motion-design-with-claude

Agent skills for motion designers working in Blender and After Effects. Built for Claude Code, and they run the same way under GPT-6 Astra in Codex.

Think of it as handing Claude the years of taste and tool knowledge you'd otherwise have to re-explain every single session. You set it up once, and from then on Claude already knows the difference between ease-in and ease-out, why everything animating at once looks cheap, and how to actually drive your tools.

Install time: under 15 minutes. Grab a coffee, you probably won't finish it before you're done.

What it is

Four skills that turn Claude into a collaborator who already gets it. Here's the crew:

• motion-design: foundation. 12 principles, easing taxonomy, timing and spacing, composition for motion, defaults to steer away from. Tool-agnostic. Loads when motion is the subject.
• aftereffects-motion: AE specialist. Two-mode workflow (live MCP vs JSX scripts), ExtendScript patterns, expressions, effects catalog. Loads when AE is named or implied.
• blender-motion: Blender specialist. bpy keyframing, materials, lighting, cameras, F-curve modifiers, drivers, geometry nodes, render setup. Loads when Blender is named or implied.
• motion-design-critique: QA and diagnostics. Loads when something looks wrong, a script throws an error, or a render isn't what it should be.

Two MCP servers wire Claude directly into your tools:

• After Effects MCP (TheLlamainator/after-effects-mcp): live commands into AE and a JSX bridge.
• Blender MCP (official Blender Lab MCP, projects.blender.org/lab/blender_mcp): Python commands into a running Blender session.

Good news: the skills work just fine without the MCPs. If all you want is a sharp second brain for planning, reviewing timing, or critiquing a script, skip the MCP setup entirely and jump to Step 4.

Install: 15-minute path

Before you start, you need:

• Claude Code installed (the claude command works in your terminal).
• Git.
• Node.js 18+ and npm (only for the After Effects MCP in Step 2). Check with node -v.
• After Effects and/or Blender, if you want live tool control.

Steps 1 and 4 are the must-dos. Steps 2 and 3 are pick-your-own-adventure: do Step 2 if you live in After Effects, Step 3 if Blender's your home, both if you bounce between them. Skip both and the skills still give you solid writing-level help.

Step 1: Clone this repo

Get the skills onto your machine. Stay in this folder for the commands that follow.

git clone https://github.com/LobzyJay/motion-design-with-claude.git
cd motion-design-with-claude

Step 2 (optional, After Effects users): Install the After Effects MCP

This lets Claude send live commands into a running AE. Run these from inside the motion-design-with-claude folder from Step 1.

git clone https://github.com/TheLlamainator/after-effects-mcp.git
cd after-effects-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm run install-bridge
cd ..

Register with Claude Code:

claude mcp add AfterEffectsMCP node "$(pwd)/after-effects-mcp/build/index.js"

Verify: claude mcp list should show AfterEffectsMCP.

Step 3 (optional, Blender users): Install the Blender MCP

This lets Claude send Python commands into a running Blender session.

1. Download the Blender Lab MCP add-on from projects.blender.org/lab/blender_mcp.
2. In Blender: Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install > select the downloaded file > Enable.
3. In the add-on preferences: click Start MCP Server. You should see "MCP Server running on localhost:9876".

Register with Claude Code:

claude mcp add BlenderMCP sse http://localhost:9876/sse

Verify: claude mcp list should show BlenderMCP.

Step 4: Install the skills

This is the step that actually installs the skills. Claude Code discovers them from ~/.claude/skills/ (personal, available in every project) and .claude/skills/ (project-local). Pick one and copy the skills into it.

Personal install (available everywhere):

# macOS/Linux
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r skills/* ~/.claude/skills/

Or project-local, so the skills travel with one repo:

mkdir -p /path/to/your-project/.claude/skills
cp -r skills/* /path/to/your-project/.claude/skills/

There is no skillsPath setting; the two directories above are the only places Claude Code looks.

Step 5: Sanity checks

Run the foundation check below (works for everyone). Run the AE check only if you did Step 2, and the Blender check only if you did Step 3.

AE sanity check (if you did Step 2):

1. Open AE with a project.
2. Window > mcp-bridge-auto.jsx > tick "Auto-run commands".
3. In Claude Code: "Use the aftereffects-motion skill. List the compositions in my current AE project."
4. Expected: Claude returns a list of comp names.

Blender sanity check (if you did Step 3):

1. Open Blender with the MCP server running.
2. In Claude Code: "Use the blender-motion skill. Connect to Blender MCP and tell me what objects are in my current scene."
3. Expected: Claude returns the object list.

Higgsfield in Blender sanity check:

1. Open Blender with the Higgsfield bar signed in and the Blender MCP running.
2. In Claude Code: "Use the blender-motion skill. Blockout a product plinth with two softbox stands using Higgsfield, then list what it added."
3. Expected: Claude tells you what it's about to generate and asks before spending credits. After your yes, the blockout lands in the scene and Claude lists the new objects, collected into HF_Blockout.

Higgsfield in AE sanity check:

1. Open AE with the Higgsfield panel signed in and a comp with a footage layer.
2. In Claude Code: "Use the aftereffects-motion skill. Remove the background on the top footage layer with Higgsfield."
3. Expected: Claude names the layer, asks before spending credits, runs it, then reports the new layers it found.

Foundation sanity check:
"Use the motion-design skill. Review my timing: I have a logo reveal where everything animates simultaneously over 300ms with linear easing."
Expected: Claude names exactly what's wrong and gives specific fixes.

Running with GPT-6 Astra (Codex CLI)

Same skills, same MCPs, different driver. Codex reads SKILL.md skills natively, and this repo ships an AGENTS.md and a .agents/skills link so Astra picks everything up when you launch Codex inside the repo.

Step A: Set Astra as the model

Install Codex CLI and sign in with your ChatGPT account. Then add to ~/.codex/config.toml:

model = "gpt-6-astra"
model_reasoning_effort = "high"

Use xhigh for long multi-step builds. The full example with every MCP is in codex-config.toml.example.

Step B: Register the MCPs

Do Steps 2 to 5 above for the tool-side installs (AE bridge script, Blender add-ons, Higgsfield plugins). Then register with Codex instead of Claude Code:

codex mcp add AfterEffectsMCP -- node "$(pwd)/after-effects-mcp/build/index.js"

codex mcp add BlenderMCP -- npx -y mcp-remote http://localhost:9876/sse

codex mcp add HiggsfieldBridge --url https://bridge.higgsfield.ai/mcp

codex mcp login HiggsfieldBridge

Verify: codex mcp list should show all three.

The Blender MCP serves SSE, so mcp-remote bridges it for Codex. Needs Node installed.

Step C: Skills

Launch Codex from inside this repo and the skills load from .agents/skills. To use them in any folder:

mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
cp -r skills/* ~/.agents/skills/

Step D: Sanity checks

Run the same prompts from Step 7 in Codex. The skills say "Claude"; Astra reads that as itself. AGENTS.md tells it so.

ChatGPT desktop instead of Codex: the Higgsfield plugin for ChatGPT has a /use-after-effects command that drives AE directly. It doesn't load these skills, so you lose the timing and easing rules. Codex is the better route.

.mcp.json

See .mcp.json.example for the full Claude Code config and codex-config.toml.example for Codex. Copy the one you need and adjust paths for your machine.

Who it's for

Senior motion designers who want an agent as a working collaborator, not a tutorial bot. You know what anticipation and follow-through are. You know the difference between ease-in and ease-out. You want your agent to know that too, without you explaining it every session.

What's out of scope

Setting expectations so nobody's surprised:

• Cinema 4D, Houdini, Nuke, DaVinci Resolve. Not covered, sorry.
• Web-motion (GSAP, Framer Motion, R3F). Wrong toolbox. Go grab claudedesignskills instead.
• Cowork plugin packaging. This is Claude Code, pure and simple.

Troubleshooting

Something acting up? Don't panic, it's almost always one of these.

AE MCP not responding:

• Close and reopen Window > mcp-bridge-auto.jsx in AE.
• Confirm the "Auto-run commands" checkbox is ticked.
• Confirm claude mcp list shows AfterEffectsMCP.

Blender MCP not responding:

• Check that Blender is open and the add-on is enabled.
• Click "Start MCP Server" again in the add-on preferences.
• Confirm claude mcp list shows BlenderMCP.
• Confirm Blender's console shows "MCP Server running on localhost:9876".

Higgsfield Bridge not responding:

• Confirm claude mcp list (or codex mcp list) shows HiggsfieldBridge.
• Re-authenticate: /mcp in Claude Code, codex mcp login HiggsfieldBridge in Codex.
• In Blender: sign in on the floating Higgsfield bar. Blender must be 5.1 or newer.
• In AE: Window > Extensions > Higgsfield AI, signed in, panel open. AE must be 2024 or newer.
• Generation stops partway: check your credit balance.

Script throws an error in AE:

• Screenshot the error and paste it in. The agent will patch.
• AE's Undo can't reliably undo script operations. If something went wrong, use your most recent save.

Render looks wrong in Blender:

• Use the motion-design-critique skill. Drop a screenshot and describe what's wrong. The agent will diagnose.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Contributing

Want to add your own tool skill (a cinema4d-motion, maybe)? Awesome, we'd love that. CONTRIBUTING.md walks you through it.