Tutorial: Make your video loops move the way you want

Yes, your video moves. Every picture is animated into a short seamless loop that repeats for as long as it's on screen. The motion is calm on purpose, and sometimes it goes to the wrong place: a street lamp flickers while the snow you wanted stays still. Here's how the motion is chosen and how to steer it.

1. 1

   Know what the AI looks at

   Before a picture is first animated, an AI looks at it and writes the motion prompt. It picks 3 to 5 clearly visible things that would naturally move (flames, lamp light, steam, snow, water, curtains, reflections, stars, fog) and writes one short sentence for each. It trusts the picture over your words. The animator moves those things and keeps the rest still.

2. 2

   Say what matters most

   If your description names what matters most, the motion prompt starts with it and makes it the strongest motion. Write it in your idea (Music and Lite) or in the Visual Description (Sound), near the start, because the AI reads only the beginning of a long description: "A quiet street at night, snow falling past an old street lamp. What matters most: the falling snow." If you use Enhance with AI, check that this sentence survived.

3. 3

   Pick a picture where it's easy to see

   The AI animates only what is really in the picture; it won't add snow or mist. Choose the picture where your main thing is big and clear: large snowflakes, waves filling the lower half, a cup with visible steam. If a lamp, a candle or a screen is the most eye-catching thing, the motion may go there. Changed a picture after its loop was made? The loop step offers Make again from the new picture.

4. 4

   Read the motion prompt

   When the loop is ready, find its motion prompt (see the table). Is your main thing in it, and does it come first? If the prompt is about the lamp and not the snow, the snow is asked to stay still. In Music mode a plain Regenerate reuses the same prompt, so rewrite it instead.

5. 5

   Write your own motion prompt

   One short sentence per moving thing: what moves, how, how fast. End with "Static camera." or "Very slow push-in." Name only what should move; everything else is asked to stay still. Skip "subtly", "faintly" and "barely": the motion should be visible at a glance. The AI keeps its own prompts under 60 words, a good length for yours.

   "Large snowflakes fall steadily through the whole frame, past the street lamp. Static camera."

   "Steam rises from the coffee cup in slow curls. The candle flame flickers. Static camera."

   For a starting point, AI Analyze Image (in Music mode, AI: Analyze Image & Generate Motion Prompt) writes a fresh prompt into the box.

6. 6

   Ask only for motion a loop can do

   Each loop ends on the frame it started with, so motion must stay in place or repeat: flicker, sway, ripple, shimmer, rising steam, falling snow, flowing water. The animator is told never to make people or animals walk or turn, vehicles or birds cross, clouds sweep across the sky, day turn to night, lights switch on or off, pages turn, or anything appear, disappear or leave the frame. People and animals only breathe, blink, or have their hair or fur stir. Ask for "Waves roll onto the sand and wash back", not a boat sailing past.

7. 7

   Regenerate with a plan

   In Lite and Sound mode, Regenerate asks the AI for a new motion prompt, so to keep your wording, generate from the edit window again. In Music mode, after three regenerations of one loop, the next press opens the edit window. Earlier versions stay: under Previous Versions in Music mode, behind the arrows next to the loop in Lite and Sound. Each credit you spend on a project includes one free regeneration of anything: music, image, video loop or sound. After that, 1 credit covers 2 regenerations, and the app asks first. Failed generations don't count, and AI Analyze Image on its own is free.

8. 8

   Check the loop before you render

   Open the loop large: click it, or in Sound mode press the expand button next to Preview. Watch it start over a few times. Does your main thing move the whole time? Is there a jump at the restart? Does anything warp? In Music mode check every loop, since each repeats for its whole track; in Lite and Sound one loop plays for the entire video. Then press Continue to Timeline (Music), Continue to Export (Lite) or Proceed to Export (Sound).