An animated 3D map to tell the story of a route.The terrain, the route, in a few seconds.

A flat map says where you are going. An animated 3D map also says what it takes: the climb, the descent, the pass, the valley. For a trail race, a cycling stage or a crossing on foot, the terrain is part of the story.

In a long film, the map comes back as a landmark: at the start to set out the route, between chapters to show where the runner is, at the end to measure the distance covered. A route that lights up shot after shot does this without a word.

Clément Deffrenne, the creator of the Clemquicourt YouTube channel, told the story of his Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in a 55-minute film. The UTMB goes around the Mont Blanc massif: 170 kilometers, 10,000 meters of elevation gain and three countries, France, Italy and Switzerland.

I animated the 3D map in December 2025: the snow-covered massif in relief, and the race route in magenta, drawing itself around the peaks. Direction and editing are by Léo Euphrasie.

An ultra-trail is also run at night. Two of the four shots show the same terrain under blue light, where the magenta route stands out like a headlamp: it follows a ridge, crosses a summit, then drops toward the valley.

The last shot returns to daylight, in a flyover at the foot of the glaciers. Changing the light on the same map is enough to convey time passing, with no text on screen.

The route, if you have it: a GPX or KML file, a Strava link, or an annotated map. The points to highlight: start, finish, aid stations, passes, towns or borders.

Then the video’s frame: the number of shots, their length, the format (16:9 for YouTube, 9:16 for social media), the channel’s or brand’s colors, and the edit’s delivery date.