Unreviewed source draft

Video · Claude

Stick Figure Motivational Wall-Breaking Short Video

A flat stick-figure short-video prompt drawn with code: the protagonist uses a hammer to smash through three walls in succession, and after breaking through the final wall, reaches a flag as the night turns to dawn.

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Prompt

<inputs>
Ask me for: the four walls in order from weakest to strongest (default: REJECTION, FAILURE, HEARTBREAK, SELF-DOUBT), the goal word on the flag (default: SUCCESS), the three caption lines (default: "Life will put / walls in your way.", "Some will / knock you down.", "Get up. Hit harder. / Break through."), and whether I have my own sound effects pack (if not, use downloaded royalty-free sound effects). The length is fixed at 16 seconds.
</inputs>

<direction>
A flat 2D vector motivational short at 720x1280, 30fps, drawn entirely in code on one 2D canvas. One continuous locked-off shot, no cuts. The runner stays near the left third and the world scrolls past him at 400px/s.
Sky: a three-stop vertical gradient (top, 60%, horizon) that changes with the story. 0s near black #020305 / #04050a / #0a0c15. 5.5s dark navy with a purple horizon #06071a / #0b0c22 / #241c34. 8.6-10.3s it brightens to steel blue #16223d / #1d2c4b / #26375a while he charges. 11.2s back to dark navy #0b1028 / #10162f / #1b1a32. 12.6-14s dawn #1a1f46 / #3d3760 / #8a5c50. About 140 tiny stars at 25-60% opacity twinkle slowly and fade out at dawn.
Mountains: two layers of broad, soft rounded peaks drawn with quadratic curves, no outlines. The far layer is 330-410px tall and lighter than the sky (#0c0f19 at night, #1a2440 at the blue peak, #121d24 at dawn). The near layer is 150-230px tall and darker (#06070c, #0e1424, #0a1214). Parallax: stars .05, far .12, near .28, ground 1.0.
Ground: the ground line is at y=880. Dirt #1a150f fading to pure black by the bottom 5%, with tiny dark grass-tuft silhouettes on the line and a row of small grey pebbles just under it. At dawn the dirt warms to #3d2d1e with scattered dark spots.
The runner: a white stickman made of round-capped strokes (limbs 18-20px, torso 22px). Head radius 28 with one small dark dot eye, dark over-ear headphones (a band over the top and an ear cup on the back of the head). Far-side limbs are a slightly dimmer #d3d9e2. Hip at x=215, y=772; torso 114px, thigh and shin 58px each. He runs in place with a bouncy, knees-bent jog (one stride per 170px of scroll, 10px hip bounce, slight forward lean).
The carry pose: the hammer rests across his shoulder. Both hands are at chin level just in front of the face. The handle points back and slightly up (about -168°), with the hammer head just behind his head at face height.
The hammer: a 74px brown #8a5a32 handle with dark wrap stripes. The head is a 40x58 silver #cdd3db rounded block with a dark #262b33 inset panel carrying a pale zigzag rune and a vertical line. Small blue crackles flicker around the head every half second while he carries it. It must not look like any film's hammer.
The walls, labels in white Inter 700 set directly on the material (no tag or box):
- wall 1: wooden barricade 140x190, two #8a5530 posts and four #a46a3b planks with nail dots, label on the third plank in cream #fbe9d6
- wall 2: red brick wall 140x222, #a63d2c bricks in a running bond with pale #d9a99a mortar
- wall 3: glass pane 150x242, dark navy #1c2838 with a light grey #c8d0da frame and two diagonal pale streaks
- wall 4: concrete slab 186x416, grey #a2a4a8 to #8e9094 with two faint horizontal seams, label in light grey
The flag: a thin white pole 438px tall with a ball on top and a 170x112 bright green #2fd47a banner that waves on a travelling sine wave, the goal word centred in white Inter 700 20px.
Lightning: jagged midpoint-displacement bolts with a white core, a #9ccaff mid stroke and a soft #7fb8ff glow, plus 2-3 thin branches. Each bolt re-randomises every frame and flickers in brightness.
Type: Inter 700 only. Captions are white, 37px, centred, two lines at y=134 and y=180, with full stops, no box, no shadow. They fade in and out over 0.25s.
Finish: a soft vignette to rgba(0,0,0,.3) and a 5% film grain re-randomised 24 times a second.
Banned: cuts, outlines on the background, gradients on the stickman, captions that pop in word by word, labels on dark tags, debris that lingers forever, AI images or AI video, copyrighted characters or movie props, a voiceover, a logo or watermark.
</direction>

<structure>
16 seconds. Walls 1-3 are smashed on a 2-second beat; wall 4 wins first; then the comeback.
The hit move for walls 1-3, in this order:
1. Wind-up (hit-0.24s): he jumps 42px, tucks his knees and swings the hammer up and back over his head.
2. Strike (hit-0.07s): he thrusts it forward flat at shoulder height so the head lands on the top edge of the wall.
3. Lightning: a bolt from the sky hits the hammer head for 0.17s and the sky flashes blue.
4. Break: the wall breaks 0.02s later and a white dust cloud puffs at its base.
5. Recover: he returns to the carry pose by hit+0.48s.
Timeline: running, caption 1 visible from frame 0 (0s) → wall 1 is already on screen and he smashes it, planks and posts fly forward and land flat (0.5s) → wall 2 enters (about 1.5s) and he smashes it, bricks burst up in a cloud then pile (2.5s) → wall 3 enters and he shatters it, transparent shards drop in place (4.5s) → all debris fades out 2-2.8s after its hit → wall 4 slides in at full speed and the scroll stops hard at 6.55s with its left edge at x=376 → he raises the hammer straight up, it charges with crackles (6.3-6.58s) → orange #ff7a4a / #ffc070 sparks burst from the slab's upper-left corner and black radial cracks appear there, the slab doesn't break (6.6s) → caption 1 fades out (6.85-7.1s) and he is thrown backward onto his back, head to the left, still gripping the hammer, which lies upright by his feet (6.82-7.35s) → caption 2 in, he lies still (7.35-7.9s) → he sits up holding the hammer in front (7.9-8.25s), then stands (8.25-8.55s) → he walks forward to hip x=300 and presses the hammer forward-up against the cracked corner (8.55-9.05s) → a continuous flickering bolt hits the hammer, small arcs jump from hammer to slab, a warm glow sits at the contact point, the sky brightens to steel blue and the cracks spread (9.0-9.9s) → at 9.9s a big bolt, a strong blue sky flash and 12px shake, and the slab turns into a 3x7 stack of grey cubes (each with an X shading) that holds its shape and trembles for 0.25s, then collapses top to bottom and fades by 10.6s, caption 2 fades out (9.95-10.15s) → he swings back to carry, scrolling restarts at 460px/s and he drifts back to x=215 (10.45-11.4s) → caption 3 in (10.95s) → the flagpole slides in and the scroll stops with the pole at x=374 (11.9-12.5s) → the sky blends to dawn, a pale #f8dc9c sun (radius 44) rises from behind the hills to (466, 346) with a warm 330px halo, and a green glow builds behind the flag (12.6-14s) → he raises the hammer straight overhead with both hands, it crackles constantly, and small bolts strike it at about 13.9s and 15.0s, with a gentle 3px idle bob until 16s.
For any other topic, keep the same shape: three obstacles of rising toughness smashed on a 2-second beat with lightning, a fourth that wins and knocks him down, a beat on the ground, the comeback charge against the same obstacle, it crumbles into cubes, he runs to a goal and the night turns to dawn.
</structure>

<build>
1. One HTML file. Every frame is a pure function of time: seek(t) draws frame t. No timers, no CSS animation, and every random value comes from a seeded RNG so any frame can be redrawn identically.
2. Scroll position is the integral of a speed curve (400px/s; brake to 0 over 6.2-6.55s; 0 until 10.45s; ramp to 460px/s over 0.4s; brake to 0 over 11.9-12.5s). Precompute it in 1ms steps. Place each wall in world coordinates so its left edge is exactly where the hammer head lands at its hit time.
3. The figure is a skeleton: the hip position and body rotation, then thigh and shin angles per leg, and the arms solved with two-bone IK to hands placed along the hammer handle. The hammer pose is just an angle plus a shoulder-to-hand reach. Every pose change uses easeOutCubic or easeInOutCubic, and hits and landings get squash and stretch on a damped spring (damping .45, frequency 14).
4. Debris is simulated once at load from a seed (gravity 2200px/s², two damped bounces, then it settles flat) and looked up by time. Screen shake decays exponentially: 6px on each smash, 5px when the slab lands, 6px on his fall and 12px on the final strike.
5. Keep the sky, mountain and ground colours as keyframes on the story clock and blend between them with easeInOutCubic.
6. Render with Playwright in headless Chrome at 720x1280: seek every frame at 30fps and blend 2 subframes (±0.25 of a frame) for motion blur. Pipe the JPEGs into ffmpeg and encode libx264 at CRF 16, yuv420p, with +faststart.
7. Sound: if I upload my sound effects pack, use it; otherwise download royalty-free effects. Peak-align each one to its frame:
   - 0.5s, 2.5s, 4.5s: a whoosh on the wind-up plus a thunder crack, followed by wood crack, brick crumble and glass shatter
   - 6.55s: heavy thud as the slab lands
   - 6.6s: metallic clang with sparks
   - 7.35s: body fall
   - 9.0-9.9s: electric crackle build
   - 9.9s: big thunder strike with a rock collapse
   - 10.45s: whoosh as he runs again
   - 12.6s: soft riser into the sunrise
   - 13.9s and 15.0s: small zaps
   Add a driving cinematic music bed that stays tense through the night section and lifts at the sunrise, 6dB under the hits. Master with a limiter to -14 LUFS, -1.5dB true peak.
</build>

<gotchas>
The walls must scroll at exactly the ground speed or they slide like they're on ice. The hammer head has to touch the wall's top edge on the hit frame: solve the strike angle from the shoulder position, don't eyeball it. Debris must fly forward and then fade, or it piles up behind the runner as the ground scrolls. Lay broken posts and planks flat when they settle; never leave tall pieces standing upright. The weak hit on wall 4 gets sparks and cracks but no lightning bolt and no wall break, so the final strike reads as much bigger. The cube stack must hold its shape for a beat before collapsing, or the break looks like a glitch. Keep the debris and bolts clear of the caption area. Show me a contact sheet at 2 frames per second before the final render.
</gotchas>

<start>
Ask me the inputs, show me the beat sheet with my walls, captions and goal word, then build, show the contact sheet and render the video.
</start>

How to use

Suitable for vertical motivational short videos; replace the text on the four walls, the target words, and the subtitles before generating.

Details

Type
Video
Model
Claude
Source
MORGS
License
Source-author-rights
Published

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