How to make a Spotify Canvas
Upload the still to Vizard Agent and ask for an 8-second vertical loop with no audio. Vizard Agent animates the photo, then checks the result second by second against the original face and compares the last frame to the first so the loop closes. What comes back is a 1080x1920 silent clip you upload straight to Spotify.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
One instruction carries the whole job, and it is worth being mechanical about it. Every clause below is either a spec Spotify enforces or something Vizard Agent would otherwise have to guess, so dropping one is what produces a clip that looks right and then will not upload.
Prompt
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
The hard part is not making eight seconds of movement. It is making eight seconds that start and end in the same place, while the artist's face stays recognisably the artist's face. Most of the run was Vizard Agent looking at what it had just made rather than making anything. In the session behind this article it:
- Looked at the photo and at the artist's previous Canvas for the same release.
- Prepared a locked 1080x1920 still so the frame was decided before anything moved, then generated the 8-second loop from it.
- Probed the clip and compared the first frame, the last frame and the original still, so the loop test was measured rather than eyeballed.
- Viewed the generated frame at 0s, 1s, 2s and on through 7s, one at a time, checking the face at each.
- Built the blink separately: a closed-eye still, cropped to the eyes, aligned to the open-eye frame and composited, so the rest of the frame did not drift.
- Delivered exactly 8.000 seconds (240 frames) at 30fps, about 3 MB, with no audio stream at all.
When does this not work well?
A Canvas has to move, and the thing being moved is usually a photograph somebody already approved. Once it moves, the delivered frames are generated ones, so where the image itself was signed off, ask Vizard Agent to animate the background and hold the subject still. Loops close on movement, not on cuts, and text in the photo will smear.
Common questions
Can I use a video instead of a photo? Yes. Say which 8 seconds and that it must loop, and tell Vizard Agent which moment matters most if something has to give.
Does it add music? No. A Canvas is silent, and Vizard Agent delivers a file with no audio stream at all.
Can I get one Canvas per track on the album? Ask for them one at a time. Telling Vizard Agent to match an earlier Canvas holds the same register across the set.