How Animate works

What Animate does

Animate turns one still image into a short video. Each video costs 20 tokens and takes about 90–120 seconds to create. The result is saved to My Renders.

Choosing your image

Use a sharp, high-resolution image. Renders you made with the Render tool work especially well, but a clear photo of a real space works too.

Start frame and end frame

The start frame is required — it’s where the video begins. The end frame is optional and only for a transition, when you want to move from one image to another (for example, a sketch to the finished render). If you use one, both images should be the same size and close in framing — a small angle or zoom change, not a jump from an interior to an exterior.

Choosing a move

Moves are grouped into Interior and Exterior. For interiors, forward moves like “Slow Push In” make a space feel larger, and “Ceiling Reveal” suits tall or double-height rooms. For exteriors, “Orbit” circles the building and “Aerial Reveal” shows the whole site. If the render already speaks for itself and you don’t want the camera to steal attention, choose “Living Still” or “Golden Drift” — the camera barely moves and only the light and surroundings do. And when you want the light itself to change rather than the camera, “Lights Come On” (interior) and “Day to Night” (exterior) shift from day into evening while the camera stays almost still.

Writing your own motion

Every preset is just a carefully written sentence. Choosing Write my own lets you write that sentence yourself, which is worth doing whenever your scene has something specific in it — a fireplace, a pool, a person at the window.

Your image already defines the scene: the room, the materials, the light. The prompt only has to say how the camera moves and how the scene behaves:

You rarely need both. Camera movement alone is usually enough, and for a held shot the ambient half is all you need.

Camera movement

Ambient motion

Examples to start from

Copy one and swap in your own details.

Interiors

• The camera dollies slowly forward through the hallway into the living room, warm light shifting across the walls
• The camera orbits gently to the left around the dining table, candlelight flickering softly
• Fixed camera. Sheer curtains stir in a light breeze and afternoon light creeps slowly across the floor

Exteriors

• The camera rises slowly from ground level, revealing the full elevation and the hills behind it
• The camera glides slowly to the right along the facade, leaves rustling gently in the breeze
• The camera orbits slowly to the right around the building, clouds drifting across the sky

Courtyards and landscape

• The camera pans slowly to the left across the courtyard, water rippling gently in the pool
• Fixed camera. Rain falls steadily on the terrace and puddles ripple gently

Transitions (needs both a start and an end frame)

• The line drawing dissolves slowly into finished materials as daylight fills the room
• The camera moves forward through the doorway as the sketch becomes a photorealistic render

With people

People move less predictably than cameras and weather. Add them to the render first, then animate.

• A woman leans on the balcony railing looking out, her hair moving gently in the breeze
• A man walks slowly forward down the corridor, the camera following from behind

Four rules

What to expect

The output is a single continuous shot of roughly five seconds. People move less predictably than cameras and weather, so if there are figures in the image the result may surprise you. The video is saved to My Renders — and if it fails to generate, you are not charged.