MiniMax H3 Official Handbook: A Three-Part Formula That Turns Prompts from Scene Descriptions into Asset Instructions

For an orbit shot, don't write "orbit shot" — write truck left + pan right. If you don't want background music, close the prompt with "non-diegetic music: N/A." These are the rules MiniMax learned the hard way, and they're all in the official handbook.
By MiniMax 官方08-09 · 12 min read⚑ Tutorial / how-to
Tool Guide · Xiaohu Explains
TL;DR
  • MiniMax's H3 handbook is built around a three-part formula: reference material description + core creative concept + visual process description.
  • The most useful rules are the counterintuitive ones. For an orbit shot, don't write "orbit shot" — write truck left + pan right.
  • The final section, titled "The Best Way to Write Prompts," offers one piece of advice: don't write them yourself.
⚑This article draws from MiniMax's official H3 handbook (marked as continuously updated; we worked from the August 7 version). Prompts and rules are as published by MiniMax. Pricing references come from MiniMax's July 31 launch post; the handbook itself doesn't list prices.
Opening

The handbook's value is a three-part formula

For the H3 video model it released in late July, MiniMax published a handbook that distills prompt writing into one formula, three elements, and six pitfalls, with dozens of examples pairing original prompts, reference images, and final outputs. It never argues for how powerful the model is; it just hands you copyable writing patterns.

Most AI video prompt guides stop at "be clear about your subject, scene, and action" — technically true, practically useless. This handbook gives you the specific, hard-won rules: for an orbit shot, don't write the words "orbit shot"; if you don't want background music, you have to close with a specific phrase. You could tinker for a month and never stumble onto them.

The whole handbook hinges on this formula:

Reference material description What each asset does + Core creative concept One sentence to frame the whole video + Visual process description What happens every second Three parts — none can be skipped
The official master formula for prompts. Each of the next sections breaks down one part.
Direct quote · Master formula
Complete prompt = reference material description + core creative concept + visual process description
Prerequisites

First, know what H3 can take in and put out

Before writing a single word, know the model's capability envelope — it dictates how you write the prompt. The 7,000-character limit, for instance, explains why official examples routinely run thousands of characters — MiniMax genuinely wants you to fill the space.

ItemH3 Spec
Output length4–15 seconds
Output frame rate24 FPS
Output audioEvery result includes audio, native stereo
Output aspect ratioFirst/last frame mode: follows the original aspect ratio of the input image
Text-to-video mode: follows the user-specified ratio within 21:9, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4, 9:16
All-in-one reference mode: follows the user-specified ratio within the range above, or lets H3 decide in auto mode

Resolution768p mode (available now): when the output ratio is between 16:9 and 9:16, the short edge is 768px; otherwise total area is ~1M pixels, e.g., 1536×672 at 21:9. 768p results can be upscaled to 1440p
1440p mode (recommended by MiniMax 👍): when the ratio is between 16:9 and 9:16, the short edge is 1440px; otherwise total area is ~3.7M pixels, e.g., 2976×1248 at 21:9
First/last frame input0–2 images; dimensions [256, 5760] on each side; aspect ratio 5:2 to 2:5
With no image input, it falls back to text-to-video mode
All-in-one reference inputImages ≤ 9, dimensions [256, 5760]
Videos ≤ 3, each 2–15 seconds, total ≤ 15 seconds, dimensions [256, 5760], aspect ratio 5:2 to 2:5
Audio ≤ 3 clips, but audio must be paired with image or video input — audio alone isn't allowed, each 2–15 seconds, total ≤ 15 seconds
Mixed input cap: 12 files total; with no input, falls back to text-to-video mode
Input formatsVideo: H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC; audio track inside video: AAC, MP3
Image: JPG, JPEG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, HEIF
Audio: WAV, MP3
File sizeVideo: 50MB each; image: 30MB each; audio: 15MB each (no total limit — limits are per file); API request body: 64MB (recommended to pass assets via URL)
Prompt limitNo more than 7,000 characters
Language supportMultilingual prompt input and output
TTS precisely covers 11 languages, including Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, and more
Additional languages are explorable — Arabic, Thai, Indonesian, Hindi, and 40+ languages total
Suitable for global brand campaigns, multilingual ads, cross-language shorts, and localized product stories

On the input side, there are two very different entry points. Pick the wrong one and the best prompt in the world won't save you:

First / last frame entry 0–2 images 0 images = pure text-to-video 2 images = first frame + last frame No video, no audio All-in-one reference entry Images ≤ 9 Videos ≤ 3 Audio ≤ 3 2–15s each Total ≤ 15s Can't be sent alone Mixed input: 12 files max
The audio rule is the easiest to trip over: audio must accompany an image or video. Illustration by this site, based on the handbook's spec table.

The three capability pillars the handbook defines for H3

Knowing what the model is actually good at tells you where to point your prompt. The handbook opens with an official categorization, quoted directly:

Three capabilitiesOfficial description
Native multimodal
understanding & generation
Supports text, image, audio, and video inputs; understands the people, motion, sound, emotion, camera work, style, and intent across different materials; naturally fuses multiple references into one integrated process from understanding source material to generating complete audiovisual content.
Precise multimodal
editing & control
Supports multi-dimensional editing of people, objects, scenes, sound, and rhythm, with fine-grained instruction following. Creators can iterate on existing content, more reliably realizing adjustments to picture, sound, and detail.
Commercial-grade
content generation
Aimed at real commercial scenarios in film, advertising, brands, e-commerce, and games. It handles subtitles, brand messaging, creative effects, product displays, UI/UX motion demos, game visuals, and stylized expression, helping creators and content teams move faster through concept validation, visual pitches, and production.

The first two pillars each break down into four sub-capabilities, and the handbook's examples are organized along those lines:

Native multimodal understanding & generationPrecise all-round editing & modification
Multi-asset joint reference
Text, image, audio, and video combine freely to inform generation
Character & object editing
Replace, remove, or add people and objects; flexibly adjust the visual focus
Character, action & camera reference
Reference the protagonist's look, body movement, camera motion, and composition
Scene & visual effects editing
Replace backgrounds, adjust lighting and atmosphere, and add or modify VFX
Voice transfer & cloning
Reference an audio clip's timbre to seamlessly update a character's voice
Voice, dialogue & timbre modification
Replace dialogue, transfer timbre, adjust voice and related sound content
Atmosphere & editing comprehension
Reference the original video's visual style, narrative rhythm, sound atmosphere, and overall editing feel
High-precision instruction control
Accurately execute local edits and refinements while keeping unedited content stable
Formula part one

Part one: assign a job to every asset

This is the biggest mental shift in the whole handbook. In the past, the first thing you did was describe the picture. Now the first thing you do is go through every asset you uploaded and say what it's for.

Two things to cover: the label (in upload order, @image1, @audio2, @video3) and the job description.

@image1 @video1 @audio1 Character reference Lock this face Action reference Perform this motion Voice reference Use this person's voice
Three assets, three assignments, all in the same prompt. Illustration by this site.

MiniMax lists the "jobs" as a vocabulary of 13 labels. The list itself is copy-paste material; scan it when writing part one:

Character reference lock face/look Object reference lock object Scene reference lock scene Keyframe be explicit about first/last Voice reference lock timbre Storyboard generate per the boards Style reference match this style Composition reference match this layout Audio reuse use the audio as-is Partial audio reuse use only a segment/track Action reference lock the motion Camera reference lock the camera move Video editing add/remove/modify in a video
Direct quote · Part one example
@image1 provides the appearance of character XX (if there are multiple characters, make sure the reference is unambiguous), @video2 provides the action reference.

Two practical extras. If a specific trait in your reference really must survive, say so explicitly — consistency improves. For voice cloning, if the dialogue or lyrics have to stay intact, MiniMax strongly recommends pasting the full lyrics into the prompt, e.g., "@audio1 serves as the voice-cloning source for the target video, with the exact lyrics: 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMN'."

In practice, the "voice reference" label works like this: give an audio clip as the timbre reference, give it a line to speak, and the character delivers that line in that voice.

Voice cloning example. The prompt is a single line: "The character speaks: Follow the wind, live free. Leave worries behind, enjoy the moment. Voice reference: audio 1." Source: MiniMax official handbook

The last label, "video editing," covers modifying an existing clip. The simplest prompt is plain language: "replace the cat in the video with a dog."

The full prompt: "Replace the cat in the video with a dog." Source: MiniMax official handbook

If you didn't upload anything, skip this section.

Formula part two

Part two: one sentence to frame the whole video

With asset assignments done, establish what this video is. The core creative concept should lock the piece in one sentence. MiniMax requires four things in it: subject (who/what), location (where), event (what's happening), and genre/style (live-action / animation / cinematic / commercial...), plus an optional special camera move (aerial / one continuous shot / slow motion).

Direct quote · Part two example
A young woman in Hanfu (@image1) practices swordplay in a courtyard where cherry blossoms drift through the air — classical Chinese aesthetic, cinematic, one continuous shot.
The subject is the woman in Hanfu (@image1 locks her face), the location is the cherry-blossom courtyard, the event is sword practice, the genre is classical-Chinese style with cinematic texture, and the camera move is added at the end. All four elements are present.

Two hard rules hide in this section, rarely mentioned elsewhere.

Rule one

H3 will cut by default. If you don't say "one continuous shot," it will cut on its own. You have to be explicit.

Rule two

For an orbit shot, don't write "orbit shot." MiniMax recommends truck left + pan right, or the reverse, truck right + pan left.

MiniMax also lists specific options for "genre/style" and "cutting style" that you can pick from directly:

Direct quote · Style and cutting options
Genre/style: realistic / animation / cinematic / ad / documentary...
Specific styles: cyberpunk / neon aesthetics / graffiti style, etc.

Special camera moves: aerial / one continuous shot / slow motion...
  · Cuts happen by default
  · Camera style: be specific. For orbit shots, use truck left + pan right
    or truck right + pan left rather than saying "orbit shot"
  · Cutting style:
    · Standard cuts
    · Dissolves (fade)
    · Cuts synced to the rhythm
    · Quick cuts

If any element links directly to a reference asset, feel free to emphasize it with @image1 / @audio1 / @video1.
What truck and pan mean

A truck is the whole camera sliding sideways; a pan is the camera staying put while the lens rotates left or right. When you circle someone with your phone, your feet truck sideways and your wrist pans to keep them centered — stack the two and it reads as an orbit. The official advice: decompose the result into two concrete actions, which the model understands better.

One more text-related rule: if you want specific text, a logo, a headline, or button copy to appear in the video, you must write the exact string into the prompt. For example, "The phone screen displays the title: 'AI Video Creation' with the button text: 'Start Now'." In the handbook's full-of-text motion examples, every character is hard-coded into the prompt:

Motion-graphics example. The prompt specifies the brand name and slogan that must appear, plus "No other readable text may appear in the frame." Source: MiniMax official handbook
Formula part three

Part three: write what you want — and don't want — on a timeline

Once the overall tone is locked, you finally write what happens in every second. This section is organized into timeline blocks, with each cut acting as a timestamp, and each block covering six items.

0–3s 3–8s 8–12s …one block per cut Each block covers six items: Shot size Content Camera Action Dialogue Sound FX After the "want" list, write a separate "don't want" section — the most common case is killing the background music
How to structure the visual process description. Illustration by this site, drawn from the handbook.
Direct quote · Part three example
0–3s: Wide shot. The woman (@image1) walks slowly into the cherry-blossom courtyard (@image2) from screen left, background blurred, no dialogue, just footsteps.
3–8s: Cut to a medium shot of the woman (@image1). She draws her sword (@image3), slowly assumes a stance, and cherry petals fall from the tree. Camera pushes in.
8–12s: Cut to a close-up. A flash of the blade, slow motion, petals scatter from the force of the sword.
Non-diegetic music: N/A

That last line is how you write "don't want." If you want no background music, saying "no BGM" doesn't work. You have to write this:

Direct quote · Turning off background music
Non-diegetic music: N/A

Or in English format:
"non_diegetic_music": N/A
What "non-diegetic music" means

It's the layer of music the characters can't hear and only the audience does — i.e., the score. The tense strings in a horror movie are non-diegetic; the protagonist can't hear them. The opposite is a sound source that exists in the scene itself, like a radio the character switches on. To stop H3 from adding a score, you have to name it.

Two more notes: favor concrete, visible images over metaphors — H3 is built for explicit visual instructions, not abstract similes; and if there's dialogue, write the exact lines, don't just say "she says something cutting."

What does this section look like at full power? One handbook prompt asks for four simultaneous changes, and every one is specified to the letter:

The prompt asks: replace the canned drink at the start with Coca-Cola; change the glowing "FamilyMart" sign in the background to "Hu Hui"; swap every snack in the plastic bag at the end for Coke cans; and change the final line of dialogue from "I bought some snacks" to "I bought a bunch of Coke." Source: MiniMax official handbook
Storyboards

If dialogue and shots are out of sync, the lip-sync breaks

But there's a storyboard trap the handbook calls out specifically. It adds a note after this rule: "This one needs stressing — a lot of lip-sync problems come from exactly this."

Core

Dialogue length has to match shot length. Don't stuff a long speech into a 3-second shot. MiniMax's exact words: "it will seriously hurt the result."

❌ A whole speech squeezed into a 3-second shot Shot 1 · 3s Dialogue far exceeds what this shot can hold → lip-sync breaks ✓ Dialogue broken into pieces, each matched to a shot Shot 1 · 3s Shot 2 · 5s Shot 3 · 3s Dialogue length = shot length
Illustration by this site

Three related rules:

If dialogue spans multiple shots, say which shots it spans. H3 can handle J-cuts and L-cuts, but you have to spell them out.

What J-cut / L-cut are

Sound and picture deliberately switch at different moments: the dialogue continues into the next shot before the picture changes, or the next scene's audio arrives before the image catches up. Like hearing someone call your name from the doorway a beat before you see them — audio first, picture second.

Make clear who is speaking and whether they're on screen. The handbook gives a complex example:

Direct quote · How to write dialogue across shots
A voice-over begins: Wake up, wake up. Then it cuts to a medium close-up of a middle-aged woman, owner of the voice, who continues: It's time to go to school!

When you cut, say what shot size you're cutting to and which earlier character is the subject — cross-shot consistency stays much better.

Variants

Three modes, three prompt-writing styles

The same formula changes depending on how you feed it. The handbook splits it into three modes:

ModeWriting notes
Multimodal reference
image + video + audio together
Give every asset a role: @image1 locks the face, @video1 locks the action, @audio1 sets the mood
Image-to-videoWith a single image, say whether it's the first frame or the last frame; with both first and last frames, H3 won't add cuts on its own — it only fills in the motion, light, and sound between the two frames
Pure text generationBe more specific overall (subject appearance, scene details, action must all be explicit); lean on the layered style of "wide shot to establish space + medium shot to carry action + close-up for detail"

That middle row is the trap: a lot of people send first/last frames hoping H3 will "perform" between them, and it just obediently fills in the motion with no shot changes. That's by design, not a failure.

The error log

Six most common pitfalls, as listed by MiniMax itself

With the writing rules covered, here's the handbook's own summary of mistakes. This table belongs next to your keyboard:

What you wroteHow to fix it
One long paragraph, no structureBreak it into the three-part formula
Uploaded assets but never said what they're forAdd "@image1 is an XX reference"
Want music but wrote "no BGM"Those contradict each other. Drop one or split it per scene
Want one continuous shot but wrote many storyboardsKeep the whole text as one narrative; delete the 【Shot N】 structure
Want a consistent lead face but didn't upload an imageYou must upload a character reference and label it "character reference"
Prompt too short and no reference materialWrite at least subject appearance + scene details + action + style
Model texts

Two thousand-character full examples you can copy

Rules only get you so far. At the end of the handbook, MiniMax provides two fully written examples — complete prompts over a thousand characters each, strictly following the three-part structure.

Example one: the on-screen-lyrics MV

Trap music video aesthetic. The most instructive part is a dedicated "groove rules" section that binds the beat to specific on-screen actions:

Direct quote · Groove rules
hi-hat roll → rapid micro-shakes, frame skips, text splitting into fragments
snare → text suddenly enlarges, hard cut, character's shoulders press down
808 bass hit → low-end presses the frame, brief image distortion, text stretches vertically or compresses horizontally
vocal keyword → lip-sync, jaw movement, head-bobbing, hand gestures push forward
It doesn't vaguely say "sync to the beat." It maps each drum sound to one concrete on-screen action.
The final output generated from the full on-screen-lyrics MV prompt. Source: MiniMax official handbook

Example two: hand-drawn effects

A live-action tram car fused with hand-drawn glowing animation. The most instructive part is the shape-continuity requirement: one hand-drawn line changes form a dozen times across 15 seconds (ticket → paper swallow → caterpillar → arrow → little sailboat → mini tram → snail → umbrella → small fish → sunset cloud sea), and MiniMax requires each transformation to retain traces of the previous form — the ticket's dashed border, the swallow's wings, the caterpillar's dots — so the audience feels it's one thing continuously transforming, not a new character appearing.

It also specifies the camera's rhythm: the camera always trails the hand-drawn animation by half a beat, letting the animation run first and the camera hesitantly chase after it.

The final output generated from the full hand-drawn effects prompt. Source: MiniMax official handbook
Common thread

Both thousand-character prompts share a trait: a huge share of the space goes to "don't want" — the prohibitions are more detailed than the requests. The hand-drawn one lists "no polished 3D rendering, no ad-style tidy composition, no subtitles, logos, or background music, no giant eyes or split mouths, no new character appearing out of nowhere after the previous form vanishes" — closing off the ways it could go wrong before they happen.

Full model texts

Two complete examples, with assets and final output

The previous section covered what makes each example worth studying. They're also templates you can copy and modify, so here are the complete original prompts, the reference images used, and the final outputs in full — not a word cut. Long prompts open collapsed; click to expand.

On-screen-lyrics MV

On-screen-lyrics MV · Full prompt
Original prompt · 2,882 characters
【Reference material description】@image3: scene visual style (street/night/underground spaces, oppressive framing, environmental depth, film grain) @image2: text packaging style (font texture, graphic design, motion-graphics typographic impact) @image1: character look (face, hairstyle, clothing silhouette, proportions, temperament, overall mood). Reference only the specified dimensions. Do not directly copy the reference images. No real brands, no original reference logos/titles/recognizable text.

【Core creative concept】10 seconds, 16:9 horizontal trap MV. Two fly detective brothers take turns rapping directly to camera in several close-quarters underground spaces, following the trap groove throughout, hard-cutting on the beat, high-contrast print-poster-style English block letters slamming into frame on bass hits. Underground music video + fashion magazine collage + high-couture texture, cool brothers performance.

【Visual process description】

Shot 1 — extreme close-up of the face / corridor pressure- Scene: narrow corridor or underground entrance, tight framing, per @image3- Shot size: extreme close-up of the face (face/eyes/shoulders/collar details)- Character: Detective A looks straight into the lens and starts rapping, eyes cool and sharp- Text: "TWO FLY" in huge bold English type pushed into the top and bottom of the frame, not covering the eyes- Rhythm: 808 bass slams down, "TWO FLY" vertically compresses then springs back; during hi-hat rolls the letter edges vibrate rapidly into fine fragments; at the "fly" accent, a scan-line glitch- Hard cut

Shot 2 — medium close-up, half body / wall-text background- Scene: a different wall/poster wall close-up (clearly different space from Shot 1)- Shot size: pulled back noticeably to a medium close-up, half body- Character: Detective B raps to camera, head and shoulders hitting the hi-hat accents, body leaning slightly forward- Text: "CLUES" in huge compressed English behind the character, naturally occluded by hair/shoulders/clothing silhouette- Rhythm: text stretches vertically like a poster standing up; on each snare the text suddenly enlarges, shakes, glitches with scan lines- Hard cut

Shot 3 — hand close-up / occlusion-based transition- Scene: metal door edge/railing/garage wall/low ceiling- Shot size: hand close-up (hand/ring/cuff/fabric texture as the subject)- Character: Detective A pushes a hand gesture toward the lens (offering a clue), face behind, blurred or partial- Text: vertical "BROTHERS" on one side of the foreground, briefly occluded by the hand- Rhythm: at "move as one," the text is pulled into a long vertical strip, hard-cut and reassembled on the bass hit- Hard cut

Shot 4 — shoulder-and-neck close-up advancing to face close-up / stair landing- Scene: stair landing/doorway shadow/low corridor- Shot size: shoulder-and-neck and collar-texture close-up → on the snare, a short sudden push to a face close-up- Character: Detective B turns his head toward the lens and keeps rapping- Text: "AS ONE" bursts out like a magazine headline, suddenly enlarging on the beat- Rhythm: on the push-in, the text hard-cuts and repositions, never covering the eyes- Hard cut

Shot 5 — half-body near shot with afterimages / garage or concrete background- Scene: garage-like space or concrete background- Shot size: Detective A half-body near shot- Character: main layer with clear lip-sync; secondary layer with dynamic afterimages (photocopier misregistration/frame delay, face undistorted); hand sweeps across the frame- Text: vertical "CUT GOLD" flashing in the background with frame skips- Rhythm: at "CUT," the frame snaps horizontally, triggering a flash-white hard cut; at "GOLD," the text compresses into a heavy block then springs back- Hard cut

Shot 6 — two-person near shot, split screen / color-block division- Scene: underground entrance/wall/railing/door frame (clearly different space from Shot 5)- Shot size: color blocks carve the frame into two or three zones, alternating quickly between the two detectives' face close-ups and half-body segments- Character: the two detectives perform alternately left and right- Text: "CASE COMPLETE" in bold short words at center- Rhythm: hard-cut reassembly on each 808 bass hit, letters flattening then instantly stretching; during hi-hat rolls, text fragments flicker rapidly; on the final accent, scan-line glitch and paper-tearing vibration- Hard cut

Final — multi-scene near-shot performance montage- Scene: tight corridor face close-up, wall medium close-up, hand close-up, stair-landing shoulder close-up, garage half-body, doorway-shadow two-person near shot, alternating fast- Shot size: no full-body shots, no wide two-person shots — only near shots/medium close-ups/face close-ups/hand close-ups/shoulder close-ups/half-body shots- Character: the two detectives take turns rapping to camera; lips/jaw/breath/eyebrows/hands all locked to the vocal, snare, hi-hat roll, and bass hit- Text: final main title "CASE CLOSED" slams into frame at enormous scale- Rhythm: every bass hit triggers a hard cut of scene or shot size; every snare triggers text compression or layer misregistration; on the final beat, all scene fragments freeze simultaneously, hard cut to black

【Overall requirements】

▍Image style (throughout)- coarse grain, slight film jitter, photocopy-paper grain, halftone dots, print fuzz, scan-line glitches, skipped-frame afterimages, high-speed layer misregistration- editing rhythm is extremely fast: only hard cuts, jump cuts, beat cuts, occlusion cuts, flash-white cuts, and text-slam cuts- no fades, no soft transitions

▍Text packaging (throughout)- text is part of the picture, with real layer relationships- text can sit in the foreground, midground, or background- characters occlude text, and text can pass over parts of the character, but it must never cover the eyes or key facial expressions- text appears/shakes/stretches/compresses/glitches/tears/hard-cut-reassembles on vocal accents, snares, hi-hat rolls, and 808 bass hits- style: heavy compressed sans-serif, huge English block letters, vertical stretching, horizontal compression, vertical English, curved titles, black-white-red high contrast, photocopy grain, halftone dots, print damage, scan-line glitches, zine collage feel- text stays restrained: one main text element per shot, at most a couple of small numbers; no dense small type, no logos

▍Groove rules (throughout)- hi-hat roll → rapid micro-shakes, frame skips, text splitting into fragments- snare → text suddenly enlarges, hard cut, character's shoulders press down- 808 bass hit → low-end presses the frame, brief image distortion, text stretches vertically or compresses horizontally- vocal keyword → lip-sync, jaw movement, head-bobbing, hand gestures push forward- character motion, text animation, scene changes, and shot-size changes must all land on the beat together

▍Scene changes (throughout)- multiple near scenes cutting fast- scene mood is unified by @image3, but each shot's space must clearly differ: narrow corridor, wall close-up, doorway shadow, metal/concrete background, light edges, poster wall, stair landing, low ceiling, garage-like space, underground entrance- no grand establishing shots, no complex set pieces- every change is triggered by a bass hit, snare, vocal accent, or text slam

▍Shot-size changes (throughout)- changes must be very obvious: face extreme close-up → medium close-up half body → hand close-up → shoulder close-up → two-person split-screen near shot → face close-up → half-body segment- never use the same shot size twice in a row- every hard cut noticeably changes lens distance/subject orientation/background space/text hierarchy- camera may be slightly handheld, push in abruptly, move laterally in short bursts, zoom under quick compression, or sway at close range- never turns into soft slow motion

▍Character rules (throughout)- roles: two fly detectives / brothers- maintain the face, hairstyle, clothing silhouette, proportions, temperament, and overall mood of @image1- real matte skin, clean and premium, natural pores, slight skin texture- no glossy AI beauty-face look- brothers take turns rapping, with strong performance energy toward the camera

▍Character performance (throughout)- voice: cold, aggressive, relaxed but pressuring, tight rhythm, broken phrasing, strong beats- not a static pose — a performance- clear lip-sync: lip shape, jaw, expression, breath all following the vocal- beat-driven moves: head-bobbing, shoulder presses, hand gestures, leaning in, turning the head, stepping toward the lens, pointing at the lens

▍Key constraints (throughout)- no full-body shots- no wide two-person shots- no complex group scenes- only near shots/medium close-ups/face close-ups/hand close-ups/shoulder close-ups/half-body shots- show only the upper body, face, hands, clothing texture, expression, lip-sync, and text packaging- no need to see the full body or feet- no real brands, no logos, titles, or recognizable original text from the reference images
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output

Hand-drawn effects

Hand-drawn effects · Full prompt
Original prompt · 1,828 characters
【Reference material description】No reference material (pure text-to-video).

【Core creative concept】15 seconds, 16:9 horizontal video. Fuse live-action footage of an old evening tram car with hand-drawn glowing animation: in the empty last-run tram, a passenger films one-handed with a phone and encounters an apricot-orange glowing line continuously transforming inside the car (ticket → paper swallow → caterpillar → arrow → little sailboat → mini tram → snail → umbrella → small fish → the whole car becomes a sunset cloud sea), finally returning to a ticket that crumbles into paper scraps. Overall: lived-in, nostalgic, gentle with a touch of melancholy.

【Visual process description】
0–3 seconds
- Positive: the live-action shot begins with the shooter's fingertip drawing a casual arc across a fogged window. The fingertip lifts away and the fog mark becomes an apricot-orange hand-drawn glowing line (crayon-chalk hybrid texture), first tracing the fingertip → wrapping around the index finger → falling into the palm and curling into a ticket → held down by the other hand → folded into a flat paper swallow → flying off along the right handrail. The camera trails half a beat, first catching the empty palm and reflection, then hurrying right with a shake.
- Negative: no polished ad-style composition.
3–6 seconds
- Positive: the paper swallow loops around a hanging handrail ring, its tail hooking the ring and swaying with a plastic-tap sound. The shooter reaches to steady the ring; the swallow brushes the back of the hand and dissolves into a string of hand-drawn commas → connecting end to end into a glowing caterpillar → crawling along the seat back (leaving apricot-orange powder) → when the shooter leans in to look, it straightens into a graffiti arrow → after pointing, it collapses into a little sailboat that slides away along the seat gap. The camera pushes in a beat too late, with motion blur and brief misfocus.
- Negative: no new character appearance; every form must connect end to end.
6–10 seconds
- Positive: the sailboat slides along the floor, drifts with the tram's sway, dragging a chalk-orange apricot line → the shooter blocks with a foot and scoops with a hand → the boat slips between fingers and foot, hits a half-rolled ticket → the roll rolls → the boat is pulled in and emerges from the other side as a 2-car mini hand-drawn tram (the bow keeps the boat's tip, the windows look like the caterpillar's dots) → drives along the black seam in the floor → reaches the route map, lifts its nose, and flattens into a snail (shell like a wheel, body stretched into the ticket line) → climbs the metal post, turns its head and wiggles its antennae, urging the shooter to chase.
- Negative: no 3D CG.
10–13 seconds
- Positive: the snail's antennae touch the door button → an apricot-orange hand-drawn glow ring lights up around the button → the shooter tries to press it → the ring springs open, stretching the snail → it becomes a small hand-drawn umbrella (the canopy keeps the snail shell spiral and the mini tram window dots) → slides down the door glass, its tip tapping the door seam (the streetlight through the seam becomes a swaying glowing line) → the umbrella flips over and becomes a hand-drawn fish with a bell-tail (body like the umbrella canopy, tail like the ticket's dashed border) → swims down and sweeps the shooter's wrist with its tail (leaving an apricot-orange bracelet mark) → the shooter steps back, hits a seat, the lens tilts, then chases toward the car's center.
- Negative: no horror-monster transformation, no lunging or biting.
13–15 seconds
- Positive: the hand-drawn fish scatters from the door glass → all the lines spread along the window glass, floor wood grain, seat seams, handrail rings, route map, and ceiling lamp shade → the whole car becomes a giant sunset cloud sea (windows layered with dusk, the floor becomes a glowing stream, the handrail ring becomes a full moon, the route map spreads into a graffiti town, clouds hang from the ceiling) → the shooter backs up and reaches out → a cloud strip falls into the palm and turns back into a ticket → a gentle sneeze → the sunset lines across the whole car scatter into small paper scraps → one scrap lands on the lens edge, and another small paper swallow, half a beat slow, crawls out of a seat seam, flies off in the wrong direction, and clumsily drops into the shooter's palm → the image ends in a gentle afterglow.
- Negative: no cutting to a different scene, no gratuitous horror elements.

【Overall requirements】

▍Hand-drawn animation style (throughout)- always flat, frame-by-frame hand-drawn glowing doodles, not 3D characters or CG creatures- line weight, contour, and fill vary slightly from frame to frame, with crayon/chalk/colored-pencil/rough-brush/pastel edges- uneven coloring, smudges, grain, a hand-redrawn feel- center palette: apricot orange, warm tangerine, pale cream, small touches of soft gold- glow is gentle, only faint halos on glass/metal handrails/fabric seats/wood-grain edges, never brightly illuminating the live-action space- every transformation retains traces of the previous form (fog arc, ticket dashed border, paper swallow wings, caterpillar dots, sailboat bow, mini tram windows, snail shell spiral, umbrella canopy, fish tail), so the audience feels it's one continuous being transforming, not a new character

▍Camera rhythm (throughout)- always half a beat behind the hand-drawn animation- the animation flees first toward the handrail/seat seam/floor grain/route map/door glass/car center; the camera lags, then hesitantly pans, dips, rises, advances, or retreats in pursuit- no pre-framed compositions, no stable centering of the animation, no smooth showcase of the tram interior- keep: handheld phone shake, tram sway, the rise-and-fall of walking pursuit, brief misfocus when close to glass, streetlight exposure flicker through the window, natural motion blur- like the shooter is really in the same car chasing it all the way

▍Prohibitions (throughout)- no polished 3DCG, no plush-toy look, no 3D rendering, no smooth neon tubes, no uniform vector lines, no overly finished motion graphics- no over-cinematic lighting, no ad-photography tidiness, no excessive depth-of-field blur- no subtitles, logos, or background music- no sudden cuts to a different scene- no new character appearing out of nowhere after the previous form vanishes- no giant eyes, split mouths, teeth, intimidation, lunging, biting, sudden black screens, jump scares, or horror-monster transformations- the final spatial transformation must still be built from hand-drawn glowing lines — it can be wondrous and surreal, but it must stay gentle, nostalgic, cute, lived-in, and softly melancholic.

▍Ambient sound (throughout)- only real sounds from the old tram interior: the low rumble of wheels on track, the car's slight sway, handrail rings tapping, the small mechanical click of the door button, paper ticket friction, fabric seats being brushed, the shooter's quiet gasps and hurried footsteps- hand-drawn animation sounds: very faint chalk friction, a small scratching across glass, soft electronic tremolo, short comic squeaks
Output
All examples

All 54 handbook examples, with prompt, assets, and output laid out case by case

Following the handbook's own organization, each case comes as a trio: the original prompt (unchanged, with a "copy" button), the input assets it used, and the H3 output. The phrase "非完全Prompt,可自行补充" in some prompts is MiniMax's own marking, meaning it's not the complete version and you can build on it.

Brand campaigns & film content (5 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Images 1–4 are consecutive keyframes, simulating an old telescope searching for the MINIMAX device. Start with a blurred handheld shake, then quickly pull into rack focus on image 1. Between images, a telescope-scan transition (whip pan, motion blur, optical trailing, exposure flicker) switches at the most blurred moment and quickly stabilizes back into focus. Throughout: fixed dual-circular lens mask (black feathered vignette, position/size/edge blur absolutely consistent, no deformation or drift) — only the interior moves. In image 2, fabric sways gently in the wind with the MINIMAX text riding the fabric's undulation while staying readable; in image 3, the figure is like a casually captured fashion passerby, naturally turning and swinging arms; in image 4, the figure adjusts glasses or lifts the chin slightly, projecting the cool, relaxed attitude of a fashion campaign. Red text loads subtly with the focus change, appearing slightly soft at low opacity, fading in and sharpening within 0.3–0.5s (a slight vertical slide or letter-spacing breath is fine), fading out or being swept away by motion blur before the switch. No rotation, bouncing, or large fly-ins/outs. Wes Anderson-style voyeuristic 35mm film texture (slight grain, soft highlight halation, restrained color, red accents), minimalist and premium with a touch of playful wit. Absolutely no added people, vehicles, buildings, or logos; keep the original core composition and the MINIMAX device unchanged.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Epic space-opera theatrical short trailer
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Faster rhythm, grand but not draggy. Quick hard cuts, bridge vibration, intense light flash, short blackouts, warp impact. Text is movie-trailer-style wide-tracking title packaging; the font shouldn't be pure white — restrained glow and material texture, faint edge halation. Text motion includes fading in from dark deep space, being swept bright by starlight, letter-spacing expansion, afterimages, faint glow, and blackout flashes. (Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Sci-fi suspense film short trailer
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Realistic cinematic, high-contrast lighting, tight rhythm. Image 1 serves as the overall atmosphere and style reference. Image 2 serves as the protagonist character reference.

Shot 1 — ultra-wide establishing shot. A giant circular cosmic gate almost fills the frame; the character is only a small back-figure at the bottom, slightly right of-center. The ground is wet and reflective; the gate's center is pure dark. The camera slowly pushes forward. The main title fades in from the dark edge, blurry then sharp: "THE STARS WERE LISTENING" — extremely narrow, heavy, all caps, dark red mixed with rust red, with slight grain and fogged edges. Audio: deep low-frequency pulse, faint metal vibration in the distance, a soft hit when the title sharpens. → Hard cut. (Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Create a 16:9 horizontal premium fashion brand video. Overall mood, scene, and film texture reference image 1; bag asset references image 3; character asset references image 2; brand ending logo references image 4. This is a fashion campaign selling clothes and bags — the overall tone should be high-end, cool, and restrained, but the edit can't be boring: it should be more dynamic, more fashion-rhythmic. Don't make a regular drama or an e-commerce ad. The core story is still simple: by a desert highway and a vintage car, a woman returns to the trunk, opens it, takes out a black bag, shares a brief quiet beat with the man standing by the car, then walks away with the bag. The bag and clothing should flow naturally into the character's movements and become part of her presence.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 5
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Image 1 is the overall texture and atmosphere reference; image 2 is the character's physical appearance reference. Generate a 15-second, 16:9 horizontal trendy fashion short. Keep the character consistent: platinum-blonde long hair, narrow black vintage sunglasses, high-gloss black patent trench coat, cool confident fashion expression, orange reflections of firelight on the patent leather. Overall style is a film-grain fast-cut fashion ad blending a night fire scene, black smoke, orange-red flames, VHS glitches, CCTV broadcast interruptions, 90s analog film grain, scan lines, chromatic aberration, light leaks, flash-white transitions, and slight frame shake.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Visual creativity & content packaging (8 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt · 673 characters
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Generate a 15-second, 16:9 horizontal, light-suspense crime film title sequence. Overall style references these images' visual language: retro Japanese animated title sequence, hard-edge silhouettes, comic collage, asymmetric split screens, strong geometric color blocks, English title credits, minimal Japanese katakana decoration, jazz-noir attitude. Mood: 60% suspense, 40% jazz — mysterious, cool, dynamic, urban-crime; not scary, not heavy, not a cheerful jazz MV. The title motion should feel like motion-graphic collage: black baseline frames appear first, split-screen boundaries swipe in fast, color blocks and cells paste in one by one; character silhouettes, prop close-ups, and English credits slide in, pop, or reveal through masks on the beat. Not realistic dramatic animation — it should feel like title packaging. English credits must be clearly readable, with motion allowed: thin line frames draw first, the name slides in from inside the frame, letters appear one by one, revealed through color-block masks, then briefly hold. No added Chinese, no garbled text, no misspelled English. Rule for the whole piece: each English credit and role appears only once. Don't repeat a role, don't repeat a person's name, don't let one person hold multiple roles. Transitions should vary: circular vinyl masks, vertical door-frame cuts, character long-shadow wipes, red-line slices, giant English-letter masks, split-screen border reassembly, color-block hard cuts, cell-by-cell pasting. All transitions land on the beat — crisp, suspenseful, dynamic, comic-collage in feel. No soft dissolves, no fluid transitions. BGM: original 15-second title music, 60% suspense, 40% jazz. Built from a low sustained bass, tense string pizzicato, cool synth pulses, kick drum, sparse jazz brushwork, walking-bass passages, short bass-sax phrases, and brief brass accents. In the first 2 seconds, a mysterious low frequency and hi-hat establish suspense; at 3s a low drum groove enters; at 6s a jazz bass line joins; at 10s a short sax/brass riff appears; the final 2 seconds end on a tense chord with a drum hit. Overall: mysterious, cool, criminal, jazz only 40%, not too cheerful, imitating no existing melody.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
15 seconds, 16:9 horizontal video. A hybrid image blending live-action footage of an evening kitchen with hand-drawn glowing animation. Sunset warmth still lingers by the window; the lived-in kitchen has an old wooden table, a half-washed mug, a slightly fogged glass bottle, and a hanging dishcloth. The frame carries the slight handheld shake of a phone shot one-handed, the hesitation of close focus, exposure fluctuations from the backlight, and rough noise in the shadows. Don't let it look like a tidy ad image — give it the natural texture of someone hastily filming an inexplicable event at home. No giant eyes, split mouths, fangs, intimidation, lunging, sudden black screens, or jump scares. Sound uses only the kitchen's ambient sounds, the dishcloth's friction, mugs lightly clinking, the tap dripping, the shooter's footsteps and faint breathing, plus the hand-drawn creature's soft electronic tone and small calls.
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
15 seconds, 16:9 horizontal short. Live-action footage of a late-night self-service laundromat fused with hand-drawn glowing animation. A small laundromat with slightly flickering fluorescent lights, running washers, plastic laundry baskets, an old bench, a stray sock on the floor — quiet, with a faint nostalgic mood. One-handed phone shooting with clear shake; the white fluorescents make exposure flicker; glass surfaces carry environmental reflections; focus lags when the lens moves close to objects. Don't make it polished like a commercial ad — the texture should feel like real documentary footage, someone wandering into a laundromat late at night and chasing a strange vision with their phone.
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Style: dark-pop / cyber-grunge / rap music video, realistic high-couture texture, film-magazine texture, high contrast but not cheap. Overall reference: late-90s to early-00s independent magazines, photocopy paper, film scans, underground music posters, and zine collage aesthetics. The frame has coarse grain, slight film jitter, halftone dots, print fuzz, and scan-line misregistration. The edit is fast and uses only hard cuts — no fades or soft transitions. Text packaging style and texture reference the image.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 5
Original prompt
Remove the green-screen background from video 1 and replace it with a fairy-tale background similar to video 2. Background elements must fully match the character's actions in video 1. Adjust the lighting on the character in video 1 so it completely matches the new background.
Input assets
Output
Case 6
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Create an animated-poster video. Keep the original image's gallery white frame, inner frame, red-white-black palette, 3D figurine feel, and layout structure unchanged. When the text appears, pair it with a lively text-entry sound effect.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 7
Original prompt
Hand-drawn 2.0
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Overall video: 16:9 horizontal, about 10–15 seconds total, 4 shots, roughly 3 seconds each, connected by brisk hard cuts. The picture is live-action smartphone footage of a "seaside market stall": light-colored stalls, awnings, shell ornaments, a cold-drink stand, wind-blown cloth curtains, distant beach and pale blue sea, bright, light, summery. The shooter's right hand holds a thin blue-green pen in a normal, natural, correct writing grip and enters from the bottom of the frame. Each shot points at exactly one real object; the object pointed at completely transforms into rough hand-drawn 2D animation, while all other background and non-pointed elements stay live-action.
Output
Case 8
Original prompt
AR / augmented-reality creative
The protagonist appears inside a white rectangular frame in the scene. He grips the frame's edges with both hands, first peeking out head and upper body, then planting one foot on the white line below and crouching to build power. The camera pushes in slightly; the protagonist then springs out of frame with the built-up force.
Cut to the space of IMG1. The protagonist lands on top of the white 3D text in the scene, sits on the top edge of the letters with legs dangling. After a brief pause, he turns to look at the background figure on the right side of the frame — a clear moment of eye contact.
Then the protagonist tosses a thin white elastic rope toward the upper-right corner, using it to swing in an arc. The camera follows with a fast lateral move, keeping the flat-poster spatial gliding feel.
Cut to the space of IMG2. The protagonist descends along the arc and steps onto the play button. He taps the button with his foot or hand, triggering a clean press feedback.
Finally cut to IMG3.png. The protagonist runs from the play button to the right side of the frame, returning to his original spot on the background card and standing still. Throughout: fast lateral tracking, beat-synced quick cuts, slight push/pull, and clean flat-space transitions. Keep white, gray, and the original design elements. No blood, fighting, weapons, superhero logos, or copyrighted characters.
Input assets
Reference image
Output

Motion graphics, MG animations, AE-style effects (4 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
The short's precise opening frame. Keep the electric-blue background, the white "MiniMax" on the left, the light-blue octopus logo at center, and the white "H3" on the right fully intact. Image 2: the target waveform logo reference after the octopus logo's linear morph — also the core graphic running through the second half. Strictly maintain the waveform logo's path structure, number of curves, rounded endpoints, and overall proportions. Generate a strictly 15-second, 16:9, 4K, 60fps MiniMax H3 abstract tech MG brand film. The film expresses H3's design philosophy of moving from specialized tasks to a general multimodal model: language, image, video, and audio are no longer isolated from each other but connected by the same context, the same architecture, and the same continuous line. Overall: premium, clean, nimble, artistic. Large areas of electric blue, deep black-blue, light cyan, and a few purple color blocks, paired with clean bold white text. Generous negative space; no dense icons or stacked information. The film's core moving element is a single light-blue continuous line with a white glowing node at its leading end.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Create a 15-second premium motion-graphics brand film for the AI brand "MiniMax H3."

【Text that must appear accurately】Brand name: MiniMax H3
Brand slogan: Intelligence With Everyone
No other readable text may appear in the frame besides these two strings.

【Core creative concept】"One becomes everyone."
Intelligence starts from a single tiny node and, through connection, sharing, and collective growth, becomes an open intelligent network belonging to everyone.
Build an original brand visual system from three basic elements:
a tiny 2D solid dot
the connecting bridge represented by the letter "H"
the three layers of intelligence track represented by the number "3"
All dots, lines, tracks, glyphs, and transitions must evolve continuously from this base element set. Every change has a clear visual cause-and-effect, forming a unified brand visual DNA.
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
All-Chinese text animation
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
An experimental Chinese dynamic-typography film on a pure black background. Only white Chinese text is allowed in the frame, with a very small amount of dark-red text for misalignment or emphasis. No people, landscapes, photos, illustrations, icons, products, logos, English titles, fixed UI, numbering, timers, borders, grids, or decorative graphics of any kind. This is not a subtitle video; it's a high-density kinetic-typography short with "the Chinese characters themselves" as the sole protagonist. Text appears, enlarges, rotates, compresses, collides, breaks apart, multiplies, inverts, and reassembles at high speed on the black plane. Overall like a graphic designer's Chinese kinetic-typography experiment, a type-motion showreel, or a music-event opening visual. Dark, cool, sharp, rational, inorganic, with a slight edge — yet premium, restrained, and unified.
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
TouchDesigner-style motion
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
@video1 is the only base asset. Strictly keep the original video's character, facial features, clothing, action, scene, overall color, camera movement, duration, and frame rate completely unchanged. Only add TouchDesigner-style motion-tracking graphics on top of the original footage.
1. The color fill of every rectangle must be 0% transparent.
2. No red, cyan, or any colored mask may appear inside the frames.
3. Inside the frames, only brightness, grayscale, exposure, and light/shadow relationships from the same position of the original video may be processed.
4. All frames must be complete, simple, continuous closed rectangles in either red or cyan, with no decoration or nodes at the four corners.
5. A frame may not fully contain another frame.
Output

AI narrative content creation (3 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Not a complete prompt; feel free to add
A period wuxia suspense short-drama scene, 16:9 horizontal cinematic frame, night bamboo forest, cool blue, ink green, grey-black low-saturation tones, thin mist, fine snow drifting through the air. Overall: cold, austere, restrained, with the tension of a jianghu sect investigating and handing over classified intel. Real period-drama texture, shallow depth of field, cinematic lighting. No modern elements, no subtitles, no text, no watermarks. Scene: deep in a night bamboo forest, dense vertical stalks behind, cold white fog light seeping from the distance. Blurred bamboo leaves in the foreground create a "peering through the grove" spatial layering. Cold white side-front soft light illuminates the face; backlight from behind creates a dark-front/bright-back cinematic look; shallow depth of field turns bamboo leaves, snowflakes, and the background grove into soft bokeh. Visual style: period wuxia cinematic, cold-blue ink-green snowy bamboo grove, shallow DoF, foreground bamboo occlusion, face close-ups as the primary framing, shot-reverse-shot editing, restrained but tense rhythm. No subtitles, no platform watermarks, no modern clothing, no modern buildings, no animation feel, no excessive skin-smoothing, no bright daylight, no comedic performance.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Not a complete prompt; feel free to add
An indoor family-argument short-drama scene. Vertical-screen short-drama texture, real human performance, Chinese family/small-restaurant interior, warm lighting, red decorations and calligraphy scrolls in the background, shallow DoF, intense emotion, tight editing. Performance: real short-drama acting, no exaggerated stage delivery. Qin Haoxuan's tone is angry, aggrieved, urgent rebuttal; the middle-aged woman's tone is sharp, dominant, aggressive interrogation. Strong confrontation between the two, escalating step by step. Visual style: 9:16 vertical, phone short-drama texture, live-action feel, shallow DoF, warm indoor light, mostly medium close-ups, frequent shot-reverse-shot editing, lived-in background. No sci-fi, no period drama, no animation feel. No subtitles, text, platform watermarks, or overlays of any kind in the frame.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Not a complete prompt; feel free to add
Generate a 15-second, 9:16 vertical overseas live-action vampire romance short-drama trailer. Male and female lead appearance reference image 1; scene reference image 2. Keep both characters consistent, real-human texture, premium short-drama quality. Story: an innocent human woman wanders into a forbidden castle zone and accidentally wakes the sleeping vampire nobleman. He senses something about her connected to an ancient war and becomes intensely possessive and dangerously interested. She fears him but doesn't fully submit, resisting his pressure. Overall style: overseas ReelShort / DramaBox vampire romance trailer feel. Darkly romantic, dangerous attraction, fate, heavy control, oppressive gloom, high-contrast reversals. Premium, restrained, tight — like the first 15 seconds of a hit short drama. No gore, no cheap horror, no Halloween feel, no modern street feel. Frame: 9:16 vertical, built for TikTok / ReelShort / DramaBox. Characters mostly in medium close-ups, close-ups, and extreme close-ups; in vertical format, emphasize face, eyes, sense of pressure, and relational tension.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Product & e-commerce marketing (2 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Generate a vertical 9:16 premium fashion eyewear commercial. Overall reference the provided video's storyboard rhythm, cutting speed, white-studio texture, and cool fashion mood. The image is a minimalist white studio, seamless white background, strong couture-ad feel — clean, simple, sharp, avant-garde, top-tier international fashion editorial quality. Main visual character references image 1: two full-body female models — one Black, one white — maintaining their premium clothing, body posture, white-studio lighting, runway presence, and overall cool attitude. Both wear futuristic premium eyewear; the frame design references image 3, emphasizing wraparound curved surfaces, sharp geometric cat-eye/goggle hybrid silhouettes, mirror reflections, streamlined temples, and premium fashion-accessory texture. The two models' facial details reference image 2.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Product feature understanding & visual presentation
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
A 360° showcase of a premium office Herman Miller black ergonomic chair. Close-up of the breathable mesh back with airflow visualization. Lumbar support + ergonomic curve engineering animation. Multi-dimensional adjustment demo of armrests/seat height. Long-hours office scenarios for designers/programmers/creatives, with easy, natural postures. A 3D skeletal support diagram for "sitting without fatigue." Spatial aesthetics of interior display. At the end, "Inspiration and comfort, online at the same time" fades in. High-end minimal, cool tones, professional futuristic, slow camera rhythm. Product details reference image 1; product image reference image 2.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Digital experiences & game creativity (5 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt · 794 characters
Character reference: image 1. UI style reference: image 2.

[0s–2s] High-angle top-down. The character sits on a high-saturation bright-purple floor, per image 1, looking up at the camera. On the right, the game menu UI appears: START NEW GAME, CONTINUE (highlighted), SETTINGS, EXIT GAME. The player profile reads MINIMAX at the top left. The cursor clicks "CONTINUE."

[2s–4s] Smooth zoom to her right arm. A UI panel slides in from the right: "RIGHT ARM EQUIPMENT." "PHANTOM GRIP" is highlighted, then it scrolls to "CHRONOS CLAW." Her right hand mechanically reconfigures — fingers spread, new claw-like knuckles lock into place, cyan LEDs flash brighter.

[4s–7s] The camera smoothly orbits to her left. A new UI slides in: "ARMAMENT CUSTOMIZATION" grid showing hand, forearm, elbow, and upper-arm components. The selection cycles quickly through the parts. Her left arm disassembles segment by segment: forearm plates detach, new armor slides in, the elbow joint swaps, the hand reconfigures, exposed wiring and pistons visible during the change.

[7s–8.5s] The camera pulls back to a medium shot. The CONFIRM CONFIG button flashes. Click. All UI panels collapse inward and disappear. The character uncrosses her legs and adjusts her posture, now sitting relaxed with one knee up; the prosthetic hand lifts naturally and does a brief post-configuration motion showcase. [8.5s–10s] A LOADING bar appears at the bottom. It fills from 0% to 100% quickly. The high-saturation purple environment begins to darken, shadows creep in from the edges, and warm golden light seeps in.

[10s–15s] As she stands, the full environment loads around her. A dense cyberpunk slum emerges: neon flickers, wet streets reflect light, crowds surge, motorcycles weave, tangled wires, stacked buildings stretching toward futuristic towers in the distance. The camera holds a third-person angle behind her, showing her back. HUD elements fade in: a minimap at the top right, health and ammo counters at the bottom left. A mission marker appears. She steps into the street.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
A website page, website UI design, website motion. The video demonstrates a smooth web-page scrolling-down effect. A product landing-page UI/UX demo video with explosive, dynamic energy; the core display subject is product image 1. The page uses bold, slanted, oversized sans-serif typography for loud layouts. Background: high-speed dynamic lighting and shadow, dark carbon-fiber or breathable-mesh textures interweaving and transforming. The video shows a tightly paced, powerful page-scroll-down effect, plus strong UI interactions on mouse hover like visual enlargement and color inversion.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Simulated website UI design: first the title at the top slides down into view, then the text bar at the bottom slides up, and the car's lights change from dim to red.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 4
Original prompt · 658 characters
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Generate a 10-second, 4:3 horizontal game video that looks like a minimalist cute 2D hand-drawn reaction-game interface. Fixed camera — no camera movement, no zoom. Clean background, warm paper texture, crayon/colored-pencil hand-drawn lines. The protagonist is always the same mischievous little beagle: chubby chibi body, short legs, big floppy ears, rounded long snout, short perky tail, half-lidded lazy-but-cheeky expression. The beagle's body can stretch like a rubber band — exaggerated stretching, flattening, arching, and side-dodging — but its identity and art style stay consistent.
The video is a fast-paced "dodge the hand with arrow keys" mini-game flow. At the bottom of the frame, a row of hand-drawn direction-arrow UI always shows four directions: up, down, left, right. At the start of each operation beat, the corresponding arrow quickly becomes a solid highlight with hand-drawn circular ripples, short radial lines, tiny stars, or paw-print feedback. At the top, keep a lightweight hand-drawn HUD: three small hearts on the upper-left, a thin hand-drawn progress bar at the top-center, and a small bone icon with a few doodles on the upper-right. Decorations should be sparse and cute, never covering the protagonist, the hand, or the arrows. No readable text of any kind, no modern digital UI, no realistic photography.
Core gameplay rules:
Figure 1: when the bottom "up" arrow highlights, a hand extends upward from below the frame; the beagle must arch its body up to dodge, forming an exaggerated semicircular bridge.
Figure 2: when the "down" arrow highlights, a hand presses down from the top; the beagle must flatten its body close to the ground to dodge — front half flat, rear half raised.
Figure 3: when the "right" arrow highlights, a hand enters horizontally from the right; the beagle must stretch its body leftward to dodge, ears flying back, front paws gripping the ground.
Figure 4: when the "left" arrow highlights, a hand enters horizontally from the left; the beagle must slide right to dodge, its body compressing like a spring as it side-steps.
All hand directions, arrow highlight directions, and beagle dodge motions must match one-to-one with no misalignment.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 5
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add details)
Use Image 1 as the precise UI/layout/interface style reference.
The mouse cursor in Image 1 is also the precise cursor style reference: the cursor must keep Image 1's size, shape, proportions, semi-transparent texture, soft glowing edge, and refined premium feel. Do not generate an oversized system-default cursor, a crude black-and-white arrow, or multiple cursors.
Use Images 2–5 as the precise companion-creature references, mapped as follows:
Image 2 = card A = MIRRA POD
Image 3 = card E = LANTERN
Image 4 = card F = MOSS MITE
Image 5 = card C = VELI KIT
Generate a 15-second, 16:9 horizontal video.
The camera is completely fixed — no push, pull, pan, tilt, or cutting.
Keep Image 1's interface structure, typography, panels, font hierarchy, icons, corner radii, card grid, and overall composition stable, elegant, and clearly readable.
The interface mood is premium, minimal, dreamlike digital companion-creature codex.
No extraneous text, no garbled characters, no UI distortion, no interface drift.
Overall style: dream-fog, soft focus, micro-fuzz, translucency, gentle glow, refined minimalism.
All four companions must be very cute, nimble, soft, and spirited.
Motions must be clean, refined, and interactive.
The interface itself stays stable; only the cursor, selection states, main title, the currently featured companion, and a small amount of skill effects animate.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output

Hardware, physical industry, embodied-AI demos (2 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Fixed camera. The robotic arm descends, grabs the red cube, moves forward a distance, then sets it down.
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Precise background replacement
Change-the-background prompt: replace the desk in the original video with a standard office workstation desk, and replace the overall background with an office environment featuring blinds and metal filing cabinets. The new desk's perspective must match the original lens exactly; the desktop material must naturally inherit the original video's light and shadow projection; edge shadows and highlight direction must strictly match the original scene's light source. The background blinds and filing cabinets' depth-of-field blur must align with the original video's focus, preserving the original sense of spatial depth. Throughout this process, the original video's camera trajectory, the robotic arm's complete motion sequence and speed, the relative positions and occlusion relationships of other objects, and the overall lighting atmosphere must remain 100% unchanged, ensuring the replaced elements blend seamlessly with the original frame.
Input assets
Output

Animation & stylized imagery (6 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Claymation style. A fox sprinting at full speed reaches the cliff edge, leaps without hesitation, and performs a tension-filled, slow-motion heroic jump over a vast lava canyon. The camera whips beneath the fox's belly mid-air (a high-dynamic camera move), fully revealing the terrifying depth of the abyss and the extreme stretched-motion moment of the fox's clay body in the air.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Use image 2 as the fixed character reference, keeping the black half-tied long hair, silver openwork hair crown, indigo-blue hair ribbon, light layered Hanfu, translucent blue outer robe, deep-blue waist sash, silver floral clasp, and long tassels consistent. Use image 1 as the storyboard camera and rhythm reference. The picture is high-quality 4K 16:9 Chinese-style 3D, cinematic xianxia quality, passionate, solemn, and fate-driven. The shots proceed through the storyboard's content in order, each transition natural — not like a PPT. Character faces may be shown only in close-ups or extreme close-ups; long shots must be backs, side-backs, or empty environmental shots — no full-face long shots.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Generate an otome-game male-lead character PV. Character reference: use image 2 as the strict character-identity reference. Keep the same character's face, hairstyle, body proportions, costume design, material detail, and otome-game CG quality consistent.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Camera: first-person · eye level · handheld game footage. Picture: the frame simulates a player operating a modern-warfare FPS — two hands holding an assault rifle, advancing slowly around the perimeter of a military base. The player moves forward along a road beside cover; the crosshair sweeps the corridor ahead, pauses briefly, fires a few shots at a distant target point, then continues advancing — like real player footage. Light: the cool natural light of a modern military base mixes with smoke and firelight; the image is realistic and sharp, with 3A-game texture on metal weapons and battlefield dust. Camera: slight handheld shake follows the player's movement — slow forward first, then small left/right observation, slight recoil shake when firing, and finally a steady advance forward.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 5
Original prompt
Human-computer interactive game
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
Use the first image as the first frame and the second image as the strict last frame to generate an otome-game visual-novel interface transition video. Overall feel: a high-end Chinese otome-game romance interactive interface, an ambiguous moment before and behind the stage — a natural transition from "choosing to watch his performance" to "Han Xu being drawn by the heroine's words and responding with an intrigued reaction." UI text, options, and dialogue boxes appear in refined otome-game style; the transition is silky; the mood is ambiguous yet restrained.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 6
Original prompt
Scene-based dramatic performance
(Not a complete prompt; feel free to add)
The protagonist is image 1. Cinematic, realistic style, live-action realism. Front-facing near-shot camera; the frame focuses only on the male and female leads' upper bodies. The woman's face barely appears in the video; she wears a red dress that bares her waist and back, with only occasional neck, shoulder, arm, waistline, hem, and hand details visible. The man wears a flawlessly tailored black bespoke shirt. The scene is the red-black-toned interior from image 2 — dim overall, low saturation, luxurious, restrained; the background is slightly blurred; a red velvet sofa, a black-and-gold marble side table, and warm low light sources together build a mature, ambiguous date atmosphere. The action happens in front of the red velvet sofa from image 2. The man sits on the sofa, languid and composed, leaning slightly back; the fabric texture is premium and fine. Beside the sofa is a luxurious black-and-gold marble side table holding an exquisite crystal glass with amber whiskey and a few slowly melting ice cubes, fine condensation beads visible on the glass. Audible: the soft clink of ice against the glass, the faint crackle of a cigar burning, the subtle movement of indoor air, fabric rustling, and restrained breathing.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Multi-asset joint reference (3 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Reference edit
Images 1–6. Strictly reference example video 1's shot rhythm, transition style, and music.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Keep the buildings, pedestrians, and overall environment in video 1 in realistic-world style, unchanged. Only transform the trees and cars in video 1 into 3D pixel or voxel-block (Minecraft style) builds, with style referenced from image 1. Pixelated objects' motion trajectories must remain normal, and the real environment's shadows and transmitted light must be preserved. Overall effect references video 2.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
@image1: the camera first pushes quickly into the coffee surface's milk foam, cocoa powder particles, and dark coffee liquid texture details, letting the surface particles, foam, and liquid ripples gradually fill the screen, occluding everything else. The camera keeps a true macro feel, very shallow depth of field; fine powder drifts slowly in the backlight; the surface texture sits halfway between fine sand and fluid. Avoid frame cracking. At the moment when the coffee powder particles, foam undulations, and liquid vortices closely resemble the dune ridges, wind-erosion texture, and wind-blown sand particles of @image2, transform seamlessly and invisibly into a desert landscape, then continue pushing forward to reveal the full dune vista of @image2. Strictly avoid frame cracking, no black screens, no hard cuts, no obvious VFX, no compositing seams. Overall: real, quiet, restrained — like the same granular material naturally expanding from a coffee micro-surface into a macro desert world. One continuous shot, no stitching in the middle.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Character, action & camera reference (4 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Character-action fusion reference
The character's actions, expressions, and performance rhythm in image 1 strictly reference input video 1.
The man stands at the sink on the right side of the frame and hands the washed dishes to the woman on the left, then turns and suddenly flings dish soap foam at the woman at the left edge of the frame with his right hand. Startled, the woman immediately retaliates; the two happily splash foam at each other and dodge, laughing.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Action reference
The character references the actions in video 1 and performs street dance; the character's appearance references image 1 and image 2.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Camera reference
Prompt: referencing the Hitchcock zoom of video 1, make the character in video 2 sing; the singing and performance reference video 3.
Input assets
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
Action reference, DIY meme
Reference video 1 for the action imitation. Fixed camera, full shot. Replace the three men in suits with three highly realistic capybaras. The capybaras must strictly follow the original video's motion trajectory: one after another, they quickly lie flat on the floor; then the leftmost capybara jumps to the middle position, the middle one rolls to the far left, the middle one rolls to the far right, the rightmost one jumps to the middle, and finally the middle capybara jumps onto the backs of the other two, stacking into a pyramid. Keep the original fixed camera. Ensure the capybaras' fur texture and lighting blend with the environment.
Input assets
Output

Voice cloning & transfer (1 case)

Case 1
Original prompt
The character speaks: Follow the wind, live free. Leave worries behind, enjoy the moment. Voice reference: audio 1.
Input assets
Output

Character & object editing (3 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Replace the cat in the video with a dog.
Input assets
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Add a person wearing the same team uniform on the left side of the frame, matching the movements of the others.
Input assets
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Precise character and detail replacement
Replace the child at the back of video 1 with the golden retriever from image 1; change the khaki jacket worn by the leftmost child in video 1 to the denim jacket from image 2.
Input assets
Reference image Reference image
Output

Scene & visual effects editing (3 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Remove the green-screen background from video 1 and replace it with a fairy-tale background similar to video 2. Background elements must fully match the character's actions in video 1. Adjust the lighting on the character in video 1 so it completely matches the new background.
Input assets
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Replace the lighting
Reference the video; change the lighting to night.
Input assets
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Live-action scenery replacement
Change the scene outside the window in video 1 to image 1.
Input assets
Reference image
Output

Voice, dialogue & timbre modification (1 case)

Case 1
Original prompt
Change the line spoken by the woman in video 1 — "We can never be together. It's not that we don't love each other; it's that we truly can't make it to the end." — to the line from audio 1: "Don't go, okay? This time, let's not let go of each other." And slightly adjust the corresponding performance.
Input assets
Output

High-precision instruction following (4 cases)

Case 1
Original prompt
Replace the newspaper in the reference video with a book with a green cover; change the chair the person is sitting on to a red sofa; remove the sunglasses the person is wearing, keeping the face clear; remove the car-burning effect so the vehicle returns to a normal state; change the photo the person takes out from their chest to a small black notebook; and add a tree on the left side of the frame.
Input assets
Output
Case 2
Original prompt
Reference the video: replace the canned drink appearing at the start with Coca-Cola; change the glowing "FamilyMart" convenience-store sign in the background to a "Hu Hui" sign; replace all the snacks in the plastic bag at the end with Coca-Cola cans; and change the character's final line from "I bought some snacks" to "I bought a bunch of Coke."
Input assets
Output
Case 3
Original prompt
Two magicians stand on stage facing the audience, performing a "switch" trick: they both wave their wands at the same time, and a cloud of smoke rises. When the smoke clears, their suit colors have swapped — the man on the left now wears a white suit, and the man on the right now wears a black suit, but their gloves remain the same color. They bow in thanks; the red curtain behind them closes, graduated from deep red to deep blue.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Case 4
Original prompt
Creative understanding + text effects
In video 1, add the orange-yellow hand-drawn doodle from image 1 around the two people. As the two in video 1 get closer, the doodles multiply, growing from small sparks into a very bright glow. When the two people kiss in video 1, the doodles add pink brushstrokes.
Input assets
Reference image
Output
Closing

You can even hand the whole prompt-writing job to an agent

So what's the most effortless path? The last section of the handbook is titled "The 'Best Way' to Write Prompts," and the answer is a bit unexpected: don't write them yourself.

In MiniMax Hub (its agent platform combining text research, media production, and an infinite canvas), just say what you want in plain language: "I want a cinematic short of a chase in a rainy night," or "Help me turn this character image into a video with an emotional arc." The agent understands the creative intent, organizes the reference assets, completes the shot design, refines the prompt, then calls the model to generate.

The section is admirably candid: spending hours learning prompt structure, camera language, asset referencing, and sound design is itself a barrier. If you master the rules above, great. If you don't, someone else will write them for you.

About H3 itself: Released July 31. Full-modal generation model, up to 15 seconds, up to 2K, native stereo. On pricing, MiniMax gave only a relative statement — per second at 2K costs less than a third of mainstream models, 768P is half of mainstream 720P — with no concrete numbers. The handbook is marked "continuously updated"; we worked from the August 7 version.
✅ Write an H3 prompt by checking these boxes
🧰 Getting started · MiniMax H3
AccessMiniMax Hub (with an agent to help write prompts) · Hailuo AI · Open Platform API
PricingOfficial line: under a third of mainstream models per second at 2K; 768P is half of mainstream 720P. Hub desktop offers 3 free H3 video generations.
BarrierThree entry points, nothing to install; for batch work or product integration, use the API
Source
MiniMax H3 Model · User HandbookMiniMax Official·August 7, 2026 version (marked as continuously updated)
Site note
The six videos are official example outputs attached to the handbook, self-hosted by this site. All prompt excerpts, the asset-purpose vocabulary, and the six-pitfall comparison are copied verbatim from the handbook, unpolished — editing them would make them unusable. The three process and comparison diagrams were drawn by this site from the handbook's content. H3's release date and pricing statements come from MiniMax's July 31 launch post; the handbook itself doesn't list prices. The handbook's "1440p mode" and the launch post's "2K" are the same tier described two ways; this article follows the handbook's 768p / 1440p wording.
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