Prompting with Animotive Kimodo

Once your Level is prepared for Animotive Kimodo, you're ready to start prompting. A text prompt is all you need for a first generation; constraints give you finer control when you want to pin a pose or position at specific moments.

Text prompts

1. On the Animotive Kimodo track, click the Add Section button to add a new prompting section on the track.

   

   Add Section button on the Animotive Kimodo track
2. Move the section and adjust its length like any other clip — its span sets the timing of the generated motion.

   

   Adjusting the prompt section length on the track
3. Double-click the section to open the Animotive Kimodo Prompt window.

4. Enter your text prompt and click Submit.

   

   Animotive Kimodo Prompt window with a text prompt entered
5. Click Generate with Kimodo.

   

   Generate with Kimodo button in the Sequencer toolbar

The request appears in the Animotive Kimodo Monitor (Tools → Animotive Kimodo → Monitor) and, once complete, the animation is imported and placed on your character automatically.

Kimodo Constraints

Kimodo constraints are essentially keyframes that help enforce the character's pose or position at key moments during the generated animation. They live on the companion Kimodo Constraints track and come in six channels:

Constraint	What it does
Full-Body	Enforces the character's full body pose at that moment. Can also be used to guide or influence the overall generated animation.
2D Root	Influences the character's root position at key moments. Note: it does not consider the Z (up/down) axis.
Left Hand, Right Hand	Influence the position of these hand end effectors.
Left Foot, Right Foot	Influence the position of these foot end effectors.

Keyframe both tracks

When working with Kimodo Constraints it is crucial to keyframe both the desired Kimodo Constraints track and the Control Rig track. The Kimodo Constraint is what gets submitted to the Kimodo request in the backend, but it samples its pose from the Control Rig track. A constraint keyframe with no matching Control Rig pose has nothing to read.

A constraint keyframe alongside its matching Control Rig keyframe

Holding a pose

If you want the character to hold a pose or position, add duplicates of that constraint at several moments across the section, rather than relying on a single keyframe.

Duplicated constraint keyframes across a section to hold a pose

For the full channel reference and authoring patterns, see Constraints Track.

Prompting best practice

A few things make a big difference to your results:

• Start the prompt with a subject. Write "a person runs forward" rather than "running forward". Kimodo responds best to prompts phrased as a full action with a subject.

• Aim for 2–10 seconds. That's the sweet spot for section length. Very short or very long sections produce weaker results.

• Keep it focused on the action. The model doesn't need scene-setting or camera direction — just what the character does.

NVIDIA's Kimodo team publishes excellent prompting guidance, including phrasing and known limitations. It's worth a read: NVIDIA Kimodo — Limitations & Key Concepts

Next

• The Animotive Kimodo Track — multi-section authoring, transition frames, and seed control.

• Constraints Track — the full six-channel reference.

• Import & Results — what happens to the generated animation once it returns.