Pasteup

Cut. Paste. Wobble. Halftone paper-collage stop-motion, assembled by code.

Halftone paper-collage stop-motion clips from Claude Code. Decode a reference image into an editable spec, generate the cut-out elements on the Gemini image API, and assemble build-from-empty motion with a deterministic local compositor. No paid video model; iteration is free and instant.

See it move

A tiny history of jazz: seven scenes, 30 seconds, zero video model. Every cut-out and painted paper background was generated on the Gemini image API; every frame of motion is the deterministic compositor animating on twos with the built-in stop-motion wobble. Caption cards are real typography that gets tossed in as paper, confetti swoops in on curved bezier paths, and the vinyl rolls in with a full 360 of spin (enter_path and enter_spin, new in 1.1.0). Style decoded from two vintage show posters supplied as references. Full quality: docs/jazz-history-demo.mp4.

Made from one request: "make a stop-motion history lesson on jazz in the style of these two posters."

Install

In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add tmoody1973/pasteup
/plugin install pasteup@pasteup

Then run guided setup (installs Python packages, checks ffmpeg, configures your key):

/pasteup:setup

Or hand it your Gemini API key directly (free at https://aistudio.google.com/apikey):

/pasteup:setup YOUR_KEY_HERE

The key is written to a .env file in your project with owner-only permissions and .env is added to .gitignore automatically. Never commit .env.

Use

/pasteup:create analyze this reference
/pasteup:create 10s vertical ad for my vinyl subscription club, label "CRATE DIGGERS WANTED"
/pasteup:director        # guided interview: Claude builds the brief with you
/pasteup:guide           # examples, use cases, style recipes, FAQ

Or just paste a reference image and describe what you want; the bundled skill triggers on the look itself. Not sure what you want? Director mode interviews you in short rounds with proposed defaults, and "quick mode" lets Claude decide everything for you to veto.

What is inside

• skills/pasteup/: the full pipeline skill (Phase A analyze, Phase B build), the collage vocabulary reference, the motion recipes, and the two scripts (generate_element.py, assemble.py).
• commands/setup.md: guided dependency and API key setup.
• commands/collage.md: session entry point.
• commands/director.md: guided interview mode.
• commands/guide.md: the built-in user guide.
• scripts/setup.py: the installer the setup command drives.

Requirements

• Claude Code
• Python 3.10+ with pip
• ffmpeg on PATH
• A Gemini API key (free tier works)

The look

One flat bold color field, black-and-white halftone cut-outs with clean edges and soft drop shadows, one sharp idea per scene, and motion that builds the frame piece by piece: pieces slide in from the edges on a stepped stop-motion cadence and snap into place, label sets last.

The wobble

The handmade jitter you see in real stop motion is built in, not simulated by an AI video model. The compositor animates on twos (a new pose every 2 frames), and every held pose gets a tiny seeded offset in position and rotation, exactly like paper pieces nudged between camera frames. It is fully directable in scene.json:

"cadence": { "hold_frames": 2, "jitter_px": 1.5, "jitter_deg": 0.4, "seed": 7 }

• hold_frames: 2 = smooth craft, 3 = chunky handmade
• jitter_px / jitter_deg: how much each piece trembles per pose
• seed: same seed, same wobble, so renders are reproducible

Or just tell Claude "more wobble" or "chunkier" and it adjusts these for you.

License

MIT. Completely open source; use it, fork it, ship it, sell with it. See LICENSE.