Introduction

What if you could direct motion by just dragging things around? H3 Motion is a new open-source app from developer PxTicks that does exactly that. You pick a subject in a photo, pull it out, drag it along a path on a timeline, and MiniMax H3 animates the whole shot, with sound.

It's a standalone React app that drives your own ComfyUI through the Comfy SDK, built for Comfy's #OpenSourceHiggsfield competition. It uses open weights only: no partner nodes, no Comfy Router, no closed APIs. The repo was marked release-ready on October 30 and the author shared it with a workflow on r/StableDiffusion the same day. The code is AGPL-3.0.

Two ways to direct

Photos: Select, Isolate, Move, Generate

  • Select: name your subject and SAM 3.1 finds it. Click to add or remove points
  • Isolate: Qwen3-VL describes the subject and Qwen Image 2.1 paints it out, leaving a clean background plate
  • Move: drag the cut-out to record a path, or scrub the timeline and place keys by hand. Resize it, stretch it, or drag one edge past the other to flip it
  • Generate: the app renders your guide frames in the browser and MiniMax H3 animates them with Time-to-Move, plus optional sound effects and music prompts

You can stack several subjects, each with its own path and color, and reorder which one sits in front.

Videos: Draw mask, Animate, Generate

  • Draw a rectangle or ellipse on a clip, then animate the mask with the same path tools, or let it follow a tracked object
  • Describe what should appear inside it, and optionally add a reference image (upload one, generate one, or edit the current frame inside the mask)
  • H3 Ref2VA regenerates just the masked region and the app composites it back into the source
  • Original sound can be kept as a style reference, preserved exactly, or replaced

The numbers

  • Clip length: 3.0 to 15.1 seconds (73 to 362 frames at 24 fps), default 5.2 seconds
  • Sampling: 25 steps
  • Motion lock-in: a 2 to 15 slider, default 9. It sets the step where H3 stops holding your subject to the path. Higher means a tighter path but less room to blend
  • Resolution: 480p or 768p on the short edge. 16:9 renders at 864×480 or 1344×768, and a 768p 16:9 result is delivered at 1366×768
  • Edge freedom: 0 to 64 pixels, default 16, so cut-out edges can blend into the scene
  • GPU: NVIDIA or AMD. Both H3 workflows use Comfy Kitchen INT8 attention, with core sparse attention layered on top

Setup

You need a recent ComfyUI (tested at commit 6607f36b, v0.41.0-18), the author's ComfyUI-vlo node pack 0.3.0 or later, Node.js 22.12+, and uv.

git -C /path/to/ComfyUI checkout 6607f36b53c7b695b160ac5b52d595e9e3752a2d
git clone https://github.com/PxTicks/ComfyUI-vlo.git /path/to/ComfyUI/custom_nodes/ComfyUI-vlo

Download the models into ComfyUI's models folder. The README pins exact revisions for each one:

  • Selection: sam3.1_multiplex_fp16.safetensors from Comfy-Org/sam3.1
  • Description and removal: qwen_image_2.1_int8_convrot.safetensors, qwen3vl_8b_int8_convrot.safetensors and qwen_image_2.1_vae_bf16.safetensors from Comfy-Org/Qwen-Image-2.1
  • Photo animation: minimax_h3_fl2va_pruned_int8_convrot.safetensors from Comfy-Org/MiniMax-H3
  • Video inpainting: minimax_h3_ref2va_pruned_int8_convrot.safetensors
  • Shared H3 parts: qwen3vl_32b_minimax_h3_nvfp4_awq.safetensors, minimax_h3_video_vae_int8_convrot.safetensors and minimax_h3_audio_vae_fp32.safetensors

Then start ComfyUI on port 8188 and launch the app:

git clone https://github.com/PxTicks/h3-motion.git
cd h3-motion
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://127.0.0.1:5180. The launcher connects to your running ComfyUI (including Windows ComfyUI from WSL) and starts the API proxy on port 8189. Run npm run check-env in another terminal to confirm every node and model is found. WSL is tested. Native Windows support landed on October 30 but is still marked untested.

A prompt to try

The app writes a starting prompt from your subject and path, and you can edit it freely. For the video mask mode, try something like this inside a masked patch of a street clip:

A small orange paper boat sails along the rain puddle, bobbing gently as ripples spread around it, soft reflections of neon signs shimmering on the water.

Limits to know

  • MiniMax only publishes 768p results, so 480p is outside its verified setup
  • Shadows outside the selected subject can survive removal. Retry or refine the mask
  • Video inpainting regenerates the whole masked region, so original detail inside the mask isn't guaranteed to survive
  • The app never launches ComfyUI or downloads models for you

License check

The app is AGPL-3.0. The models keep their own terms: MiniMax H3 uses the MiniMax H3 Community License, whose grant excludes the EU, the UK, South Korea and the United States. Qwen Image 2.1 uses the Qwen Research license, and SAM 3.1 has its own SAM License. Read each card before you ship anything.

Conclusion

Prompting motion in words is fun, but nothing beats pointing at the screen and saying "go there." H3 Motion turns open H3 into a little puppet stage, and it's one of the most charming #OpenSourceHiggsfield entries so far.

Want to play with H3 without a local install? Try this on Gen → https://artrealmai.com/gen?utm_source=magazine&utm_campaign=gen&utm_content=h3-motion-drag-to-animate-minimax-h3-comfyui-app

Original Source

Go make something move!

—Aurelia ♡