AI Video Playbook

Prompts

A project rules prompt and six task prompts for Opus 5.5 driving Blender, plus how to check every step and iterate.

Give Opus a rules prompt once, then one task prompt per stage. Check every stage with a screenshot from the shot camera before you move on. The prompts below are written for the official connector's tools (see Setup). Replace the shot numbers, sizes and file names with yours.

Three habits from creator guides make these work. Give a reference image and talk plainly, as you would to a junior 3D artist. Stage the work instead of asking for everything at once. And keep the reviewer separate from the builder: one organic creator makes the AI measure its own render with numbers, then lets a different AI grade it.

Project rules

Put this in CLAUDE.md (Claude Code) or in the first message (Claude Desktop).

Prompt
You are driving Blender 5.2 through the Blender MCP connector.
1. Before changing anything, call get_objects_summary and get_blendfile_summary_datablocks,
   then report units, fps, resolution, frame range and render engine.
2. Work in metres at real-world scale.
3. Before using any bpy API you are not sure about in Blender 5.x, check it with
   get_python_api_docs or search_api_docs. The EEVEE engine id is BLENDER_EEVEE.
4. One purpose per execute_blender_code call, under about 80 lines. Return a result dict
   (not a list) with the names of everything you created or changed.
5. After each step, put the 3D view in the active camera view and call
   get_screenshot_of_area_as_image with VIEW_3D. Compare it with the brief and list
   mismatches with numbers (distances, angles, frame numbers) before moving on.
6. Save an incremented copy (<shot>_v###.blend) before any destructive step and after
   each step I approve. Never delete or rename existing objects without asking.
7. Write renders to //renders/<shot>/<pass>/, not to the temp folder.

Rule 4 asks for a dict because the connector only returns a dict in result, even though its own built in instructions mention lists (issue 64). Rule 7 works around the render path bug.

Task prompts

1. Greybox and camera blocking

For Previz. One shot, plain shapes, a keyed camera.

Prompt
Shot 03: 8 s at 24 fps (frames 1 to 192), 16:9, camera resolution 1920x1080.
Set: night rooftop 20 x 12 m, 1.1 m parapet, water tank at the north-east corner,
AC units as boxes, skyline as 30 to 60 m boxes 80 to 200 m away. No textures.
Stand-ins: RUNNER orange capsule 1.80 m with a small nose block for facing;
CHASER blue capsule 1.85 m. Flat colours only.
Action: RUNNER enters left at frame 1, reaches the parapet at 120, jumps at 132,
exits frame by 170. CHASER enters at 60, stops at the parapet at 180.
Camera: 35 mm at 1.6 m, starts 6 m behind RUNNER and tracks him. Linear keys,
constant speed, total pan under 25 degrees, no orbit.
Show me camera-view screenshots at frames 1, 96, 132 and 192, and list any frame
where a stand-in leaves frame or intersects geometry.

2. Guide passes for the video model

Makes the clay video, a depth pass and the key frames without touching your main scene.

Prompt
Make guide passes for shot 03 without touching the look scene.
1. New scene "03_guide" as a linked copy.
2. Workbench, flat lighting, object colours, no outline, no cavity, no depth of field,
   no motion blur, world mid grey. 1280x720, 24 fps, frames 1 to 192.
3. Also render a depth sequence: EEVEE view layer with the Mist pass on
   (start 0.5 m, depth 60 m), inverted in the compositor so near is white.
4. Write PNG sequences to //renders/03/clay/ and //renders/03/depth/.
5. Render frame 1 and frame 192 from the shot camera at 1920x1080 to //renders/03/keys/.
Report frame counts and full paths. Do not change the output path of the main scene.

Then encode the frames outside Blender, from the renders/03 folder:

Terminal
ffmpeg -framerate 24 -i clay/%04d.png -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 16 03_clay.mp4

3. Product reference set and a matched frame pair

For Consistent scenes. Every angle from one model, same lens and lights.

Prompt
Import //assets/bottle.glb. Report its dimensions, scale it to 0.26 m tall, origin at
the base centre, standing at the world origin. Do not change its materials.
Add a curved infinity backdrop, a 3-point rig (key 45 degrees left, rim behind right, soft fill)
and a camera rig parented to an empty at the bottle centre.
Render 12 stills at 1080x1920 with Cycles 128 samples and denoise: orbit every
30 degrees at 10 degrees elevation, plus top-down, cap macro and label close-up.
Same 85 mm lens, same lights, same exposure. Name files by angle.
Then animate a 5 s push-in from 1.2 m to 0.45 m at constant speed and render its first
and last frames as a matched pair.

4. Character proxy from a generated mesh

Checks, rigs and tests a mesh from an image to 3D tool, then renders a turnaround.

Prompt
Import //chars/rio.fbx. Report polycount, non-manifold edges and loose parts.
Scale to 1.78 m, apply transforms, fix normals. Add a Rigify human metarig, fit it,
generate the rig, parent with automatic weights.
Test poses: A-pose, arms down, crouch, a walk cycle. Screenshot each from front and side
and point out bad deformation at shoulders, elbows, hips and knees, then fix weights.
Render a turnaround (front, three-quarter, side, back) at 1024x1536 on mid grey with flat
light and identical camera distance, for use as image references.

5. Opus writes the video prompt from the scene

Opus knows the colours, camera keys and frame range, so let it write the video prompt.

Prompt
Read shot 03 (objects and colours, camera keys, frame range). Write a Seedance 2.5 prompt
for reference mode:
Video 1 = the clay render: use only its camera movement, positions and timing.
Image 1 = RUNNER sheet, mapped to the orange capsule. Image 2 = CHASER sheet, mapped to
the blue capsule. Image 3 = rooftop plate.
Describe the final shot in text consistent with the blockout: second-by-second beats,
light, weather, sound. Say explicitly not to copy the flat shading, capsules or grey world.
Under 1,500 characters. Then give shorter versions for Runway Aleph (with which frames to
use as keyframes) and for Kling.

6. Finished animation with a review gate

For Full 3D. The preview and the wait for notes keep a long render from going wrong.

Prompt
Turn shot 07 into a finished Blender animation, no AI video.
Replace stand-ins with library assets; do not model furniture from scratch.
Materials: one procedural wear node group (edge wear, dust on top faces, cavity grime)
reused on every material at different strengths.
Lighting: motivated practicals only; check a test render histogram for clipping.
First render a 480p EEVEE preview with Frame Step 4, show me 4 frames as a strip and the
Graph Editor for the hero object, then wait for my notes.
After approval: 1920x1080 PNG frames, Cycles 256 samples with denoise, Overwrite off.

How to verify every step

Ask for numbers, not impressions: distances, frame numbers, a histogram, a polycount, and a comparison with your reference image.

CheckToolHow
Structureget_objects_summary, get_object_detail_summaryAfter every build step, and for anything that moved or changed scale
Lookget_screenshot_of_area_as_image with VIEW_3DFirst put the 3D view in the camera view. Screenshots are downscaled to about 786 KB, so render a small still for detail checks
MotionLow resolution renders, plus screenshots of GRAPH_EDITOR or DOPESHEET_EDITORA strip of 4 to 6 frames across the range. The curve editors show eased or overshooting keys, which video models copy
Materials and compositingScreenshots of ShaderNodeTree and CompositorNodeTreeCheck node setups and passes
Filesget_blendfile_summary_missing_files, get_blendfile_summary_path_infoBefore you hand a file on, and to confirm saves

The iteration loop

Brief with references and numbers

Sizes in metres, frame ranges, focal lengths, and a reference image.

Let Opus inspect and plan

It reads the scene and states the stages before it builds anything.

Build one stage

Then a camera screenshot and a self check against the brief.

Give notes with a reason

You, or a separate reviewer agent, write notes such as "too dark at dusk" or "sign margins too big".

Fix one thing per round

Opus changes one thing and shoots the same camera again, so you can compare.

Save on approval

Save a new version, then move to the next stage.

Render last

Render the guide pass or the final only after you approve the preview strip.

Use the connector, not screen control

Letting Claude click around Blender's interface with computer use burns tokens fast, according to organic reports. Use the connector's code and screenshot tools instead.

Sources