Open-Source ReelMimic Turns Any Reference Clip Into Agent-Built 2D Animation
ReelMimic turns any reference clip into an original 2D animation by orchestrating a crew of Claude Code or Codex agents on your own machine.
- ReelMimic turns a reference video into an original 2D animation in the same style, running locally.
- Orchestrates up to 6 Claude Code or Codex agents in parallel with a separate reviewer per shot.
- Breaks references down by shot length, BPM, transitions, framing, colors and camera moves before planning.
- Ships seven 2D engines: vector, watercolor, crayon, pixel, cut-out, whiteboard, anime cel.
- A 30 to 60 second clip typically renders in 1 to 3.5 hours and uses your own AI plan's quota.
- MIT licensed, Node 22.18+ and Python 3.10+, with styles definable as single Markdown files.
A new open-source project called ReelMimic analyzes a reference video, produces an editable shot plan, and assigns coding agents to build the resulting 2D animation shot by shot.
ReelMimic keeps its interface, orchestration, project files, and rendering on the user’s machine. Model-backed work runs through existing Claude Code or Codex CLI access, with no separate ReelMimic account or inference service. Provider usage limits and data-handling terms still apply to model requests.
Reference in, editable plan out
- Ingest: Add a local video, a phone-captured recording, or a YouTube URL with a one-line brief.
- Analyze: ReelMimic measures editing rhythm, shot duration, transitions, framing, color, and camera movement.
- Review: Inspect the proposed production plan, discuss changes in the adjacent chat, adjust settings, and attach assets.
- Build: Approve the plan to dispatch parallel agents across the planned shots.
Source footage, characters, and assets are excluded from generated shots. The pipeline uses structural cues from the reference to create new imagery with similar pacing, framing, and editing grammar.
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