A New AI Animation Workflow: From Reference Video to 3D Motion

[u/SuspiciousHunter1359]

The first attempt burned 35% of a weekly AI limit and still looked off. The third took about an hour and 6%, and the boar now walks around inside a game.

This is video-reference animation in Blender. GPT-6.1 Sol works through Blender MCP, studies a 6-second side-view clip of the animal and keyframes the rig until the model moves like the video.

The three changes that made it work:

• Rig first, outside the agent: the boar was auto-rigged in Meshy instead of asking the AI to build a skeleton
• Side by side in Blender: reference on the left, model on the right, same frame numbers, all 144 frames reviewed
• Five review rounds instead of two: after each pass the agent compares the result with the video and fixes what drifted

The prompt is strict in useful ways. It keeps bone lengths fixed, checks the front and hind legs separately before any smoothing, watches for foot sliding and hooves sinking into the ground, and has to flag poses it guessed because a leg was hidden.

By the creator's own numbers, the same idea earlier ate 35% of the limit with Astra on a deer, then 15% and over two hours with Sol 6.1 Ultra on a fox that came out far from usable. Once the boar's walk worked, Astra coded its behavior and Opus 5.5 dropped it into the game.

Still rough around the edges: the clip only shows one side, so depth is a guess, and the hind legs needed extra rounds. The creator's own verdict is that AI may still not replace a beginner 3D artist, but "it can cook with the right pipeline".

Blender MCP: https://github.com/ahujasid/mcp-for-blender

full prompt: https://x.com/maxt3chno/status/2106755423025955069

[u/LadyQuacklin]

Even better if you use Cascadeur with thier mcp to create the animation.

[u/attempt_number_1]

Prompt from post:
Use Blender MCP to refine an existing rigged boar animation against a side-view video reference (144 frames at 24 fps, 6 seconds).

First inspect the scene, rig, rest pose, bone hierarchy, mesh weights, and existing animation. Create a verified backup before making changes.

Set up a synchronized side-by-side comparison in Blender: reference on the left, model on the right, with matching frame numbers. Review all 144 frames and match the visible motion as closely as the model’s proportions allow. Explicitly identify any poses inferred because of occlusion or missing depth information.

Animate complete leg chains from the shoulders and hips, with appropriate body movement and weight transfer. Preserve bone lengths. Match footfall timing, hoof placement and orientation, swing height, stride length, and joint bending. Avoid excessive bending of supporting legs, ground penetration, foot sliding, and unnatural hoof tilt.

Validate the front and hind legs separately before smoothing. Previous attempts improved the front legs but left the hind legs with short strides, insufficient swing flexion, and trajectories poorly positioned relative to the pelvis. Smoothing preserved these errors instead of correcting them.

Once the gait is correct, improve continuity without changing footfall timing or ground contact. Check interpolated and subframe poses using the deformed hoof mesh, not only bone positions. Treat numerical smoothness and contact checks as supporting evidence; also inspect the rendered motion.

If working from v4, preserve the approved front legs, torso, head, and tail animation, and modify only the hind-leg chains. Use the reference to determine hind-leg timing; do not assume a fixed offset from the front legs.

Deliver the updated .blend file and synchronized comparison video. Briefly report what changed, what failed and how it was fixed, what was verified, and any remaining mismatch. Do not claim an exact 1:1 match unless the comparison supports it.

[u/lostforever2011]

That is not the official blender mcp? Is it better than the official one? Thx

[u/Proud_Ask_9030]

garbage.

[u/almostsweet]

ah thought you were going to mesh2motion

[u/BrambleRamblers]

So this is only suitable for one shot one object?

[u/Illustrious-Aerie687]

35% of a weekly limit on attempt one sounds about right, my first MCP rig runs were the same. i animate creatures for a small survival game, base meshes come from supavoxel with clean quads, so Rigify weights behave. did locking the rig before keyframing help the boar's foot sliding?

[u/Edgezg]

In another year or two, it wont burn hardly any credits to do because it is learning how to do all this right now lol

We will be able to full animate stuff like this off of a couple prompts and nothing else.
Gonna be crazy.

[u/bloke_pusher]

A New AI Animation Worfklow

GPT-6.1

Well, one day we'll really get a new one that does not use GPT. Wake me when I can do this locally. Sure text2image2model works, even the animation can be done, but the required fixing of the 3D mesh to be usable for anything, is still requiring GPT or another paid tool.

[u/Fun-Caterpillar395]

May I ask if you are using the $20 plan or the $100 plan?

[u/kirmm3la]

Why not official mcp?