chrome, Firefox, Edge. This is the one to reach for first

• "mp4-hevc" - HEVC with an alpha channel, in an .mp4 container. Safari only: do NOT make it the single source of a , Chrome and Firefox will show nothing

• "prores" - ProRes 4444 in a .mov, around 55 MB. A mastering file for a video editor, never for a web page

• "gif" - full-size GIF, no transparency worth relying on

• "gif-low" - a smaller GIF, and the ONLY animated format that needs no account. Roughly a third of animated illustrations have none, and nothing in a search result says which

• "lottie" - a Lottie JSON to render in code. Legacy: illustrations added from 2024 onwards almost never carry it

• "aep" - the After Effects project the animation was built from

TO PUT AN ANIMATION ON A PAGE, offer both web formats. One alone covers roughly half the browsers. The order is load-bearing: mp4-hevc first.

<video autoplay loop muted playsinline poster="...">
  <source src="....mp4"  type="video/mp4; codecs=hvc1">
  <source src="....webm" type="video/webm">
</video>

Safari answers canPlayType "probably" for webm as well, takes whichever source comes first, and then cannot show VP9's alpha - so a webm listed first gives Safari a black rectangle. Chrome and Firefox skip the HEVC source and fall through to the webm, so putting it first costs them nothing.

The names are this server's, not the API's, and they are deliberately not the API's: upstream, mov-avc returns ProRes and mov-hevc returns an .mp4, so the upstream names describe neither the container nor the codec.

WHICH FORMATS AN ILLUSTRATION HAS VARIES, and two illustrations in the same style often disagree. Do not probe them one by one: ask for the one you want, and if it is missing the answer names every format this illustration does have, so one refusal is enough to choose again.

Every format except "gif-low" needs a signed-in Icons8 account whose plan covers the illustration.

The URL is presigned and expires in one hour - download it now, do not store it. For a link to keep, use animation.webm from the search result.

Args: illustration_id: The id from a search_illustrations result ctx: MCP context for API access format: One of webm, mp4-hevc, prores, gif, gif-low, lottie, aep

Returns: {"url", "width", "height", "expires_in_seconds"}, or {"error"} explaining what would unlock the format. Every format but gif-low counts toward the paid-download limit: a refusal carries "retry_after_seconds".