Introducing WaveSpeedAI Scail on WaveSpeedAI

Introducing SCAIL: Studio-Grade Character Animation Arrives on WaveSpeedAI

The boundary between static images and cinematic animation has never been thinner. Today, we’re excited to announce that SCAIL—Studio-Grade Character Animation via In-Context Learning—is now available on WaveSpeedAI, bringing production-quality character animation to creators everywhere.

Whether you’re animating a realistic human, a stylized anime character, or even hand-drawn artwork, SCAIL transforms a single reference image into fluid, natural motion using just a driving video. No complex rigging. No per-frame guidance. Just upload and generate.

What is SCAIL?

SCAIL represents a fundamental shift in AI-powered character animation. Developed by zai-org and published in December 2025, this groundbreaking framework tackles the limitations that have plagued existing animation tools: distorted appearances, implausible body poses, and incorrect occlusions during complex movements.

At its core, SCAIL introduces two key innovations:

1. 3D-Consistent Pose Representation: Rather than relying on flat 2D skeletal data, SCAIL uses a novel 3D pose representation that captures depth, orientation, and spatial relationships. This allows the model to understand when a character is turning, flipping, or interacting with others in three-dimensional space.

2. Full-Context Pose Injection: Built on a diffusion-transformer architecture, SCAIL performs spatiotemporal reasoning across entire motion sequences—not just frame by frame. This means smoother transitions, better occlusion handling, and more coherent animations overall.

The result? Character animation that approaches studio-grade quality, directly accessible through a simple API.

Key Features

SCAIL stands apart from previous character animation models in several critical ways:

• Diverse Character Support: Works seamlessly with realistic humans, stylized characters, and anime—despite only 1.5% of its training data being anime content. The model demonstrates remarkable generalization across visual styles.

• Large Motion Handling: Complex movements like flipping, turning, and rolling that typically break traditional pose-based methods are handled with unprecedented fidelity. SCAIL understands the full 3D trajectory of motion.

• Multi-Character Interactions: Perhaps the most impressive capability—SCAIL can animate scenes with multiple characters interacting. Dancing, hugging, fighting—the model correctly distinguishes limbs and maintains identity even during overlapping poses.

• Identity Preservation: The 3D-consistent pose representation prevents identity leakage, ensuring your character maintains their unique appearance throughout the animation without blending into the driving video’s subject.

• Emergent Abilities: Researchers discovered unexpected capabilities: SCAIL understands 3D spatial relationships of 2D characters, can animate hand-drawn artwork, and even rigs animal skeletons despite having zero animal training data.

• Simple Setup: No preprocessing pipelines. No manual keyframing. Just one reference image plus one driving video equals high-quality animation.

Real-World Use Cases

SCAIL opens up possibilities across multiple creative and commercial domains:

Content Creation

Transfer dance moves, action sequences, or expressive gestures to any character. Create viral social content by animating original characters with trending choreography. Build consistent animated series where characters move naturally across episodes.

Game Development

Generate dynamic NPC behaviors and cutscene animations without expensive motion capture sessions. Indie developers can now achieve animation quality previously reserved for AAA studios.

Marketing and Advertising

Bring brand mascots to life with realistic motion. Create personalized video content featuring animated spokespeople. Produce eye-catching product demonstrations with animated presenters.

Virtual Production

Generate test animations quickly during pre-production. Create animated storyboards that move. Prototype character performances before committing to full production.

Digital Art and Illustration

Transform static illustrations into animated shorts. Give life to concept art and character designs. Create animated portfolios that showcase characters in motion.

Getting Started on WaveSpeedAI

Using SCAIL on WaveSpeedAI is straightforward:

1. Upload a Reference Image: Provide a clear image of your character (JPG or PNG recommended). The clearer the image, the better the results.

2. Upload a Driving Video: This is your motion source. SCAIL extracts pose and motion dynamics from this clip to transfer onto your character.

3. Add a Prompt (Optional): Guide the output with descriptive text. SCAIL benefits from long, detailed prompts—describe the scene, lighting, movement style, and any specific details you want emphasized.

4. Select Resolution: Choose between 480p ($0.04/second) or 720p ($0.08/second) based on your needs.

5. Generate: Let SCAIL work its magic. Review the output and iterate—fix a seed to reproduce results or vary it to explore different outputs.

Pro Tips for Best Results:

• Match your reference image’s camera angle and framing to the target video
• Keep aspect ratios consistent between input image and driving video
• Experiment with stylized content—the model handles it surprisingly well
• For multi-character scenes, ensure clear visibility of all subjects in both inputs

Why WaveSpeedAI?

Running SCAIL locally requires significant computational resources—the full 14B model demands powerful GPUs and technical expertise to configure. WaveSpeedAI removes these barriers entirely:

• No Cold Starts: Your requests begin processing immediately. No waiting for instances to spin up.
• Affordable Pricing: Starting at just $0.04 per second for 480p output, with a minimum charge of 5 seconds. Generate up to 2 minutes of animation per request.
• Simple REST API: Integrate SCAIL into your workflows with straightforward API calls. No infrastructure management required.
• Production-Ready: Enterprise-grade reliability for commercial applications.

The Future of Character Animation

SCAIL represents a pivotal moment in AI animation. By solving the core challenges of motion coherence, identity preservation, and multi-character handling, it brings studio-grade capabilities to individual creators and small teams.

The technology’s emergent abilities—understanding 3D relationships in 2D art, generalizing to unseen character types, handling complex physical interactions—hint at even more powerful capabilities as the field evolves.

Whether you’re an indie game developer bringing NPCs to life, a content creator building an animated series, or a marketer animating brand characters, SCAIL delivers the quality and flexibility needed for professional results.

Start Creating Today

SCAIL is available now on WaveSpeedAI. Transform your static characters into dynamic, lifelike animations with just a reference image and a driving video.

Try SCAIL on WaveSpeedAI and experience studio-grade character animation without the studio.