Kitten knight takes the throne: Blender blockout → Seedance 2.5 → 4K

Part 3: after the castle, a 35 cm kitten knight walks into the throne hall and the whole court kneels on the drop, facing the carpet. Clay blockout, 9 shots on the beat, one ref, 4K grade.

mira_mybots · 2026-10-04

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, 10 s). 8 cuts on the drums, the whole court kneels on the drop at 3.3 s, every knight facing the carpet.

Part 3 of the kitten knight story. The castle is taken: the tiny knight walks in from the courtyard, sword straight up, down a red carpet between two rows of armoured knights. On the beat drop the whole court goes down on one knee, and she climbs the dais to face them in front of the throne. Claude built the hall in Blender through the Mira MCP, Seedance 2.5 drew the world, After Effects did the 4K finish.

1. Cut the track first

9.5 s of music: a quiet intro up to 3.30 s, then a hit every ~0.85 s. Nine shots cut at 1.71 / 3.29 / 4.12 / 5.04 / 5.88 / 6.75 / 7.62 / 8.50: the threshold close-up, the walk in, the kneel on the drop, a side track past the knees, a high view of the rows, a front walk, the steps, the turn to the court, the wide final.

2. One reference is enough

The kitten is the same studio ref as in parts 1 and 2 (gpt-image-2.5-sunburst, 8 credits): sword vertical in front of the chest, both paws on the grip. The pose rides in with the picture, so the prompt only has to say as in Image 1, in every shot. No dragon this time.

@Image1 - the kitten and her pose.

3. Block out the hall - without the crowd

Real sizes
A 16 x 39 m hall, doors 6 x 7 m, two rows of columns, a 2.4 m carpet, a three-step dais (25 cm each - knee-high for a 36 cm kitten) and a throne with a 3.6 m back.
No people
The knights and the court are not in the blockout at all. A row of identical clay figures comes back as identical mannequins; written in the prompt they come back as people in armour and red tabards.
Break the flat wall
In clay the throne back and the wall behind it had the same shade and merged into one blank wall. A tall window cut behind the throne gives it a silhouette - and the final its backlight.
Cameras on markers
One camera per shot, bound to a timeline marker on a drum hit. The kitten jumps between positions at the cuts, so each shot shows a short, real-speed walk.

2.5 s - an empty clay hall becomes two rows of knights facing each other across the carpet. Nobody was built.

2.5 s - an empty clay hall becomes two rows of knights facing each other across the carpet. Nobody was built.

4.5 s - the side track at kitten height past the kneeling knights, all turned to the carpet.

4.5 s - the side track at kitten height past the kneeling knights, all turned to the carpet.

7.2 s - the steps, with the camera on top of the dais so she climbs toward the lens.

7.2 s - the steps, with the camera on top of the dais so she climbs toward the lens.

4. Three fixes from the drafts

What the first takes got wrong

The kneel was ragged: people went down one by one. Writing until 3.29 s they all stand; at exactly 3.29 s, in one sharp synchronized movement, every one of them drops to one knee - nobody early, nobody late made the whole hall kneel at once on the cut.
The steps from behind turned her into a white blob of cloak. Moving the camera onto the dais, looking down at her climbing toward it, shows her face and the sword. Write two-footed hops - front paws first fights with both paws on the sword.
The knights faced a different way in every shot - the doors at the drop, their backs from above. The crowd is not in the blockout, so the model re-decides its orientation shot by shot. Say it once (the left row faces right, the right row faces left, square to the aisle like an honour guard, never facing the doors, the throne or the camera) and repeat it in every shot line where the crowd is visible.

5. The prompt

Ref and clip bound first, a one-line story with the drop timecode, THE SWORD rule, the hall and the court with its orientation and the exact kneel timing, then one line per shot with the cut timecodes. The full prompt, the ref and the 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

generate_video with draft=true (seedance-2-5, 16:9, 10 s) costs 36 credits. finalize_draft re-renders the same take in 1080p for 200.

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

Fit the track
The take is 10 s, the track 9.5 s: trim the tail, a short audio fade.
Upscale
Detail-preserving Upscale 200 % + Unsharp Mask → a 3840x2160 ProRes plate.
Grade and optics
Lumetri: cooler, more contrast, warm candlelight and window glow; bloom, halation, red-channel fringing, vignette, grain.
Mind the memory
On a 16 GB machine an open After Effects plus aerender filled ~29 GB of swap and broke renders. Close other heavy apps, purge After Effects' caches before rendering, render in chunks of ~60 frames - and check the frame timing of every stitched chunk before the next step.

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

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

Recipe

Mark the drop and the hits; put the big crowd moment exactly on the drop.
Reuse the hero's studio ref in the pose you need.
Block out the room in clay at real size - no crowd, no flat wall behind the hero.
Write the crowd in words: who, where, which way they face (in every shot) and the exact second they move.
Draft at 480p (36), fix what breaks, finalize the good take in 1080p (200).
Upscale, grade and add optics in After Effects.

Part 2: Kitten knight storms a castle on a dragon — How the castle was taken: the drop reveal, a four-legged dragon and the blockout fixes.