Reelwright

AI showrunner · animation engine · built on Godot

You run the show.
Reelwright makes the cartoon.

Tell it the show you want. It designs the world, the cast and the sets, then writes, directs and renders episodes. At every step you approve, tweak, lock or regenerate anything, from a whole theme down to a single keyframe.

In development: milestones 0–2 of 10 are done, and the showrunner (M3) is being built now.

“The Lighthouse”, a cold open

28 seconds from Marigold Salvage Co., the example show. Eight shots, two characters, lip sync and sound effects, all compiled from a screenplay and an episode spec to a frame-exact timeline. Nothing was keyframed by hand.

  • Voices Kokoro, local
  • Lip sync Rhubarb
  • Mix −16 LUFS
  • Output H.264, BT.709, captions

The AI never draws.

It writes small, versioned specs you can read, edit and diff. Deterministic Godot systems build the assets and perform the episodes, so the same specs and seeds always give the same show, frame for frame.

  1. 1

    Propose

    The showrunner answers in change sets: a theme, a style, a crew, a set, each with previews. Nothing lands until you approve it, and anything can be undone.

  2. 2

    Specify

    Every character, set, style and shot is JSON validated against a schema. Specs are hashed, locked field by field, and tracked in git like code.

  3. 3

    Build & render

    Godot turns specs into rigs, sets and golden-exact frames. CI re-renders the demo on every push and compares nine frames to the pixel.

"id": "char.otto",
"name": "Ottoline Brisk",
"body": {
  "heightCm": 162,
  "headsTall": 4.2,
  "build": "slim",
  "silhouette": "triangle"
},
"head": {
  "hair": {
    "style": "short_messy",
    "fringe": "spiky",
    "color": "@hair"
  }
},
"persona": {
  "role": "Pilot of the Marigold",
  "flaw": "Sees an adventure in
    every warning sign."
}
Model sheet for Ottoline Brisk: a five-view turnaround, 21 expressions, 9 mouth shapes, a height line-up and her palette.
This spec, and nothing else, draws this model sheet: turnaround, 21 expressions, 9 mouth shapes and a palette.

Generated, then approved.

Patterns describe a kind of character or set. Seeded samplers draw from them, and ensemble rules keep a cast readable at a glance: distinct silhouettes, colors, heights and hair.

A line-up of six generated crew members of different heights, builds, hairstyles and outfits.
reelwright generate characters --count 6: a crew drawn from one pattern, each with a full model sheet.
A generated spaceship bridge with two consoles, a round porthole full of stars, pipes and a kettle on a shelf.
A bridge sampled from a set pattern, with walkways, marks and camera setups checked.
Nine kit pieces rendered alone: floor, hull wall with porthole, console, seat, pipes, shelf with kettle, crate, door and kettle.
Sets are assembled from modular kits whose pieces are data, not models.
The same shot in two styles: Saturday Morning with film grain and muted purples, and Bright Modern with cleaner, brighter color.
Switch the show's style and every shot re-renders, while the story, timing and staging stay put.

Coming in M3

Talk to it.

“Create a new show: a comedic starship crew, Saturday-morning style.” You get back a theme, a style, a crew of four and a bridge, each as a proposal with previews. Ask for four options, pick one, lock what you love, undo what you don't.

Use it from Claude Code through an MCP server, or from Reelwright Studio, a standalone app with chat, diffs and previews. The same components also dock inside the Godot editor.

Roadmap

  1. M0 Foundations: schemas, determinism, toolchain, CI
  2. M1 A 30-second scene rendered end to end, with no AI
  3. M2 Parametric generation of casts, sets and styles
  4. M3 Showrunner for world-building: MCP, chat, Studio
  5. M4 Director AI: screenplay to directed, voiced video
  6. M5 Writers' room: one prompt to a full episode
  7. M6 Performance: emotion, gesture, idle life
  8. M7 Re-direction on a timeline, by chat or by hand
  9. M8 Restyle a whole show, with canon-drift reports
  10. M9 Generative adapters for art, 3D, music and SFX
  11. M10 Continuity, 3D characters, render farm

House rules