Animatics

How the Animatics section works#

1. Left — the project menu. “Animatics” sits in the “Production” group.
2. Top — episode and reel. The episode picker, “Bulk” operations, deleting the animatic; below them, the “Reel” of animatic files.
3. Center — the player. Above it, the number of the selected segment, its bounds and the shot it is linked to; below it, Split and Mark.
4. Bottom — the segment timeline.
5. Right — the segment panel. Start and end, scene, link to shot, frames, artifacts and transcription.

01Upload the animatic#

Each episode has its own animatic. Until there is one, the section shows an upload area: drag in an MP4 or click “Choose file” — you can add several files at once, and they line up one after another.

The uploaded files form the “Reel”. The buttons on the right add another file to the end of the reel or remove the last one.

After upload the platform prepares previews and frames for the timeline; at first the whole file is one segment.

02Cut it into segments#

A segment is a piece of the animatic that becomes one shot. You cut in the player:

• Split or the S key — a segment boundary at the current player position;
• Mark or M — a draft marker; once there are several markers, “Split at all markers” appears.

On the timeline each segment is a strip of frames: the number at the top left, the shot it is linked to on the right, the scene and duration at the bottom.

03Link a segment to a shot#

Select a segment on the timeline and its panel opens on the right. In the “Link to shot” block, pick a shot from the list — shots are grouped by scene.

After linking, the panel shows the shot card — here 4.9 “B2 · Collar · lipsync EN”. Click it to open the shot; “Unlink shot” removes the link.

Below are the “Segment frames”: first, poster and last. You can use them as the composition of the key frame.

A shot can have only one segment: if you link another one to it, the previous one is unlinked automatically; no files are deleted.

The link shows in the shot too#

In shot 4.9, the Animatic tab shows the same segment: the player, frames, and the “Replace animatic”, “Pick from library” and “Detach” buttons. On the Storyboard such a shot is marked with a film strip icon.

04Use the animatic in generation#

A linked segment works as a video reference: the model takes the camera movement, framing, rhythm and timing from it, and faces, clothing and light from the characters, location and prompt.

In the shot, on the “Video” tab, turn on “Send animatic segment”: a clip within the segment bounds is attached to the generation (up to 30 seconds for Seedance 2.5, up to 15 for most models) along with a prompt block about camera and editing.

The checkbox has three modes: “Video without sound (primary)”, “Video with sound” — for lip sync and rhythm — and “Audio only”.

In the video prompt it helps to spell out which figure is who: here gray is Zhenya, blue is Tolya, yellow is Karina.

The animatic helps with the frame too: on the “Key frame” tab, the “Add animatic frame as reference” checkbox passes the first frame, poster or last frame as a black-and-white sketch — for composition only.

05Prepare segments in advance#

“Segment artifacts” are the cut files that go into generation: a silent MP4, an MP4 with sound and an MP3. The “Extract artifacts” button makes them; if the source has no sound, audio is skipped.

In the same place:

• “Shooting board in shot (Seedance)” — a strip of the segment’s frames split into the number of panels you need; it becomes the shot’s shooting board;
• “Segment transcription” — a description of the segment: setting, characters, dialogue, timing, intent. Its notes are filled into the prompts when the shot is created.

“Bulk” in the header does the same for the whole episode: extract artifacts, transcribe, or create shots right away for segments without a shot.

What’s next#

Once the segments are linked and generated, the shots are assembled into an episode in the “Studio and assembly” section.