Kitten knight's last sunset: Blender blockout → Seedance 2.5 (30 s) → 4K

The ending: a 35 cm kitten knight drops her sword in a poppy field, lies down, and her dragon carries her into the sunset. One 30 s take on a slow track, clay blockout, 4K grade.

mira_mybots ·

Made with: seedance-2-5, gpt-image-2.5-sunburst, Mira for Blender, Mira MCP, Blender, Mira for Adobe, After Effects, Claude

The 1080p final straight from Seedance 2.5 (16:9, 30 s in one take). 5 cuts on the phrases of the track.
The 1080p final straight from Seedance 2.5 (16:9, 30 s in one take). 5 cuts on the phrases of the track.

The last part of the kitten knight story. After the castle and the throne she walks alone through a poppy field at sunset, lets her sword fall, sinks to her knees and lies down in the flowers. Then her black dragon comes down out of the golden sky, scoops her up and carries her away into the sun. Claude built the scene in Blender through the Mira MCP, Seedance 2.5 drew all 30 seconds in one take, After Effects did the 4K finish.

1. Cut a slow track into phrases

The first 30 s of a slowed track: a soft build for ~6 s, a pulse every 0.44 s and phrases every ~5.36 s. Slow music wants few, long shots, so the six shots cut on the phrases and bass hits: 7.12 / 12.46 / 17.83 / 21.67 / 25.58. Seedance 2.5 takes up to 30 s in one generation, so the whole piece is one take with the same look and the same kitten.

2. Two references

The same studio ref of the kitten as in the earlier parts (no helmet - she never had one) and the four-legged dragon from part 2 (gpt-image-2.5-sunburst, 8 credits each).

@Image1 the kitten · @Image2 the dragon with four legs and wings from the shoulders.@Image1 the kitten · @Image2 the dragon with four legs and wings from the shoulders.
@Image1 the kitten · @Image2 the dragon with four legs and wings from the shoulders.

3. Block it out at kitten scale

  1. Scale first

    The kitten is 36 cm, so every camera lives 6-30 cm above the ground. Real poppies would bury her - the prompt asks for short wild poppies that reach her chest.

  2. A prop instead of a helmet

    The reference story has a knight dropping her helmet. The kitten has none, so she drops her sword and the camera stops beside it while she walks on.

  3. Hide the face until it matters

    Shot 1 is a low camera behind her at knee height: only legs, cloak and sword. Her face appears only when the camera rises in shot 2.

  4. No wings, no legs on the dragon

    A plain 30 m body with a straight tail. Wings and legs come from @Image2; a tail that droops in the blockout comes back hanging straight down.

  5. Smooth, believable motion

    The kitten kneels and tips back over 2 s; the lying stand-in swaps in on a cut. The dragon accelerates away in a straight line - an eased curve right after a cut made it start fast and brake.

4.5 s - knee-height camera: a clay stand-in becomes armoured paws, a cloak and the fallen sword in the poppies.4.5 s - knee-height camera: a clay stand-in becomes armoured paws, a cloak and the fallen sword in the poppies.
4.5 s - knee-height camera: a clay stand-in becomes armoured paws, a cloak and the fallen sword in the poppies.
14.8 s - she sinks to her knees before lying down.14.8 s - she sinks to her knees before lying down.
14.8 s - she sinks to her knees before lying down.
23.5 s - a legless body hovering over her becomes the dragon on four legs reaching for her with one claw.23.5 s - a legless body hovering over her becomes the dragon on four legs reaching for her with one claw.
23.5 s - a legless body hovering over her becomes the dragon on four legs reaching for her with one claw.

4. What the first draft got wrong

5. The prompt

Refs and clip bound first (the blockout dragon has no wings or legs on purpose, its tail trails level), a one-line story, the scale (kitten 35 cm, poppies to her chest, camera at her height), the light, then one line per shot with the cut timecodes. The full prompt, refs and blockout clip are attached to the final above and the draft below - press Repeat on either to start from it.

6. Draft at 480p → the same take in 1080p

A 30 s draft (seedance-2-5, 16:9) costs 108 credits; finalize_draft re-renders the same take in 1080p for 600. With a correct blockout the cuts landed within a frame of the plan: 7.17 / 12.5 / 17.83 / 21.63 / 25.58.

Draft 480p vs the finalized 1080p of the same take.Draft 480p vs the finalized 1080p of the same take.
Draft 480p vs the finalized 1080p of the same take.

7. 4K finish in After Effects

  1. Upscale

    Detail-preserving Upscale 200 % + Unsharp Mask → a 3840x2160 ProRes plate.

  2. Grade and optics

    Lumetri plus bloom, halation, red-channel fringing, vignette and film grain. The grain clip is only 2 s - loop it for the full 30 s or it stops at 20.

  3. Render 720 frames safely

    Purge After Effects' caches first (it held almost 10 GB), render 60 frames at a time with the disk cache cleared between chunks, stitch them and force clean 24 fps timestamps.

  4. Badge

    A small translucent Made with Mira AI badge in the top-right corner of the 4K version, fading in over half a second.

27.5 s - straight out of Seedance vs graded in After Effects.27.5 s - straight out of Seedance vs graded in After Effects.
27.5 s - straight out of Seedance vs graded in After Effects.

Recipe

  1. Find the phrases of a slow track; few long shots, cuts on the phrases.

  2. Reuse your hero and creature refs; swap story props your hero doesn't have.

  3. Block out at the hero's scale: cameras at her height, no wings or legs on the creature, a straight tail.

  4. Describe falls and pick-ups step by step, and what must never happen.

  5. Draft 30 s at 480p (108), fix, finalize in 1080p (600).

  6. Upscale, grade and add optics in After Effects, in chunks.

Part 3: Kitten knight takes the throne — The court kneels on the drop: crowd timing and orientation written in words.