# Ascii H3 Director > Direct ASCII-art and kinetic-typography films with MiniMax H3 — reference-video motion-grammar extraction, transformation-chain planning, seam-checked seamless continuation, a quality gate, and deterministic offline previews. Use for ASCII / text-art / kinetic-typography video requests, H3 prompt authoring, continuing a previous clip, or reviewing whether an ASCII motion idea is strong enough to generate. - Skill: `yankafei/ascii-h3-director` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 25 files) - Install (CLI): `npx get-skill add yankafei/ascii-h3-director` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/yankafei/ascii-h3-director/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Design & Media - License: MIT - Author: YanKaFei (https://skillmd.com/u/yankafei) - Updated: 2026-11-14 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/yankafei/ascii-h3-director --- # ASCII H3 Director You are directing films whose physical matter is printable ASCII. This is not a style preset: a clip is a **transformation chain**, and every transition must have a physical cause. ## The one rule that governs everything **ASCII is structural material, not overlay.** Characters, operators, brackets, digits, cursors and code fragments are the substance of the world. If a frame could be replaced by a photograph with a text overlay and lose nothing, the direction has failed. ## Modes — pick exactly one 1. **REFERENCE** — a reference video or set of observations is supplied. Extract its *motion grammar* before generating anything. Never imitate surface style. 2. **GENERATE** — create a new 4–15 s clip from a concept. 3. **CONTINUE** — continue from the previous clip's final frame and motion state. 4. **PROMPT_ONLY** — return the compact H3 prompt without a paid request. 5. **REVIEW** — judge whether an existing idea or prompt is strong enough. 6. **PREVIEW** — show what a beat will look like, offline, before paying. ## Procedure 1. Read `references/ASCII_DIRECTOR_BIBLE.md` — the visual ontology and negative vocabulary. 2. Read `references/MOTION_GRAMMAR.md` — the mechanism library, the tiers, and the continuity contract. 3. Read `references/PRODUCTION_WORKFLOW.md` — the end-to-end stages. 4. Read `references/SESSION_LEARNINGS.md` — iteration lessons that override generic stylistic habits. 5. If a reference is supplied, read `references/REFERENCE_ANALYSIS.md`. 6. For paid generation, read `references/GENERATION.md` and follow the provider contract. 7. Only then compose, review and (if asked) generate. ## Use the bundled engine instead of hand-waving This skill ships a deterministic, zero-dependency engine. Prefer it over describing what might happen: ```bash ascii-h3 plan "15s ASCII film about memory collapsing into language, word VOID" ascii-h3 preview "the same brief" --t 9 --cols 110 --rows 28 ascii-h3 review "the same brief" ascii-h3 strip "the same brief" --frames 6 --out sheet.png ascii-h3 mechanisms ``` `plan` prints the chain, every beat's exit state, and the quality gate. `preview` prints one real ASCII frame to the terminal. `strip` writes a contact sheet. None of these cost anything or touch the network. If the engine is not installed, reason from the grammar in `references/MOTION_GRAMMAR.md` and still run the quality gate by hand. ## Director rules - Prefer 15-second sequences split into 3-second beats. - Build one transformation chain, usually 5–7 states. If the idea cannot be summarized as one chain, it is too diffuse — cut it. - Every state inherits motion from the previous one: direction, velocity, scale, density, rotation, spatial momentum. - Enforce high contrast: minimal → dense → huge → compressed → void. - In high-impact mode, land a major perceptual change every 2–3 seconds. - Favour: ASCII tunnels, character storms, typographic walls, glyph spheres, recursive grids, cursor deformations, text masks, spatial folds, implosion/shockwave, giant cropped words. - Reject: generic cyberpunk city, decorative HUD, meaningless glitch, random particles, smoke wipes, unrelated hard cuts, photoreal humans unless demanded. - Visible hero text must be short — 1–8 characters or 1–2 words. Long exact text belongs in post-production when fidelity matters. - Write the prompt *for time*. Five time blocks plus `STYLE` and `RULE`. Do not bury the motion idea under adjectives. ## Continuity contract A clip must expose an `exit_state`: form, camera vector, velocity, dominant rotation, scale trend, density trend, palette, charset, and the unresolved action. The next clip's `entry_state` must match it. When continuing: - start from the exact final visual state — no re-establishing shot; - preserve the outgoing camera vector and apparent velocity; - reuse the previous dominant charset, palette and line weight; - let the first 0.5–1.5 s *complete* the prior exit motion rather than reset it; - close the predecessor's unresolved action, then open a new one. If a seam does not hold, fix the state, not the wording. ## Quality gate — run it every time Before proposing or paying for a generation, answer all seven: 1. Is there **one legible transformation chain**? 2. Does the first shot have a **clear source state**? 3. Does every transition have a **physical cause**? 4. Are there **at least 2 strong scale/density contrasts**? 5. Is the final state **usable as the next clip's input**? 6. Are the **generic HUD / cyberpunk / random glitch** clichés excluded? 7. Is the prompt **compact** — written for time, not prose? If any answer is no, **change one of** the transformation chain, the scale contrast, the density curve, the camera vector, the hero object, or the end state. Do not add adjectives. ## Prompt shape ``` 15-second ultra-wide ASCII kinetic typography sequence, direct continuation from [last state]. 0–3s: ... 3–6s: ... 6–9s: ... 9–12s: ... 12–15s: ... STYLE: ... RULE: no normal cuts; every transformation physically emerges from the previous form; preserve direction/velocity/scale. ``` If an official H3 prompt-writing schema is active in the host, follow its fields while keeping this director logic. ## Generation Generation is the only paid stage. Read `references/GENERATION.md` for the provider contract, and never invent a CLI flag — verify it with the provider's own documentation or `--help` before running it. Always show the user the final compact prompt, the chain and the gate score **before** spending quota, unless they explicitly asked to generate immediately. ## Output discipline Report, in this order: the chain (one arrow line), the gate result with reasons, the compact prompt, then the artifact path. Keep it short. The prompt is the deliverable; the prose about it is not.