My autistic moment has arrived.
i'm a guy who ilustrates and do animations in Moho, but also uses AI a lot.
so, if you say you want to make videos. the best option, as for now (on quality, prompt adherence, and such) is Seedance 2.0 for videos and (arguably) nano banana 2. Although, the audio can be janky sometimes, so i'm telling you right now, you must, and you should spend some time editing the audio on your video editor of your choice.
I'll assume you don't have a somewhat powerfull pc to do some manual generations.
so your best choice would be: Nano banana pro + Seedance.
why nano banana pro?
mostly to get desings, generate the characters, backgrounds and more using nano banana, and with nano banana you can also generate Model sheet for the characters.
once you get the main desing of the characters with the style you want (pixar,dreamworks, arcane, wathever) you make the concept art. and save the model sheet on a folder with the name of the character.
then, when you get that done, assuming you'll be reusing desings, the only thing that you'll need is, with nano banana is to generate the shots of the scenes. Use these generations combining the model sheet of the character and then the background to get the pose/composition you need. And then, you throw that to Seedance and prompt what you want, and... well... that's it.
IF you do have a somewhat powerfull pc, you can save up costs.
the best way, would be, to download stability matrix, then download stable diffussion web UI forge neo (better UI) and download either anima 0.1 or Z image base/turbo (depending of how much Vram you have) with that, you can prompt the characters and iterate a shit ton of times, generate the backgrounds, and use tools like Canny/lineart (if you have some artistic abilities, or just draw some sticks) so the generation goes the way you want.
The workflow, using local generation + nano banana 2 + seedance should be somewhat like this:
Local iterations of scenarios and characters > nano banana to refine/edit characters escenarios > Nano Banana to generate the shots/input frames for seedance > seedance to generate the videos > Kdenlive/premiere pro to edit the cuts and paste it all together > export.
Now, let's say, you don't really know anything about AI, safetensors, api providers, and blah blah blah.
ok, i'm gonna help you with this.
what about costs? what is the best webpage? is seeart better than leonardo?
First of all, i'll kindly tell you, stop going for places like higgsfield, leonardo, seeart or wathever the fuck else pops out.
why? because those webpages are just aggregators of subpar models that charge you to use local models (most of the times) and their prices are a straight up robery.
the best option, if you really don't know, is just to stick with API providers.
but dude, what is a API provider?
An API provider, is a service that allow you to pay FOR USE on the models, you don't pay subscriptions montlhy, you only pay WHAT YOU USE, so if you are inteligent, API can save up money, or straight up bankrupt you.
Best option around, is fal.ai, is more focused to developers, cause the GUI is ugly as hell, don't worry, you don't need fancy GUI, that's for losers.
With Fal.AI you can go, choose nano banana 2 pro, generate an image with fal.ai costo you around 0.15$ per generation, and that's using the PRO version, when iterating, it's important to keep the flash version and only using the pro when you have the desing you need refined and creating the input shots. otherwise you'll spend a shit ton amount of money just "testing" be careful.
there's others API providers around, like replicate, they are good, but i personally prefer fal, you can test the others.
why using an API provider?
because you can use, within the same page, nano banana, flux, recraft, seedance, kling, google audio tts, 3d models generators, you name it.
But, here's comes the tricky part, I told you to use seedance 2.0 is the best nowadays, top of the art video model, good consistency and shit. But is expensive as hell.
let's say you generate batchs of 10sec clips? ok, if you use Seedance 2.0 img to video, with the standard model, is 3.02$
PER CLIP
if you use the fast model, it's 2.5$ Per 10 sec clip.
so take that in consideration when generating, but the best part is that you can go, and just use seedance for the "important" shots, and just use kling for the rest and save up a lot of money.
The Reality Check: Budget vs. Outputs (10-second clips)
Let’s talk real numbers. If you have a budget of
$20 to $30 a month on Fal.ai, here is exactly what that money gets you.
Scenario A: Pure API Workflow (No Local PC)
Since you don't have a local machine, you have to burn cash on both image creation and video generation.
- The Math:
- Refining images: You'll use Nano Banana 2 (Flash/Standard) for iterations at around $0.03–$0.04 per prompt. Let's assume you do 10-15 test generations to lock in a character or background before pushing to Pro ($0.15). That's roughly $0.50 to $0.70 spent just to get your final input frame ready.
- Generating the Video: Using Seedance 2.0 Fast ($2.42 per 10s clip) or Standard ($3.02 per 10s clip).
- Total Cost per 10s Shot: Around $3.00 to $3.70 (accounting for image iterations + one video generation).
- What you get per month:
- With $20: You get about 5 to 6 video clips (roughly 1 minute of raw footage).
- With $30: You get about 8 to 10 video clips (roughly 1.5 minutes of raw footage).
Scenario B: Hybrid Workflow (Local PC + Fal.ai API)
If you have a decent PC, you do all your heavy lifting, character design sheets, background painting, and composition tests locally using Stable Diffusion (Forge) for
$0.00. You only upload the absolute perfect, finalized frame to Fal.ai.
- The Math: Your image generation cost drops to zero. You only pay for the video.
- Seedance 2.0 Fast: $2.42 per clip.
- Seedance 2.0 Standard: $3.02 per clip.
- What you get per month:
- With $20: You get 6 to 8 video clips (~1.2 minutes of footage).
- With $30: You get 10 to 12 video clips (~2 minutes of footage).
Crucial Note: This assumes zero re-rolls. If the AI gives you a deformed hand or a melting background and you have to generate the video again, you just burned another $2.50+. Realistically, cut those video counts in half if you are picky with quality.
