I built a self-hostable pipeline that takes a screenplay (or a one-line idea) and produces a finished animated video —
no coding required, no SaaS subscription.
The pipeline:
1. Write or AI-generate a script
2. Extract characters → generate turnaround reference sheets (for visual consistency)
3. Split the script into shots with camera direction and motion descriptions
4. Generate keyframes (first + last frame per shot) with continuity chaining
5. Interpolate each shot into a video clip
6. Concat everything with FFmpeg, burn subtitles
Each stage can be triggered individually or in batch, so you stay in control.
Tech:
- Next.js 16 App Router + SQLite (self-contained, zero infra)
- Bring your own keys: OpenAI, Gemini, or Seedance for text/image/video
- Docker one-liner: docker run -p 3000:3000 -v ./data:/app/data twwch/aicomicbuilder:latest
- No accounts — browser fingerprint (SHA-256 of UA/screen/timezone) is the user identity, so multiple people can share
one instance with full data isolation
Why I built it: Existing video generation tools are either single-shot (one prompt → one clip) or fully opaque
pipelines. I wanted something that exposed every step so I could iterate on prompts, swap models mid-project, and
understand what's actually happening.
The hardest part was the continuity chain — the last frame of shot N becomes the first frame of shot N+1, which keeps
characters visually consistent across cuts without fine-tuning.
GitHub: https://github.com/twwch/AIComicBuilder
Demo video in the README. Would love feedback on the pipeline design and whether the fingerprint-as-auth tradeoff
makes sense for this use case.