/Tech13h ago

Filmmaker Reid Hannaford demonstrates a workflow using Blender 3D blockouts, Midjourney, and Seedance 2.0 for precise video control

Basic 3D shapes direct the camera and character movement.

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

Ok, this is absurd.

You can choreograph a complex action scene in Blender with basic shapes, then let Seedance make it real.

You need to try this AI filmmaking workflow:

1. Generate a start frame in Midjourney

2. Block out the action in Blender

3. Feed both to Seedance

My Blender reference was just rough timing, camera shake, and spatial choreography, and Seedance tracked the speed, motion, and action way better than I expected.

This is the difference between describing a shot and directing one.

7:00 AM · Jun 25, 2026 · 282.3K Views

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Positive users hail Seedance AI for turning Blender choreography into realistic action scenes as a game-changing creative tool, while negative users question the authenticity of the Blender references and call the workflow gimmicky.

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32 comments with sentiment.

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

Here's my prompt for this one:

Use [img1] as the clean start frame. Preserve the train, man, lighting, color, film grain, and composition from the start frame.

Use [vid1] as a motion reference for camera choreography and timing. Match the timing and path of the camera move as closely as possible, including the shake, the pan right, the pan back, and the final push-in.

The train is already at full speed on frame 1. Because the camera is attached to the side of the train, the train remains relatively stable while the environment, tracks, dirt, dust, and telegraph poles streak rapidly from right to left across the frame.

The world rushes past at high speed. The railroad tracks, dirt, grass, dust, and nearby ground streak rapidly from right to left with strong horizontal motion blur. Railroad ties and foreground details whip past in a fast strobing blur. Distant mountains move much more slowly, creating strong parallax.

Action: The man leaning out of the doorway ducks as a bullet strikes the side of the train, kicking up sparks and dust. He raises his pistol and fires several shots while the camera pans right.

As the camera pans right, reveal a wild west sheriff on horseback in the same relative placement as the green box in [vid1]. The sheriff is galloping hard alongside the train. The landscape is still racing past. The sheriff gets shot and tumbles off the horse away from camera. The horse continues running.

The camera then pans back to the man on the train and pushes forward toward him, keeping the same high-speed background streaking and heavy wind the entire time.

Do not slow the train down. Do not make the train drift gently. Do not make the landscape move at walking speed. Do not make the shot feel like a slow scenic ride. Keep the train violently fast throughout. No music.

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Bilawal Sidhu@bilawalsidhu

“This is the difference between describing a shot and directing one.”

Video models are getting so good that people are finally getting 3d pilled

Way more fun to grab a phone and record the exact camera move you want vs. endlessly hitting the slot machine

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Eric Jang@ericjang11

children's playtime with action figures and Barbies and hot wheels about to get fuckin lit

Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

Ok, this is absurd.

You can choreograph a complex action scene in Blender with basic shapes, then let Seedance make it real.

You need to try this AI filmmaking workflow:

1. Generate a start frame in Midjourney

2. Block out the action in Blender

3. Feed both to Seedance

My Blender reference was just rough timing, camera shake, and spatial choreography, and Seedance tracked the speed, motion, and action way better than I expected.

This is the difference between describing a shot and directing one.

3h4.2K2516

Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

@thealphatron Thank you! Seedance is actually pretty good at just intuiting the space based on the start frame, but I also mention the colors of the boxes in my prompt.

I posted my full prompt here:

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

@kenyondigital Yeah! Nothing too crazy, just basic shapes in blender. Everything is just cubes. I used fSpy to match the camera's focal length from the start frame and then just roughly dropped in the cubes to match the shot.

And here's my full prompt for this one:

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

Admittedly no, this one took a whopping 14 generations to get it perfect, with me tweaking the prompt. The main issue was that the train didn't look like it was moving fast enough.

Eventually I realized that instead of prompting for a fast train, describing the environment as rushing by, motion blur, etc worked better. Got there eventually!

You can see my full prompt for this one here:

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Super Galactic Fantastic Dimension@thealphatron

@reidhannaford This is incredible. How does Seedance know who is who? Do you designate some type of color marker for the shapes so it knows X shape/color = X character, etc.?

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

@Vitaliy682183 If you want the same character or object to appear consistently across different shots, you need to create a reference sheet and include it in your generation. Seedance 2.0 is multi-modal and you can upload a number of references, including the start frame, motion ref, etc

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Bilawal Sidhu@bilawalsidhu

Seedance and Omni are right at the cusp of the quality to make this approach viable

Bilawal Sidhu@bilawalsidhu

Who else is hyped about merging 3D and AI for video creation?

I'm dreaming of an AI creation tool that builds a unified 3D scene graph underpinning your story world, with diffusion applied on top like a final render pass or fancy coat of paint.

This 'dynamic' 3D scene graph would encapsulate characters, environments, and interactions. Toss it all into a large context window, and use multimodal prompting to edit intuitively and breathe life into it.

You'd be in 'director mode,' commanding your 'AI talent' like folks are doing with ChatGPT's advanced voice for improv or line delivery.

Guide your virtual 'talent', capture the best takes in a digital studio, then switch to 'editing mode' to piece it all together.

The kicker? You'd retain the flexibility to go back and make changes on a per-shot or world level.

You get all the perks of a 3D engine - cause/effect relationships, physics simulations, spatially-anchored audio - while still transforming your 'grey-boxed' world into stunning final pixels.

Eventually, you'd don an Apple Vision Pro to orchestrate the whole thing - feeling like James Cameron on the set of Avatar.

Critically, such a tool would put you in a flow state, versus chaotically jumping between an ill-tailored tapestry of tools (which is the real multiverse of madness) leaving the current set of AI video tools better suited for making memes than telling stories.

Anyone actually building this?

9h1.5K42

Brandon Kainoa Jacoby@JacobyBrandon

@reidhannaford this largely describes how I see the direction of many creative fields going

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

@magneticskiff Yeah I actually find the less detail the better sometimes, so Seedance doesn't get confused. The blockout is really just for spatial reference.

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Geoff Reisner@magneticskiff

Reid, this is all really cool - I've been messing a bit a Blender/Seedance work flow as well. I've been trying to find good ways to create the additional frames I need, you need good starter frames per shot and this tends to work really well. I had been doing more complicated blender mockups though and it's awesome to see how much easier I can probably make it. Thanks for sharing.

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

@martinleblanc Posted the full prompt here:

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John Connor@JohnConnorSkyne

@reidhannaford I wonder if we could use Claude opus 4.8 to write hyperframes scene reference using threejs and use it as reference. I know the whole point of using blender is for more control. Great job btw It opens up so much possibilités like using geometry nodes to make dr strange like vfx.

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Linus ✦ Ekenstam@LinusEkenstam

@reidhannaford This is the way, VFX is truly getting disrupted

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Anson Kao@sweatyanson

@reidhannaford This is awesome! I’ve been using VirtuCamera2 to do the same but it’s a bit hard to calibrate, any tips there?

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Thiago Monteiro@thiagotm

@reidhannaford the 'directing vs describing a shot' line is the whole shift in one sentence. blockout as spatial reference is clever

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Vitaliy Victorian@Vitaliy682183

@reidhannaford How do you/it deal with special geometry like a specific model of spaceship/environment etc. I'm trying to wrap my brain around shot consistency.

I guess you could model the thing and then train the AI model on it???

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Reid Hannaford@reidhannaford

Blender can feel pretty intimidating for beginners but it's definitely doable! I would start with the basics and try to understand how the 3D viewport works and how to move shapes around.

Then you need to understand how keyframes work to animation the camera. That's really all you need for this workflow.

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そばこ@fukyo2024

@reidhannaford 1. Generate a start 〜 ☝️ What prompt are you giving to Midjourney? You specify the first image, set the image parameters , and what about the numerical values, like --iw 2.0?

I tried generating a start frame image in Midjourney the same way, but the composition was way off. 😭

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