# Motion designer showreel, Opus vs Astra

> Two 15-second motion-design showreels from the same one-line prompt, shown back to back: Claude Code with Opus 5.5, then Codex with GPT-6 Astra. Opus wrote its own Python renderer, added a Blender 3D shot unasked, and made the music itself.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/prompt.txt
- Made with: Claude Code, Codex
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5, GPT-6 Astra
- Built with: skia-python, Blender, Python
- Style: Motion graphics; motion design, showreel, kinetic typography, 3d, beat-synced, model comparison
- Length and format: 32 sec, 16:9 (1920x1080 source)
- Shared by @shneural in X, Sep 24, 2026: https://x.com/shneural/status/2103151003272962130
- Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. Work in Claude Code with Claude Opus 5.5, or the closest equivalent you have.
2. Set up what the prompt expects: Blender installed, if you want a 3D section like this one (Opus used it unprompted); A sample library or synth for similar audio (the creator's machine had 909/808 packs and Surge XT).
3. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
4. To adapt it to a new subject or look: Change "15-second" for the length, and "motion designer" and "showreel for a résumé" for another role and format, such as a title designer's reel. Keep "go all out." at the end.
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
make a dynamic 15-second motion graphics video that shows what an incredible motion designer you are, like it's your showreel for a résumé. go all out.
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

Two reels back to back, each opened by a title card naming the model. Opus's reel sits inside a thin HUD frame on near-black; Astra's is a lime-and-black portfolio deck with chrome 3D forms.

- Color: Opus reel: near-black, tomato red, cobalt blue, and white. Astra reel: acid lime, black, and cream, with chrome highlights.
- Type: Heavy grotesque display type in both. Opus repeats MOTION in blue-and-white bands with one red band and closes on a large CLAUDE. with a red dot, with small monospace HUD labels (128 BPM, 60 FPS). Astra stacks short headlines such as TYPE IN MOTION. and HIT THE BEAT.
- Framing: Opus: a red ball on a thin baseline with dotted arc guides, a full-frame dot grid with a blue cross pattern, wall-to-wall type, and a split frame. Astra: headline on the left, a chrome object on the right, slide numbers and timecodes in the corners.
- Sound: Music and sound design by Opus: a Python script that sequences samples and a synth on a 128 bpm grid, according to the creator.
- Structure: Title card "Opus 5.5 Max 01 / 02", a squash-and-stretch study with a red ball, a dot-grid pattern, repeated MOTION type, a split frame, and a CLAUDE. end card reading "every frame of this reel is code."; then "GPT 6 Astra Max 02 / 02" and four headline slides: TYPE IN MOTION., FORM. WITHOUT LIMITS., HIT THE BEAT., I MOVE ATTENTION.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 1.8s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 5.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 8.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 12.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 15.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 19.5s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 23.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 26.6s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 30.1s: https://meetreference.com/media/15-second-motion-designer-showreel-opus/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- One-shot: yes, a single prompt with no follow-ups
- Agent time: 1 hour 32 minutes for the Claude Code run, not counting the render. The Codex run took about 35 minutes.
- Reported spend: $81 at API prices for the Claude Code run, which the creator puts at about 3% of the weekly limit on a Max 20x plan.
- Notes: Stock Claude Code on max reasoning with memory off and no skills or plugins; Codex got the same prompt on the same machine. The machine had a sample library (909/808 and free packs), Surge XT, VST effects, and a Blender MCP, but neither model was told to use them. Opus chose on its own to build a 3D section in Blender. It drew the 2D frames in skia-python, wrote a ~1,400-line Python script that sequences samples and a synth on a 128 bpm grid with 42 synced sound hits, and rendered 900 frames.

> nothing here was made by a human except the short prompt from the post
> (@shneural)

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/shneural/status/2103151003272962130
- Original post: https://x.com/shneural/status/2103151003272962130
- Creator's full setup: https://x.com/shneural/status/2103441806532706655
- Making-of video that Opus cut from the Claude Code session: https://x.com/shneural/status/2103472385563459833