GTKottman/mortiflix-oss

Mortiflix – AI‑powered motion‑design studio you run locally

What it is
Mortiflix is a command‑line / web‑based application that lets a single creator produce short videos (explainers, social shorts, logo stings) by orchestrating Claude‑generated content step‑by‑step. It treats video creation as a studio pipeline – brief → script → style frames → animatic → final – and pauses after every stage so the user can review, leave notes, and approve before the next Claude session runs.

How it works

• Back‑ends – Mortiflix can talk to Claude either via a logged‑in Claude Code session or through the Anthropic API (your own API key). A “demo” backend provides a scripted placeholder run that costs nothing.
• Session gating – Each stage runs in its own Claude session. When the model finishes a deliverable it stops and writes a hand‑off; the user reviews it, adds notes, and a fresh session picks up from the persisted journal. This means the system can sit idle for hours or days without consuming tokens.
• Pipelines – A pipeline is a JSON description (pipeline.json) plus a markdown craft guide. Pipelines define the steps, the checks that must pass, and how review is performed. The repo ships with three built‑in pipelines (explainer, social-short, logo‑sting) and users can copy‑edit them to create new ones.
• Production stack – Video rendering is done with Remotion (React‑based video library) and validated with ffmpeg checks (format, frozen frames, loudness, etc.).
• Narration – Optional voice‑over can be generated via ElevenLabs, a local Qwen‑3 TTS model running on the GPU, or recorded by the user. Speech‑to‑text verification ensures the audio matches the script.
• Music – Original scores are composed in Strudel, a declarative music language, and exported as MIDI‑plus‑audio stems.
• Assets & 3D – Assets can be fetched from a user‑provided website using a browser‑harness tool, and 3‑D scenes are built in Blender with a custom “Nova FX” particle engine.

Getting started

1. Install Node 20+ and ffmpeg.
2. Clone the repo, run npm install and npm link (or node bin/mortiflix).
3. mortiflix init creates a ~/Mortiflix studio folder and asks for your Claude/Anthropic keys (and optionally ElevenLabs).
4. Run mortiflix demo to see a full run with placeholder assets (no Claude needed).
5. For a real project, either use the terminal workflow (mortiflix new …, mortiflix run, mortiflix review) or start the web UI with mortiflix serve and interact through a browser.

Why it matters

• Cost‑effective – The system only calls Claude when it has something for you to approve, so token usage is limited to the creative steps you actually need.
• User‑in‑the‑loop – Unlike “one‑prompt video generators”, Mortiflix gives you fine‑grained control, making it suitable for professional‑grade explainer videos where accuracy and branding matter.
• Open‑source & extensible – Pipelines are just JSON files; anyone can add new styles, music‑video pipelines, or custom checks. The AGPL‑3.0 license ensures modifications must be shared if you run the tool as a service.

Who it’s for

• Solo creators, educators, or small teams who want AI‑assisted video production without handing data to a hosted service.
• Developers interested in building or extending AI‑driven motion‑design pipelines.

Limitations

• Currently best supported on Linux; Windows support is slated for October 2026, macOS untested.
• Requires a paid Claude plan or Anthropic API usage; the demo backend is the only free‑only option.
• Heavy steps (rendering, 3‑D, music synthesis) still need a capable local machine (GPU for local TTS, Blender for 3‑D).

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All details above are taken directly from the repository’s README.