I found a way to make these AI animations for $0 — Transcript

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1. 0:00This channel got over 8 million views this
2. 0:02month making AI cartoon series like this one.
3. 0:05In the next 15 minutes,
4. 0:07I'm going to show you how to make animations exactly like it for $0,
5. 0:11with no Claude subscriptions and nothing to pay for.
6. 0:14And here is one I made that way from a single prompt.
7. 0:18<i>Peek. All the answers.</i> <i>A minute early. Mo waves. Peek.</i>
8. 0:22<i>You wave first. You watched him do it.</i>
9. 0:24Here is the plan.
10. 0:26First, I'm going to put a free model
11. 0:28and Claude Opus head to head on the same cartoon.
12. 0:31So you can judge the result for yourself.
13. 0:33Then I will show you how to install the free setup step by step.
14. 0:38Then where to get the skill that does all the heavy lifting,
15. 0:41because that is actually the real secret.
16. 0:44And then we will make your first cartoon together.
17. 0:46If you have seen these stick-figure What If cartoons all over YouTube and wanted
18. 0:51to make your own but you didn't want to have another subscription,
19. 0:55this video is for you.
20. 0:57You don't need to know how to code.
21. 0:58If you can copy and paste a few commands,
22. 1:01you can do this and I will give you everything for free at the end.
23. 1:05Quick bit about me, by the way, I am Baptiste.
24. 1:07I use AI to edit all my videos and last week
25. 1:10I posted a video about AI animations in Claude
26. 1:13and I got so many comments asking me how you could do this for free.
27. 1:17So that's why I'm making this video for you today.
28. 1:20Three things had to line up for this to work
29. 1:22and they only have just done that today.
30. 1:24There is a free AI tool called OpenCode
31. 1:27that does exactly the same job as Claude Code.
32. 1:30It reads your files, runs your commands and writes code right on your computer.
33. 1:35Then there is a model called GLM 5.3 Flash that is free inside
34. 1:40of OpenCode right now with no account and no API keys needed.
35. 1:44And then there is a bunch of skills which are folders
36. 1:48of instructions and scripts that hold all the know-how.
37. 1:52So the model doesn't need to be a genius. It just needs to follow the recipe.
38. 1:56That last one is what makes a free model good enough.
39. 1:59So let's see if the free model actually holds up against Claude.
40. 2:03Here is how I tested it and I gave it as fair as I could.
41. 2:07Same skills, same computer and the same one-line idea typed in,
42. 2:11which is what if you could see one minute ahead?
43. 2:14After that, I didn't type a single thing.
44. 2:16I just let each run go all the way to the end.
45. 2:20So here is the one you saw at the start made by the free model
46. 2:23and here is the exact same idea made by Claude Opus.
47. 2:27Overall, I think the free model looks extremely good.
48. 2:31It's very close to Claude and to be honest,
49. 2:33if I didn't know which one was which,
50. 2:35I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
51. 2:38Claude Opus took about 42 minutes and the free model only took 28 minutes.
52. 2:42Both of them wrote the script, voiced it,
53. 2:45drew a storyboard, checked their own work,
54. 2:49animated every shot and mixed the sound and both handed me
55. 2:52a finished video on the first and only render at the end.
56. 2:56The part that actually surprised me is what happens before the animation.
57. 3:00The skill makes the model look at its own storyboard and fix anything
58. 3:03that doesn't read and the free model actually did really well.
59. 3:07It looked at its images, decided seven of its 15 shots just weren't good enough.
60. 3:12Things like a ball sitting in front of the character's face
61. 3:16or a shot zoomed in so far that the arm you're meant
62. 3:19to see was out of frame and it went back
63. 3:22and fixed every single one of them on its own.
64. 3:25There were two real differences though
65. 3:27and I think you should know about both up front.
66. 3:29The first one is homework.
67. 3:31The skill tells the model to search on YouTube before it writes anything
68. 3:34to make sure nobody has already made that exact same idea you have.
69. 3:39Opus found five what-if channels that already had done the see
70. 3:43one minute in the future so it changed the idea a little bit
71. 3:46to what if you could preview the next minute
72. 3:49and that's why the titles are actually not the same.
73. 3:52The free model searched as well but it didn't find anything
74. 3:55so it just kept the original idea so
75. 3:58if you are using the free model do that check yourself
76. 4:01before you hit enter and start making your video.
77. 4:03The second one is the sound.
78. 4:06The free model went back and forth about five times trying
79. 4:09to get the right mix which is where most of its effort went at the end
80. 4:13but it did get there and both videos came out
81. 4:16with pretty much the same loudness and the same style.
82. 4:19Then we have the cost.
83. 4:21Opus ran on my Claude plan and this one used
84. 4:24about eight percent of my five hours limit.
85. 4:27The free model cost me nothing at all you can see here we have zero dollars.
86. 4:31The voice and the sound effects come from ElevenLabs in both cases and
87. 4:36that was around 240 credits for the Opus one
88. 4:39and about 187 for the free one.
89. 4:42Good thing is ElevenLabs gives you 10,000 free
90. 4:46credits every single month so that is going
91. 4:48to be around 40 to 50 different animations
92. 4:50you can make without paying a single thing.
93. 4:53So good news is the free model can do it
94. 4:56so now let's get it set up on your computer.
95. 4:59Here is everything you need and what each piece does.
96. 5:02OpenCode is the app the AI works in.
97. 5:05GLM 5.3 Flash is the free model that does the thinking.
98. 5:09Then we have Remotion which is what turns the code it writes into an actual video.
99. 5:15We have ElevenLabs which does the voice and the sound effects
100. 5:18and underneath all of that the skill uses three free tools.
101. 5:23Node.js is what Remotion will run on
102. 5:26so it's the engine that actually renders your video.
103. 5:30Python runs the skill's little scripts and that's going
104. 5:33to be the one that will fetch the voice,
105. 5:35line the shots with the words and lay out the storyboard.
106. 5:38And finally we have ffmpeg which handles the audio and video files
107. 5:43so that's what gets the sound to the right volume and a finished video at the end.
108. 5:48So first those three tools.
109. 5:50If you are on Windows you can install all of them from the terminal with winget,
110. 5:55one line each and then one more line
111. 5:57for the two Python packages that the skill will use.
112. 6:00But don't worry about pausing this video.
113. 6:03I have all the commands for you in the description
114. 6:05so you don't have to try and do this right now.
115. 6:08Then OpenCode itself which is just one command as well.
116. 6:12Now this is the one thing that actually
117. 6:14tripped me up a little bit so don't skip it.
118. 6:16Make a folder for your cartoons and always start OpenCode in that folder
119. 6:21because it only sees the skills that are in the folder
120. 6:25where you are actually going to open it.
121. 6:27So if you open it anywhere else your skill just won't be there.
122. 6:31So you need to use a cd command
123. 6:33which you can see here into the folder in the terminal.
124. 6:37Or on Windows you can also right click the folder
125. 6:40and choose open in terminal and then just type OpenCode.
126. 6:44Once you are in OpenCode you just do /models and you pick GLM 5.3 Flash Free
127. 6:50and you press Ctrl+T until the reasoning level says high
128. 6:54which is what I used for every run in this video.
129. 6:57And that's it.
130. 6:59You've now got a free AI agent on your computer that can read files,
131. 7:03write code and run commands.
132. 7:06But on its own it has no idea how
133. 7:08to make a what-if cartoon and that is the skill's job.
134. 7:13A skill is just a folder.
135. 7:14Inside it there is a set of instructions written for the AI plus the scripts
136. 7:19and the animation code it needs and it holds
137. 7:21everything I learned making these cartoons myself.
138. 7:24The story formula, the pace,
139. 7:26how the light works and the checks it runs on its own storyboard.
140. 7:31The model reads it and will follow it basically.
141. 7:34And that's why the free model can make something this close to Opus.
142. 7:37My what-if skill is free on GitHub and the link is in the description.
143. 7:41Download it, put the folder inside your cartoon folder
144. 7:44and put the skill in the skill folder and OpenCode will find it for you.
145. 7:49I also added a small thing that makes it so much easier to use.
146. 7:53In OpenCode skills don't show up when you type a slash command.
147. 7:58So I added a tiny command and now you just type
148. 8:01/what-if plus your idea and it loads the skill for you.
149. 8:05It comes with the download and the README file shows you exactly where to put it.
150. 8:09The skill does need one key though and that's your ElevenLabs key for the voice.
151. 8:13Make a free account,
152. 8:15create an API key and paste it in a file called .env in your folder on a line
153. 8:21that says ElevenLabs API key equals and then you paste your key.
154. 8:26If you don't know how to do this you can just ask GLM
155. 8:29create an env folder for me and here is my ElevenLabs key.
156. 8:33And you're not really just limited to my skill.
157. 8:36I've also put my Instagram short form skill on GitHub
158. 8:39which edits all my Instagram reels and that's how I actually post them.
159. 8:44Now you might be thinking why don't I just ask the free model to build me a skill
160. 8:48and actually I tested that and I'll show you what happened at the end
161. 8:51because that is the one job I still ask Claude to do
162. 8:55and maybe you can just also do it in ChatGPT
163. 8:58if you have a free ChatGPT subscription.
164. 9:00But for now let's make your first cartoon.
165. 9:03Open OpenCode in your folder and type
166. 9:06/what-if then your idea as a what-if question.
167. 9:09Mine was what if you could see one minute ahead.
168. 9:12Then you press enter and you can just walk away literally.
169. 9:16In that time it's following the skill from top to bottom.
170. 9:19Writing the script,
171. 9:20voicing it, drawing the storyboard and fixing it,
172. 9:24animating every shot in code and adding the sound.
173. 9:28Mine for this video took about 28 minutes and I didn't touch it a single time.
174. 9:33When it was done the finished video was
175. 9:35sitting in the folder under the episode name.
176. 9:38<i>Mo throws. Peek. You catch it</i> <i>before he lets go. Pop quiz.</i>
177. 9:42<i>Peek. All the answers.</i> <i>A minute early. Mo waves. Peek.</i>
178. 9:46<i>You wave first. You watched him do it.</i>
179. 9:49<i>What if you could see one minute ahead?</i> <i>One catch. You already do this.</i>
180. 9:53<i>Your brain predicts the next tenth of a</i> <i>second. That's real. So, would you peek?</i>
181. 9:57<i>Peek.</i>
182. 9:58And that's the whole thing.
183. 10:00One line in, a finished cartoon out and a model that cost you nothing.
184. 10:05Now there are a few things that will save you time.
185. 10:07Start a fresh session for every animation you want to do.
186. 10:12Because one animation used about 70% of the free model's memory
187. 10:16and halfway through it it had to summarize its own conversation to keep going.
188. 10:21And I think it coped fine but a fresh
189. 10:23start will give you more room to play with.
190. 10:26Do the YouTube check yourself like we saw earlier.
191. 10:29Search for your idea and if a channel has already made the exact
192. 10:32same idea I would highly recommend you to give it your own twist.
193. 10:36Check the fact.
194. 10:37Every episode has one real fact in it
195. 10:39and the skill makes the model write down where it came from.
196. 10:43The free one cited a real paper from a journal for mine.
197. 10:47But open the source and check it before you post your video.
198. 10:51If something looks off just tell it in plain words.
199. 10:54Something like the ball in the shot was covering his face
200. 10:57and it will fix that shot then render it again.
201. 11:01And the same goes for the characters.
202. 11:04You probably don't want Pip, my character,
203. 11:07in every single of your episodes and you don't have to keep him.
204. 11:10The characters in this skill aren't actually generated images.
205. 11:14They're all drawn by the same bit of code with a different costume on top.
206. 11:19So making your own dress really means describing what you want.
207. 11:22For example I typed add a new hero to the cast,
208. 11:26a girl with a high ponytail, a yellow raincoat and red boots.
209. 11:29And about six minutes later it showed me my new character in the cast sheet
210. 11:34with my new hero standing next to everyone else so I could check if they fit in.
211. 11:39And because the character is just code it looks exactly
212. 11:42the same in every shot of every episode you make.
213. 11:46And that means there is no drift.
214. 11:47It's going to have that consistency you need.
215. 11:50Then I told it to make her my hero for the minute ahead episode instead of Pip.
216. 11:55And about six minutes later here is the same cartoon with her in it.
217. 11:59It came the same voice and the same sound so that didn't cost me a single credit.
218. 12:04By the way if you want to go really deep on how this look
219. 12:07and these characters were designed
220. 12:08in the first place I made a whole video on that and I'll point you to it at the end.
221. 12:13And that brings me to the one job I still
222. 12:15think will be hard for the free model to do.
223. 12:18It's building the skill itself.
224. 12:20To test it I gave the free model frames from one of the viral What
225. 12:24If episodes and asked it to break down the style.
226. 12:27Which is exactly how I started this skill with Claude.
227. 12:31Three minutes later it came back with 22 rules
228. 12:34and honestly it got most of the look right.
229. 12:37The sunset color, the light coming from the window and the lamps,
230. 12:41the glow around the edge of the characters,
231. 12:45the blur, the foreground and it even noticed the episode
232. 12:48is letterboxed which my skill doesn't actually do.
233. 12:51But it got the pace quite wrong.
234. 12:54It counted about 16 cuts a minute
235. 12:56and the real number in the opening is 27 cuts per minute.
236. 13:01So a skill built on its notes would make cartoons
237. 13:03at about half of the speeds of the one going viral.
238. 13:06And that breakdown is the easy part.
239. 13:09Trying to get into a skill that actually works took me
240. 13:12about an hour of building and that was fixed in Claude.
241. 13:16So this is where I have landed.
242. 13:18The free model is great at following a recipe
243. 13:21and Claude is still what I personally use to write that skill.
244. 13:25The good news is you don't have to write it because I will give you mine.
245. 13:29And if you want to look for other skills on the internet you will find
246. 13:33plenty of videos giving you these kind of skills completely made for you.
247. 13:37You can find them on Twitter, on YouTube, on Instagram.
248. 13:40So you don't need to spend too much time trying to
249. 13:44recreate your own skill.
250. 13:45Everything I used is linked in the description.
251. 13:48The skill, the commands,
252. 13:50the setup steps and tell me in the comments
253. 13:52if you have made something yourself.
254. 13:54I would love to see it and maybe give you some feedback as well.
255. 13:57And like I said earlier, if you want
256. 13:58to see how this skill was built in the first place
257. 14:01with Claude from studying the channels behind these cartoons
258. 14:05to design the look and the characters, watch this video next.