Quiet Santa
Tactical
Spongebob
Ballerina
Elevator
Warehouse
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How To Generate Videos with Wan-Animate
Three simple steps to create character videos with Wan-Animate in Magic Hour
- 1
Upload Your Character and Motion Source
Start with a character image and a reference video or motion source that contains the performance you want to transfer. - 2
Describe the Transformation
Add instructions for style, replacement behavior, framing, and how closely the output should follow the source motion. - 3
Generate Your Video
Click "Generate Video" to start. Once it's ready, download the clip and use it for animation tests, avatar content, or stylized character replacement.
Why Creators Choose Wan-Animate
Where Wan-Animate really shines: reference-driven character animation, expression transfer, motion replication, and character replacement that keeps the source performance readable while changing the visual identity.
Character animation
Wan-Animate is built for turning a character image into a moving performance that follows a reference actor or source video.
Character replacement
It is especially useful when you want to swap a person in a video for an animated or designed character while keeping motion and expression.
Stylized avatar workflows
A strong fit for VTuber-style content, branded mascots, game characters, and expressive social content built from performance transfer.
No Editing Skills Required
Turn your ideas into polished outputs quickly — no complex editing workflow needed. Just use a clear prompt, a reference if helpful, and iterate.
Thousands of Templates
Make your photos even better and faster with our high-quality templates.
Explore TemplatesHow Wan-Animate Compares to Other Video Models
Wan-Animate THIS MODEL | Veo 3.1 | Kling 3.0 | MiniMax H3 | LTX-2.5 | Seedance 2.5 | Kling 2.6 | Wan 3.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Character animation, performance transfer, character replacement | Premium realism, polish, dialogue, and strong prompt adherence | Multi-shot storytelling, character references, structured cinematic control | Reference-driven clips with native audio, character consistency, longer short-form | Fast iteration, synced audio, uploaded audio, clips up to 60s | Cinematic continuity, structured references, narrative short-form | Action, motion blur, and controlled camera movement | Long clips, native audio, and start/end-frame control |
Visual fidelity | Strong for character transfer | Premium realism | Strong | Strong | Good | Strong | Good | High-quality output |
Real-human image to video | Reference-driven rather than generic I2V | Better suited | Better suited | Better suited | Good with the right source image | Good | Supported | Supported |
Viral clips | Medium | Good | Strong | Strong | Useful for rapid drafts | Strong | Motion-driven clips | Useful for long short-form clips |
Multi-scene storytelling | Medium | Strong | Excellent | Medium to strong | Long clips; test continuity | Strong | Short clips up to 10s | Clips up to 30s; test continuity |
Surreal / imaginative concepts | Strong for stylized character work | Strong | Good | Good | Prompt-led generation | Strong | Prompt-led generation | Prompt-led generation |
Native audio | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Template fit | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good |
What Wan-Animate is best at
Where Wan-Animate really shines: reference-driven character animation, expression transfer, motion replication, and character replacement that keeps the source performance readable while changing the visual identity.
Performance transfer
Useful when the acting, timing, and movement already exist and need to be translated into a new character.
Expression replication
A strong choice for preserving facial performance instead of generating generic movement from text alone.
Character replacement
One of the more specialized options for swapping an on-screen person with an animated character while keeping scene motion intact.
Environmental matching
Designed to preserve lighting and color tone so the replacement feels more integrated into the scene.
High controllability
Helpful for creators who want control through references rather than abstract prompts.
Avatar and mascot content
A natural fit for branded characters, stylized explainers, and creators building repeatable persona-based content.
Wan-Animate — Model Card
Key specs, capabilities, and limitations.
Cost
48–96 credits/sec depending on resolution
Resolution
Reference-driven output
Aspect ratios
Reference-dependent
Max duration
Up to 60s
Audio
No native audio
Plans
480p on all plans; 720p requires a paid plan
Limitation
Not designed as a generic all-purpose text-to-video model
Frequently asked questions
Wan-Animate is a specialized model for character animation and character replacement. It takes a character image plus a reference performance and generates a new video that follows the original movement and expression.
Wan-Animate is best for avatar content, stylized character performance, animated mascots, VTuber-style workflows, and replacing a person in a video with a designed character.
Inside Magic Hour, Wan-Animate supports 480p and 720p output, source-video aspect ratios, and clips up to 60 seconds. 480p is available on all plans; 720p requires a paid plan.
No. Wan-Animate is focused on visual character animation and replacement, not native audio generation.
Yes, in a specific way. It starts from a character image and a reference performance rather than from a simple still image plus text prompt.
Wan-Animate costs 48 credits per second at 480p and 96 at 720p. Total cost scales with the output clip length.
No. It is a specialized character animation and replacement model. If you need generic text-to-video, Veo, Kling, MiniMax, LTX, or Seedance are better choices.
It is good when you want to transform real-human performance into a character animation. It is not mainly designed for realistic human footage generation from scratch.
Use it for branded characters, creators with a recurring avatar, animated explainers, stylized social content, and motion transfer from performers to characters.
Magic Hour lets you keep character animation and general video generation in one platform, which helps when a project mixes avatar shots with ordinary AI video clips.
Use Wan-Animate for character transfer or replacement from a reference performance. Wan 3.0, Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0, MiniMax H3, and LTX-2.5 are general video generation options; choose among them based on references, audio, clip length, and results on the same brief.
Paid subscriptions and credit-pack purchases include commercial-use rights. Users without either purchase are limited to personal, non-commercial use. Outputs made with Wan-Animate on Magic Hour can be used commercially, subject to our Terms.
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