Opus 5.5 video: what it is and how to make one
An Opus 5.5 video is an animation or music video where Claude Opus 5.5 writes the code that paints every frame. There’s no video model in the loop: a browser canvas draws each frame from the song’s clock, headless Chrome takes the picture, and ffmpeg adds the audio. The viral “I’m Upping My P(doom)” video started the wave. Here’s how it works, what it costs, and where to see the best ones.
What is an Opus 5.5 video?
Almost all of them follow the same four-part recipe. John Heibel published it first in his PDoomVideo repo, then cleaned it up as ClaudeAnimationBase, an MIT-licensed starter kit that Claude reads before it starts.
A song and its timing
You bring the track and its tempo. Claude works from the lyric timings; Suno’s
.m4aeven hides a timed lyric track you can pull out with ffmpeg.Scenes as code
Claude writes the scenes in p5.js (with p5.brush for the watercolour look) or three.js. Every frame is a pure function of the song time
t, so frames can render in any order, in parallel.Headless Chrome
A small Node script opens the page in Chrome with no window and screenshots each frame. Claude renders contact sheets of those frames and looks at them to check its own work.
ffmpeg
ffmpeg joins the frames and the song into an MP4: 1920×1080, 24 fps, H.264 + AAC, ready for YouTube or X.
How to make an Opus 5.5 video
You need Claude Code (a paid plan or an API key), Node.js, Chrome and ffmpeg. Set up the kit and check that it renders:
git clone https://github.com/JohnHeibel/ClaudeAnimationBase my-video cd my-video npm install node render.mjs --sheet=0,1,2,3,4,5 --out=out/sheet.jpg
Read ANIMATION_GUIDE.md, then make a 15-second video of Clawd trying to catch a butterfly.
The second box is Heibel’s own warm-up prompt from the kit’s README; paste it into Claude Code inside the folder. For your own song, ask for a storyboard first and no code, approve it, then have Claude build one shot at a time and render a contact sheet after each. The full walkthrough, with six copy-paste prompts including a 9:16 vertical one, is in our 10-step guide to making a Claude music video.
How long it takes, and what it costs
Rendering (measured)
- MacBook Air M2, the kit’s demo at 1080p: 0.44–0.89 s per frame, so 11–21 minutes of rendering per minute of video. Four parallel workers were fastest.
- Busy watercolour scenes are slower. The kit’s guide budgets up to 1.5 s per frame, about 36 minutes per minute of video.
- No GPU: software WebGL took 40–120 s per frame, about 1–2 days per minute.
Claude (estimate)
- Opus 5.5 lists at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens.
- A short video plausibly uses several million tokens: roughly $10–60+ through the API. Our estimate, not a measurement.
- Storyboard and build take about 1–4 hours of mostly unattended agent work for 30–60 seconds of video. donald says Claude worked for 12 hours on his one-prompt remake.
Opus 5.5 video examples
The p(doom) remixes are the biggest collection so far. Six that show the range:
- Claude Pop – I’m Upping My P(Doom) — John Heibel
The one that started it: nine watercolour chapters, every line of code written by Opus 5.5 with p5.js and p5.brush. - pdoom-video — mexicat (Giacomo Magnanini)
A separate three.js take: karaoke typography across 17 scene “plates”, rendered at 4K60 with motion blur. MIT licensed. - One-prompt Opus 5.5 remake — donald (@donaldjewkes)
Made from a single long spoken prompt; Claude ran on its own overnight. - Functional Emotions — ledbetterljoshua
A new song about Anthropic’s emotion-vector research, built on the same pipeline. - Hop Hop, Nope Nope — arimanyus
A Canvas 2D video that follows the PDoomVideo recipe step by step. - vibecoder-anthem (Burn Tokens) — rocketmandrey
A Russian satirical song about burning tokens, forked from PDoomVideo.
Opus 5.5 video FAQ
Can Claude Opus 5.5 make a video?
Not as a video file straight from the chat. In Claude Code it writes and runs the code that draws every frame, then calls ffmpeg to join the frames and the song into an MP4. Some creators also pair it with video models: donald’s one-prompt remake asked Claude to generate base clips with Seedance 2.5 and redraw them in JavaScript.
Do I need a GPU?
No, but it helps a lot. On a MacBook Air M2 we measured 11–21 minutes of rendering per minute of video. Without a GPU, software WebGL took 40–120 seconds per frame, about 1–2 days per minute, so keep CPU-only projects to 15–30 seconds.
How much does an Opus 5.5 video cost?
The software is free. Claude is the cost: Opus 5.5 lists at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, and a short video plausibly uses several million, roughly $10–60+ through the API. That is our estimate, not a measurement. A paid Claude plan with Claude Code works too.
Which settings do people use?
John Heibel made his test videos with Opus 5.5 on xhigh reasoning in Claude Code, and found that higher reasoning makes scenes more “extravagant” and detailed. Asking for a storyboard before any code, and one subagent per chapter for long songs, are the other common habits.
Can I use the p(doom) song?
It isn’t openly licensed. Fan remakes are everywhere, but keep yours non-commercial, credit osmarks, MusicPerson, the EleutherAI Discord and @slimer48484, and expect YouTube claims. For your own song, Suno’s free plan is non-commercial only; songs made on Pro/Premier can be used commercially once downloaded within your plan’s allowance.