# AI Character Animation > AI character animation from video lets you film a person doing a move and have your own character — a mascot, cartoon, anime or 3D render — perform it, with no rig or motion-capture suit. Kenerate AI's Motion Transfer tool animates one character image with that clip on 12 engines, including Wan 2.2 Fun Control for stylised looks. URL: https://kenerateai.com/ai-character-animation Publisher: Kenerate AI (https://kenerateai.com) Last updated: 3 October 2026 ## Key facts - Character types: Mascot, cartoon, anime, 3D - Needs: 1 character image + 1 clip - Rig or mocap suit: Not needed - Stylised pick: Wan 2.2 Fun Control - Clip length: Up to 2 min - Output: MP4 video, no watermark - Wan 2.2 Fun Control (Alibaba): Image + video up to 2 min → 480p or 720p · silent. Cartoons, toys and illustrated mascots — follows the clip's structure while keeping your character's style. - SCAIL 2 (WaveSpeed): Image + video up to 2 min → 480p or 720p · keeps sound. Anime, painted and 3D characters through turns and spins; keeps the clip's sound. - Wan 2.2 Animate 2 (Alibaba): Image + video up to 2 min · motion prompt → 480p or 720p · silent. Characters with faces and hands that should act — body, hands and expression; motion prompt. - LTX-2 Control (Lightricks): Video up to 20 s (+ optional image) → 480p, 720p or 1080p · keep, new or mute sound. Restyle the whole performance into a new world from a prompt; image optional, up to 1080p. - Kling 3.0 Pro Motion (Kuaishou): Image + 3–30 s video → Follows the source · sound switch. Humanoid 3D characters and realistic avatars on 3–30 s clips. ## Steps 1. Prepare the character image — Full body, arms slightly away from the torso, legs visible, on a simple background. JPG or PNG. 2. Act out the move — Film yourself or a friend on a tripod doing exactly what the character should do. Match the character's framing. 3. Pick the engine for the style — Wan 2.2 Fun Control or SCAIL 2 for cartoon and anime; Wan 2.2 Animate 2 for acting with face and hands; Kling for humanoid 3D. 4. Describe the look — A short prompt that restates the style — 'flat cel-shaded cartoon, bold outlines' — keeps the engine from drifting toward realism. 5. Generate, compare, keep the best — Try two engines on the same clip and seed, then render the winner at 720p (or 1080p on LTX-2 Control). ## In depth ### Proportions: the main source of trouble A motion engine maps the performer's joints onto your character. If the character's proportions are close to a person's, that mapping is easy. A chibi character with a huge head, a round mascot with stubby legs, or a creature with extra limbs forces the engine to stretch or invent. Act out moves that suit the shape — small steps for a stubby mascot, big arm moves for a long-armed one. ### Stylised characters and realistic engines Engines trained mostly on real people sometimes pull a cartoon toward realism: skin texture, realistic eyes, extra shading. SCAIL's research specifically shows generalisation to anime, hand-drawn and even animal characters, and Wan 2.2 Fun Control follows the clip's structure while restyling from your image, which is why those two lead the list for toons. ### What you get, and what you don't - You get: an MP4 of your character performing the clip, no watermark, ready to post or edit. - You don't get: a rig, skeletal animation data or an FBX/GLB file. - You can add: Upscale to 4K for a sharper master, or Dub into another language for a talking character. ## FAQ Q: Can AI animate a cartoon or mascot from a video? A: Yes. Upload one image of the cartoon or mascot and a video of a person doing the move, and the Motion Transfer tool makes the character perform it. Wan 2.2 Fun Control and SCAIL 2 are the first engines to try for stylised characters; the 'Mascot on a beat' starter example shows the settings on Wan. Q: Do I need to rig my character? A: No. The engines work from a single flat image and infer the body from it, so there's no skeleton to build, no weights to paint and no keyframes. You do need a clear image with visible limbs, because the engine can only animate what it can see or reasonably guess. Q: Can I export the animation as FBX or to a game engine? A: No. The output is a finished MP4 video, not skeletal animation data, so it can't be retargeted onto a rig in Blender, Unity or Unreal. It's ideal for social clips, previews, pitch reels and explainer videos; for game-ready animation you still need a motion-capture or rigging workflow. Q: What kind of video should I record as the reference? A: A steady, tripod-shot clip of one person doing the move, with no cuts, the whole body in frame for full-body moves and plain clothes that show the elbows and knees. Act a little bigger than real life — cartoon characters read better with clear, exaggerated poses — and trim the clip to just the action. Q: How do I keep my character's colours and style? A: Pick an engine that respects stylisation — Wan 2.2 Fun Control or SCAIL 2 — and restate the style in the prompt, for example 'flat cel-shaded cartoon, bold outlines, candy colours'. Avoid photoreal wording. If a realistic engine like Kling starts adding skin texture to a cartoon, switch engines rather than fighting it with the prompt. Q: How long can a character animation be? A: Up to 2 minutes of driving video on SCAIL, the Wan engines and SteadyDancer, which covers a full song or a short scene. Kling takes 3–30 seconds, DreamActor v2 and PixVerse Mimic up to 30 seconds, Kenerate Motion and LTX-2 Control up to 20. Longer clips are trimmed or refused depending on the engine. Q: Can I animate a character based on a real person? A: Only with that person's permission, and not celebrities or public figures. Characters you designed, licensed mascots and original avatars are the safe choice. If your character is a stylised version of someone real, get their consent first and say the clip is AI-made when you publish it. ## Related pages - AI Motion Control: https://kenerateai.com/ai-motion-control - AI motion transfer: https://kenerateai.com/ai-motion-transfer - SCAIL 2 motion transfer: https://kenerateai.com/scail-ai - Wan 2.2 Animate: https://kenerateai.com/wan-2-2-animate - AI motion capture: https://kenerateai.com/ai-motion-capture ## Sources - Kenerate Motion Transfer tool: https://kenerateai.com/app/tool/motion - zai-org/SCAIL — stylised and non-human characters: https://github.com/zai-org/SCAIL - Wan2.2-Fun-A14B-Control on Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/alibaba-pai/Wan2.2-Fun-A14B-Control - Wan-Video/Wan2.2 — Wan2.2-Animate: https://github.com/Wan-Video/Wan2.2