AI Comic Drama Shot Maker

Turn a comic panel, character sheet, webtoon frame, or frozen story beat into one dynamic comic-drama shot. Use this Skill for AI comic drama, motion comics, web-novel comic shots, manga panel animation, character entrances, emotional close-ups, action panels, dialogue reactions, and serialized creator workflows.

Scope and adjacent routes

The normal route is one approved visual source and one frozen story beat that becomes one dynamic shot. Route a live-action or cinematic human-drama request to a short-drama workflow; a storyboard or planning-image request to a storyboard workflow; and a broad non-narrative video request to a general video studio. Keep this route focused on illustrated and comic visual language — manga, webtoon, Chinese comic, anime, and illustrated motion-comic shots.

Inputs and defaults

The hard inputs are:

• one shot event: the character, action, scene, emotion, camera, and visible end state of this single shot;
• at least one approved visual source: a comic panel, manga frame, character sheet, or webtoon page — or a creative brief sufficient to create and approve an original comic first frame.

Ask only for a missing hard input. Reuse the known art style, character identity, costume, scene, aspect ratio, and dialogue or narration preference. For a local image file the host Agent can access, use the bundled upload helper only after inspection:

python3 scripts/mcp_client.py upload ./comic-panel.png --mime-type image/png

Upload is transport, not creative review. Retain the returned artifact reference and never pass a local path to a remote tool.

Default to one shot, model: "auto", a source-derived aspect ratio, and the shortest integer duration the selected live video card admits. Freeze a shot card before any paid call: character identity, costume, art style, scene, action, emotion, camera, composition, and the visible end state. Route by input semantics:

• one strict approved panel or character image → beatra.videos.animate;
• strict approved first and last comic panels → beatra.videos.interpolate;
• multiple loose character, style, or scene references → beatra.videos.generate_from_references;
• no visual source → create and approve an original comic first frame through beatra.images.generate, then animate it.

Each shot is an independent deliverable. Generate dependent shots serially: review an identity-carrying shot before using its approved frame as a reference for the next shot.

Golden path

1. Inspect every available visual source. Record its actual MIME type, width, height, aspect ratio, and byte size. Identify the character identity, costume, art style, scene, action, emotion, camera, composition, and the frozen story beat this shot should deliver.
2. Build a shot card: character identity, costume, art style, scene, action, emotion, camera, composition, and the visible end state. Then write one positive prompt that encodes the motion, mood, and landing moment for this single shot.
3. Select the route by input semantics. Call beatra.models.list with the matching capability to confirm a current card admits every actual media fact, art-direction control, and any driving audio. If an original first-frame image is needed, read its image card separately and match the request to live pricing.options; never multiply its customer estimate by source-image count. Keep the model at auto unless the user chose a concrete eligible model.
4. After beatra.models.list admits the complete video payload, show an admission card before any video client_request_id or beatra.videos.animate, beatra.videos.interpolate, or beatra.videos.generate_from_references call: route and MCP tool name, source images, reference media when used, prompt, shortest admitted duration, resolution if set, output count, provisional live estimate, the fact that the 600-credit signup gift usually cannot start this video, and what happens if the balance is short. Planning, comparison, or “make the clip” is not approval. An original first-frame image stage is its own paid card and does not authorize the video call. Do not submit until the user confirms they have topped up or already have enough credits for this estimate. If an image price option is not uniquely determined before admission, show its live range and use the maximum as the approval ceiling. Freeze each stage with one opaque stable client_request_id; then submit exactly one call for that stage. Invoke only the bundled scripts/mcp_client.py: the MCP tool name is the CLI argument and its arguments are JSON on standard input. For example, one strict panel to animate:

   printf '%s' '{"image":{"type":"artifact","artifact_id":"art_panel"},"prompt":"Animate the character turning toward the camera with wind blowing through their hair, keeping the cel-shaded art style and costume unchanged.","client_request_id":"opaque-comic-animate-id"}' | python3 scripts/mcp_client.py call beatra.videos.animate

Strict first and last panels to interpolate:

   printf '%s' '{"first_frame":{"type":"artifact","artifact_id":"art_first"},"last_frame":{"type":"artifact","artifact_id":"art_last"},"prompt":"The character rises from a crouch into a determined stance, comic speed lines radiating outward.","client_request_id":"opaque-comic-interpolate-id"}' | python3 scripts/mcp_client.py call beatra.videos.interpolate

Multiple loose references:

   printf '%s' '{"references":[{"kind":"image","media":{"type":"artifact","artifact_id":"art_character"}},{"kind":"image","media":{"type":"artifact","artifact_id":"art_style"}}],"prompt":"A dynamic entrance shot of the character bursting through a door, matching the reference art style.","client_request_id":"opaque-comic-references-id"}' | python3 scripts/mcp_client.py call beatra.videos.generate_from_references

No visual source — create the first frame, then animate it after approval:

   printf '%s' '{"prompt":"A cel-shaded comic panel: a young swordsman in a tattered cloak standing on a cliff at dawn, determined expression, speed lines in the background, vertical composition.","client_request_id":"opaque-comic-frame-id"}' | python3 scripts/mcp_client.py call beatra.images.generate

Do not configure, call, or use a host Beatra Connector. Do not use REST/OpenAPI fallback. Submit the chosen video tool exactly once.

1. Record the returned task ID immediately and poll the same task with beatra.tasks.get until terminal. Deliver every returned video artifact or link. Report only actual returned task status, resolved model, dimensions, duration, usage, and billing.net_charged_credits. Review accessible output for faces, costumes, drawing style, composition, action readability, mouth movement when applicable, endpoint behavior, and identity continuity across separately generated shots. State what the host Agent could and could not inspect.

Paid changes, recovery, and cancellation

Each shot is one paid video stage. An image stage that creates an original first frame is a separate paid stage with its own request ID. A changed character identity, art style, panel, reference, prompt, model, aspect ratio, duration, or video control is new logical paid work with a new ID, a new admission card for a video stage, and fresh top-up or balance confirmation. On insufficient_balance, relay the returned message, keep the top-up URL inside the balance error exact, and retry the same frozen client_request_id only after the user says they have topped up.

If a create response is lost, retry only the identical frozen payload with the same stage ID. If a task ID is lost, call beatra.tasks.list for the relevant capability, inspect plausible candidates with beatra.tasks.get, and match them against that stage's private ledger before considering an identical retry. Queued and running are progress states, not failures. Recover the original stage before planning changed work; never duplicate a paid submission or guess its charge or refund.

Call beatra.tasks.cancel only when the user asks to cancel. Call it once and confirm the resulting terminal state with beatra.tasks.get. A 409 means cancellation is not confirmed, so continue polling that same task without creating replacement work.

If the tool returns insufficient credits: give the user the tool message in
full. Do not change the URL. You may translate the other words. Do not replace
it with your own top-up copy. Point the user to pay using that message.

Account balance

When the user asks how many credits remain or whether a live estimate fits,
call beatra.wallet.get. When they ask what was charged, call
beatra.wallet.ledger. Both are read-only. Do not invent an account-balance or
top-up tool. Do not make wallet.get a required step before every paid submit.

When a model card comes back carrying a top_up block, relay its tiers as the
card lists them and in that order. Do not rank them, do not talk one down, and
do not pick one for the user. Which tier suits them is their call, made on
the wallet page with the whole list in front of them. Never quote a tier from
memory.

References by task

• Read Comic-drama shot workflow when building a shot card, choosing a route, checking live model facts, constructing exact payloads, polling, recovering, cancelling, or reviewing identity and art-style consistency.
• Read Installation and authentication only when authorization or shared credentials need attention.
• Read Installation registration for the non-billable best-effort package registration step.
• Read Tasks and results for shared terminal task and artifact semantics, and Billing, errors, and recovery for returned billing or error details.
• Read Bundled MCP Client diagnostics when the bundled client cannot connect. Do not configure a host Connector.
• Read Automatic updates and safety for update guarantees and controls.
• Read Uninstall and disconnect only when the user asks to remove the package or shared credentials.

Runtime and safe automatic updates

Use or invoke the bundled scripts/mcp_client.py for every Beatra operation. Before ordinary commands it silently checks for a newer release at most once every 24 hours per installation. Silent checks are enabled by default, and a newer release installs without separate confirmation.

The updater accepts only the fixed official discovery address and immutable Beatra CDN path embedded for this package, channel, and locale. It verifies the discovery data, archive, manifest, and every file's size and checksum before replacement. It replaces only package-owned files and rejects redirects, downgrades, wrong package/channel/locale/version data, unexpected URLs, unsafe archives, and files outside the owned destination.

Update checks, downloads, verification, replacement, rollback, and recovery fail open: the current installation remains usable and the user's original command continues. An update failure never authorizes retrying a paid generation. The automatic-update choice persists across later commands for this installation:

python3 scripts/mcp_client.py update --auto off
python3 scripts/mcp_client.py update --auto on
python3 scripts/mcp_client.py update --check

--auto off disables silent checks, --auto on restores them, and --check reports the official available version without replacing files.