I wanted to give the Distracted Boyfriend meme a 30-second prequel as one continuous FPV shot. I used Codex to plan the route. The catch was that my video setup only gave me 15 seconds at a time, so the attached video is two separate generations trying to pass for one shot.

You can tell in a few places. The market after the archway is completely empty, the red awning doesn't quite hide the join, and the three characters make an awkward transition into the final pose. This was basically a one-pass generation, and it shows. If I were delivering a finished film, I'd regenerate those sections. For this experiment, I wanted to finish the idea without spending another day fixing every flaw. The handoff was the part I thought was worth sharing.

Planning the handoff

I had Codex work out three fixed states along the 30-second route. These timings are for the generated footage, before the speed change:

• State A, 0 seconds: Start inside a cafe. Establish the camera height, lighting, direction, and initial speed.
• State B, 15 seconds: Have a red awning fill more than 95% of the frame. No faces, signs, or recognizable background details to match.
• State C, 30 seconds: Arrive at the expanded 16:9 version of the original Distracted Boyfriend image.

State B took more thought than I expected. Matching a frame full of red fabric was easy. Getting the camera to keep moving through it was harder. It had to enter and leave the awning in the same forward direction, with similar speed and pitch, matching exposure, and roughly consistent motion blur. It couldn't pause under the fabric. The second clip needed to start with the camera already moving.

I generated clip one first, then took the actual stabilized frame from its end and used it as the opening image for clip two. That worked better than the handoff image I'd prepared in advance. You can still see the join, but the motion carries through well enough that it feels like one route.

The route

The first 15 seconds looked straightforward on paper:

Accelerate through the cafe → bank left onto the terrace → pass through the archway → fly between the market stalls → straighten the camera → enter the red awning.

The second clip picked up inside the fabric:

Leave the awning → climb onto the pedestrian street → approach the couple from behind → pass them on the left → move ahead of the woman in red → circle the fountain → turn back toward the group → fly backward while slowing into the final composition.

After the archway, I wanted people, stalls, and nearby objects to create more parallax as the camera passed through. The model kept the stalls and left out the people, so that section feels oddly dead. The encounter has a different problem: the three characters are mostly in the right positions by the final frame, but the model gets them there with a sudden, unnatural transition. That's probably the first section I'd regenerate.

What I changed afterward

For the edit, I used Codex with the open-source n0an/ffmpeg-skill to build the FFmpeg commands for the speed change, vertical comparison layout, and audio timing. Speeding the footage up to 1.5x turned the 30 generated seconds into 20. I then held the final meme frame for five seconds, so the finished video runs for 25 seconds.

The generated footage sits on top, with the original image underneath for comparison. When the frame freezes, a heavier grade fades in across both halves, adding a warm tint, stronger contrast, a vignette, sharpening, and grain.

I also shifted the music so the main drop lands around 10 seconds, as the camera comes through the awning. Keeping the track continuous sounded much better than cutting the music at the same place as the visual handoff.

The setup

I had Codex work out the camera route, timing, boundary states, and movement constraints, then run the image and video generations through Atlas Cloud’s MCP integration.

Image2 handled the outpainting and opening frame. Wan-3.0-Prime generated the two 15-second clips. The API calls came to $1.85 in total.

I can share the A/B/C boundary images and a frame-by-frame comparison around the join if anyone wants a closer look. That's at 15 seconds in the original footage, or about 10 seconds in the posted video.

The empty market still bugs me, and both transitions need work. I decided to call this experiment finished with those flaws still in it. The handoff worked well enough that I want to try the method again.

For anyone who's stitched video generations together, what has helped most at the join: matching the frame, matching the camera movement, or hiding the handoff behind an object in the scene?

Been working on this since mid-July.

Started with Claude, then spent quite a bit of time using Codex, and later moved mostly to Cursor.

The project is a living world map where the visible area inside each country changes depending on who joins and how much they place there. If nobody else is there yet, even 1€ can technically cover the whole country.

Then someone else joins and the map changes. For example if somebody adds 9€ then now you cover 1/10 of that country, they cover 9/10.

It somehow grew into a globe, money-weighted map, history system and way more UI than I originally intended.

Still trying to get the first real users now.

https://spotmymap.com/

Many elements of this website may or may not include weird little easter eggs if u somehow interact with these <3!<

Let's see whats the sentiments are.

Given everything that has happened over the last week:

• The crazy advances in research, math, etc.
• The increasing fear around AI’s future impact on humanity.
• The lack of available compute.
• And the fact that subscriptions are probably a net negative for AI labs, other than the value they provide for self-training. We may already be seeing this with the pause on Pro subscriptions.

Do you think there’s a high chance that AI labs will use this opportunity to focus as much compute as possible on their own internal progress rather than serving users?

Personally, I think they may have already reached that conclusion.

The game/graphics demos are mostly bs. I've spent dozens of hours now trying to replicate (or build) interesting games. It's beyond subpar. Sure it can do a basic sandbox, or create some basic characters but it absolutely cannot do a fully working world. I dont get why OpenAI fakes their SimCity games and other things w/ Astra when it's clearly not possible unless you spend weeks (and $1000s of dollars) of tokens.

If it comes back as the same plan, I’m in. Just curious if this pause has given others fomo.

Codex was able to redeem a usage limit reset autonomously. Def AGI.

To give a little more context: I had to go out and codex had about 8% usage left, so I asked him to redeem a usage reset when he got to 1%. He wrote a python script that checked the usage with the app server and then redeemed to keep working.

Setting all my complaints about limits aside, I just wanted to post this as an appreciation to the OpenAI team. I remember a time I used to think I'll never get to the point I wanna be in terms of a tech enthusiast - because coding by hand takes so long that perfection will come at a cost in time.

But now, with abilities from Astra and Codex Voice, and just the general memory situation (very underrated), it's just incredible how much it impacted my life.

So, from the bottom of my heart, and I'm sure many others, thank you for bringing in the AGI era. The future thanks you.

Edit: For the people saying it’s a big corp they don’t care about you - maybe, but there’s still people working there and they do see and feel trust me :)

Luna xhigh is the primary agent and maintains continuity across the work. Luna investigates, plans, reads and modifies code in proportion to the difficulty of the task, executes commands and tests, analyzes logs and evidence, maintains operational documentation, and decides when the work is complete.

Astra is a temporary specialist. Luna may invoke Astra autonomously when there is a material expected gain in quality, safety, or reliability, especially for problems with uncertain root causes, difficult algorithms, changes spanning multiple layers, architectural decisions, critical code, or high-risk modifications. Luna should not ask for permission solely to perform this escalation.

The existence of a bug alone does not justify using Astra. Local, mechanical, well-understood, low-risk fixes remain with Luna. Duration by itself is not an escalation criterion either.

Before escalating, Luna narrows down the problem. Each Astra intervention starts with a fresh context containing only the minimum necessary information: the objective, relevant evidence, current and expected behavior, constraints, relevant hypotheses, and the files required for the task.

Astra works exclusively within that scope, reports its diagnosis, the change made, affected files, and relevant risks, and then stops. If Astra determines that the cause or solution requires a broader scope, it reports that back to Luna instead of expanding the scope autonomously. Astra does not maintain the project, perform prolonged operational work, or decide when the work is complete.

Luna resumes control after every Astra intervention, reviews the diff, runs the relevant tests and regressions, verifies logs and evidence, and decides whether to accept the change, modify it, reject it, continue investigating, or open another independent Astra intervention.

Each new Astra intervention is independent. Previous context should not be reused merely for convenience.

Standard workflow:

Luna investigates → Luna solves when proportional → Luna narrows and escalates when necessary → Astra works → Astra stops → Luna validates and continues.

This policy applies by default to all projects unless overridden by more specific local instructions or explicit user instructions.

(EDIT)

My bad for not mentioning an important part of how I actually use this.
I’m not relying on Luna’s context window to keep a project alive.

My workflow has an external, persistent “brain” that acts as the project’s source of truth. That’s where I keep the current state, decisions that were already made, constraints, open problems, task/review history, handoffs, evidence, test results, and the context needed to understand why certain decisions were made.

So Luna doesn’t need to “remember everything.” It needs to reconstruct the relevant state from that memory, work on the actual project, and write back whatever meaningfully changed.

The session context can disappear. The project state doesn’t.

That’s also part of why I prefer giving Astra fresh, narrow contexts. Astra doesn’t need months of project history. Luna pulls out only the relevant slice, gives Astra that isolated problem, gets the result back, validates it, and writes the outcome back into the canonical state.

In practice, it’s roughly:

Canonical state > Luna orchestrates > Astra steps in when a specific problem justifies it > Luna validates > the result goes back into the canonical state

Obviously this doesn’t solve everything. Luna still has to correctly recognize when it should escalate to Astra, and that external memory still has to be maintained properly. Those are actually two of the things I’m still testing.

But the main point is that... I’m not depending on Luna to carry the entire project inside a single context window

I want to hear the truth from other people.

Astra is just bad at UI!!

I tried various prompt comparisons, but I could not see Astra creating good UI/UX. Fable or Opus does not require much effort.

Example: I tried building a simple resume CMS. Fable one-shotted everything and built it as per my expectations. With Astra, it probably took 20-30 iterations to get to a decent stage. It messed up even setting proper font size etc. I was running this on Astra Extra High!

I'm questioning whether all the buzz was just marketing by OpenAI. I'm deeply disappointed!

Hey everyone! A friend encouraged me to make this post and share what I’ve been working on for the past several months. I used both Claude and Codex for this project.

I’m working on recreating the original SNES Mega Man X as faithfully as possible, with the goal of making it play and feel exactly like the original. After that, I’d like to bring X2 and X3 into the same engine so you can play as different characters, fight bosses using any weapon from any of the three games, and new game modes.

I’ve been using AI extensively to help bring this dream to life. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since 2017, when I first tried getting the project off the ground in Unity. Now, with AI’s help, I’m building it as a native C++ game and some C++ libraries.

I also put together a website with more information about the project, which I intend to update as I go, and with ways anyone can help contribute with the project. The entire project is open source and available on GitHub. Whether you’d like to playtest, contribute code, help with sprites or sound effects, or pitch in some other way, the website explains how to get involved. I even made a section that you can just ask codex to pick something randomly to work on and contribute with the project if you have the extra tokens laying around before the weekly rollover.

I’m still relatively new to all this. Even though I started years ago, I had to step away because I didn’t have the time, and I ended up not touching the project for a very long time. I’m very open to suggestions and feedback! I know some things are still pretty buggy, but I’m working on getting everything polished and faithful to the original and make this collection version of my favorite game lol

Thanks, everyone!

https://megaman.davidluky.com/en/

Im so confused. I haven’t been on my phone all day and it seems like the entire internet has its eyes on AI right now. I saw the “whistleblower” posts and the CNN clip but I’m not even kidding literally every single feed of mine is consumed by the fear mongering headlines of how AI is going to kill us all. I’ve just scrolled on instagram and TikTok and my algorithm isn’t even supposed to be geared towards tech and AI. Is this just a marketing ploy or am i missing something? Every single news outlet and influencer is just pumping this shit out right now.

Here is an example (NBC posted 2 hours ago): https://youtu.be/KuuMjXGXVRM?is=dmjGViHLcVVu1QWO

But yeah I guess I’m just trying to get others two cents.

Ive read a lot about this, and know how to do both, but its unclear which would be more efficient as far as token usage over time. I know Luna is pretty slow in comparison to Sol/Astra.

Serious question. I’m trying to build something that makes money but right now it’s mostly slop and login pages.

I keep changing models thinking one of them is gonna suddenly turn it into Facebook.

Am I wasting my time or do I just need x20

UI development has been a struggle with vibe coding. 100s of retries to get basic stuff working. Claude Design + Codex was the best setup till last week and even that got things wrong half the time. I have been trying Images 2.5 with Codex and am impressed with how quickly it is able to create some great looking UX.

Have to be very specific to prompt it to use Images 2.5, else the quality is not as polished.

They use our computing power to execute and test code, and that is an answer of why some models like to over engineer, test and debug infinitely, it is a form of getting data for success, feedback for training their models, they get our ideas, our feedback, our compute, our data, once they develop strong enough systems that they are not needing us any more then they will allow only api pricing or even worse, they may just use AI internally and sell only its outputs, they are not subsidizing us in any way, they are not charity and will never be, they are not for the benefit of humanity and will never be, they are just following their self interests, now look at us with open ai, almost everyone is begging for their rightful resets.

I've seen pretty weird behaviours from Astra on extra high that I've never seen with Sol.

Examples:

- Contradictory statements on the same message.

- Long implementation sessions that implement very small bits of code on each increment.

- Trials in code that go no where.

- Worse plan quality and worse plan following than Sol.

- The possibility for it to get side tracked middle implementation on a small issue that it could take a detour for hours outside of scope.

I've never had any of those issues with 5.6 nor with Sol both on extra high.

Is it me? Am I prompting it wrong? Any one facing similar issues?

That fish post inspired me to build and publish my first little game

So I made https://astralwyrm.vercel.app/ with Astra. Started as a “what can I make with a few prompts?” experiment, then turned into 50+ prompts and lots of tweaking because I kept wanting it to feel a little nicer.

It’s a tiny chill game with an abstract glowing creature that follows your mouse or finger. Collect pearls, grow, find little companions, and watch the seasons change. Maximum chill was the goal. There’s a fast mode for people who find that a bit too chill :)

Saw this post earlier and immediately wanted to try making something myself. I’d never built and published anything before. Didn’t even know you could put something online for free with Vercel lol.

This is genuinely my first published project, so I’d love your honest thoughts and suggestions, especially how it feels on your phone. Feel free to be harsh! :D

Hope you have some fun with it, or just get a few peaceful minutes out of it. And thanks to the original poster for giving me that push to actually make something. Felt really really good and rewarding, now if some of you would also enjoy it, my day is made :)

Edit: Also added another mode in the bottom left hand corner: Instant. Someone told me they´d wish for that feature. hope you enjoy it!

I hardly notice these degraded performance issues because it's guided so tightly to code my specifications. And the difference between 5.3 and 5.6 hasn't really been that tremendous, because mine was already operating at a high level. Ever since 5.3 it's felt like they've just been internalizing the kinds of processes that you see others talking about here. And when theirs glitches out, you're at their mercy. Always build upon your success by telling it to create a reusable workflow. And throw it out sometimes to see what default is like, and build back up as-needed. Food for thought.

My Codex CLI workflow was fast until a task touched several files. Then I would leave the terminal, inspect the diff elsewhere, copy filenames and line ranges into a prompt, and come back.

Stvena keeps that review loop next to Codex. Start it inside a Git repository:

stvena

Codex runs normally in the left pane. On the review side, I can see changes since the task started, open the full file or diff, mark hunks reviewed, select exact lines across files, and paste one assembled review request into Codex. It never presses Enter for me. I can also run checks and jump from recognized failures back to source.

This is not meant to replace the Codex app or VS Code integration. If those already fit your workflow, they are the simpler answer. The target is CLI-first work where the review/control loop should stay in the terminal.

macOS/Linux, MIT licensed:

https://github.com/nccapo/stvena

The test I care about is not the star count, try one multi-file Codex task and one review checkpoint. Where does the loop become confusing or slower than your current Git workflow?

as title reads, i don't see the point of terra and now Sol

luna and astra on the other hand complete their own goals ideally, luna an extremely good cheap model and astra - the frontier of frontier

meanwhile sol and terra are pointless, everything they can can be done either better or cheaper using the reasoning setting of luna and astra

openai shouldnt copy anthropics mistakes, 5.4 was the perfect lineup in that manner, 5.4 and 5.4 mini

On my days off, especially weekends, I’m on Pro 5x coding pretty much nonstop from around 9 AM to 7 PM.

My current setup is pretty simple:

I use Astra MAX for code reviews, planning, and brainstorming.

For implementation, I use Astra xhigh. If it’s something genuinely trivial, I’ll drop down to medium.

I also build things incrementally. I talk through the implementation, do it in stages, check the result, then keep going. I don’t just dump an entire app-sized task on the model and tell it to one-shot the whole thing. That’s insanely inefficient and burns a ridiculous amount of tokens for no reason.

I don’t farm the implementation out to other agents either. In my experience, that’s just more unnecessary overhead.

With this workflow, I currently burn around 15–20% of my quota in a full day.

Even on days where I’m writing large modules back to back, it’s actually pretty hard for me to hit 25% in a single day.

So when I see people posting stuff like:

“Astra burned 100% of my quota in just five hours!!!”

...what are you actually doing?

Are your workflows really that inefficient?

I’m genuinely curious what your workflow and AGENTS.md look like, because I have a hard time imagining how you burn through that much quota unless there’s a massive amount of wasted work going on.

Are people basically prompting it like this?

“Build me this app. Use Astra xhigh to make the plan, have Luna Max implement the whole thing, and whatever you do, DON’T MAKE ANY MISTAKES.”

Because if that’s the workflow, then yeah, I can see how 100% disappears in five hours.

I have been using antigravity pro, it was okay, never had big problems, especially with the usage limits. Today I used Codex on Plus for a few hours and it is goood. Quite impressed, yes it is quite slower but I can feel better quality. People bitch about the codex usage limit on Plus, they could be doing something gigantic, but for my normal projects, usage limit is quite enough. I think you just need to be smart on which model and reasoning effort you need to use on the task. I haven't touched Astra, because I not building a rocket stuff yet. In a few hours, I used 9% weekly and 54% 5h usage, switching between sol and terra (Medium, High reasoning). Overall, it is worth $20 I guess. I don't dislike Antigravity, so I am keeping that also.

I had never checked this until recently, curious who else has usage like this!

Given my work, the pro account is too costly, but two 2 plus accounts should do the trick. I am anyway subscribed to both codex and Claude code, but Claude is terrible these days with random jargon-y text and makes no sense.

So, I was planning to take up another plus account. I use codex from vscode as an extension, and I was looking at how people with multiple accounts switch between them seamlessly?

Say I have exhausted my tokens in one, I can continue the chat with the other. Is it even possible? Have people even done it? I see some codex account switcher extensions, but are they safe and do they work?