Grok Imagine prompts: one shot, one motion
Name one subject, one action and one camera move, in plain nouns. xAI publishes no prompt formula for Grok Imagine, and the examples on its video generation documentation are single sentences such as "Timelapse of a flower blooming in a sunlit garden". So these cards claim no special structure.
They keep three habits that suit cheap drafts:
- One shot per prompt. Up to 15 seconds holds one idea, not a sequence.
- Concrete nouns. "A red striped balloon" gives the model more to draw than "a beautiful scene".
- One motion, one camera move. Say what moves, then whether the camera pans, follows, pushes in or holds.
Write what you want to see rather than a list of exclusions: Playcut sends no negative prompt to any Grok model. Playcut also places a short set of content rules in front of every Grok prompt, covering nudity, sexual content and graphic violence. If xAI's moderation flags a job, it fails with no category detail and its credits are refunded.
xAI's image editing documentation takes the same plain-language approach to edits, with no special tags.
Three Grok Imagine models, three prompt shapes
Playcut runs three Grok Imagine models: the image model reads a description, classic video reads a shot, and 1.5 reads only the motion that follows an attached still.
| Model | Modes on Playcut | Frame and length | Credits | Prompt shape |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok Imagine Image | Text to image; plain-language edit of 1 or 2 images | 14 ratios including auto; 1K or 2K | 10 per image, 20 per edit | One paragraph describing the picture |
| Grok Imagine (classic video) | Text to video, image to video, reference to video, extension | 7 ratios; 480p or 720p; 1–15 s from text, 1–10 s otherwise | 20 per second | One shot, one motion, one camera move |
| Grok Imagine 1.5 | Image to video only | 16:9 verified; 480p or 720p; 1–10 s | 32 per second | What moves after the first frame, plus the camera |
Ask either video model for 1080p or 4K and you get 720p, billed as 720p. More in Grok Imagine credits and limits.
Image: posters, concept art and odd frames
Write image cards as one paragraph: line breaks become spaces before Grok reads them. Each chip names a ratio Grok Imagine Image accepts, and every card costs 10 credits at 1K or 2K.
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Retro-futurist train poster
2:3A travel poster in retro-futurist style: a streamlined silver train crossing a high stone viaduct over a canyon at sunrise, long diagonal speed lines, a sky in flat bands of peach and teal, screen-print colours, and a plain empty band across the top for a title added later.Add the title later, in an editor or on Nano Banana Pro, which we run for clean lettering.
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Botanical plate of invented plants
3:4A vintage botanical plate on aged cream paper showing three invented plants: a fern with spiral glass leaves, a small cactus bearing tiny lit lanterns, and a climbing vine with brass keys for seed pods. Fine ink linework, soft watercolour washes, tidy specimen layout, blank label boxes. -
Pixel-art arcade cabinet
1:1Pixel art of an old arcade cabinet glowing in the corner of a late-night laundromat, a tiny space battle on its screen, magenta and cyan light spilling across a checkered floor, washing machines in shadow, 16-bit palette, crisp square pixels. -
Paper-cut coral reef banner
2:1A wide layered paper-cut coral reef: stacked sheets of coral pink, turquoise and deep navy paper, a shoal of small yellow fish cutting across the middle, soft light from above casting gentle shadows between the layers, like a lit shadow box. -
Snowy owl in a lantern
Ratio: autoA snowy owl sitting inside an old brass lantern that hangs from a pine branch at night, snow falling, warm candlelight in the glass against cold blue moonlight, fine feather detail, shallow depth of field.On auto, Grok picks the frame; no other image model we run has that option.
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Desert observatory concept art
20:9Ultra-wide concept art of a desert observatory at dusk: a white dome with its shutter open on a red mesa, a small rover parked below, the Milky Way rising over the rock, one figure with a torch for scale, matte-painting finish. -
Comic-panel storm
9:19.5One tall comic panel of a thunderstorm over a fishing harbour: bold black ink lines, halftone shading, a lighthouse beam slicing through the rain, a small boat tilted on a wave, a limited palette of slate blue, white and one hit of yellow. -
Hot-air balloon race
3:2Dozens of patterned hot-air balloons racing low over lavender and wheat fields at dawn, a red striped balloon in the lead, long morning shadows and soft haze, seen from the basket of a trailing balloon whose rope edges frame the bottom of the shot.
Image edits in plain words
Attach one or two images, then say what changes and what stays. There is no reference tag; describe each image by its content. A single-image edit keeps the input's ratio, and every edit costs 20 credits.
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Turn the season to winter
1 imageChange the season in this photo to deep winter: fresh snow on the roofs and branches, a pale grey sky and cold, soft light. Keep the people, their clothes, their poses and the composition exactly as they are. -
Recolour one product
1 imageMake the backpack in this photo mustard yellow instead of navy blue. Keep its stitching, buckles and shape, and leave the person carrying it and the street behind unchanged. -
Clean studio background
1 imageReplace the cluttered office behind the person with a plain warm grey studio backdrop and soft, even light. Keep the face, hair, glasses and shirt unchanged, and keep the same crop. -
Place an object into a scene
2 imagesPut the rattan armchair from the product photo in the empty corner of the living-room photo. Match the room's daylight and shadows, and size the chair as it would look at that distance.Grok Imagine Image takes two images at most, used in the order you attach them.
Video classic: fast text-to-video drafts
Classic Grok Imagine turns text into clips of up to 15 seconds at 20 credits a second, the lowest rate we run at 720p. Keep each card to one shot in one to three sentences, and test an idea here before a pricier model renders it.
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Blacksmith at the anvil
6 s · 120 crA blacksmith hammers a glowing blade on an anvil in a dark forge, sparks bursting with each strike. Medium shot, then a slow push-in on the anvil. -
Kite surfer in a squall
8 s · 160 crA kite surfer with a red kite carves across a grey-green sea under heavy storm clouds, spray trailing behind the board. Low tracking shot from a boat alongside. -
Turbines above the fog
10 s · 200 crWind turbines turn slowly on a ridge above a sea of fog at sunrise. The camera pans from left to right along the ridge line. -
Match strike
5 s · 100 crMacro close-up of a match striking in the dark, the flame flaring and settling, warm glow on the fingertips, shallow focus on the match head. -
Kayak through a gorge
6 s · 120 crA kayaker in a yellow boat paddles through a narrow green gorge, spray flying off each stroke. The camera follows from behind at water level. -
Tram in the snow
10 s · 200 crA tram glides across a snowy old-town square at night, shop windows lit, snowflakes crossing its headlights. Static wide shot from a doorway. -
Ink in water
4 s · 80 crA drop of violet ink falls into a glass of water and blooms into slow, curling clouds against a black background. Locked-off macro shot. -
Ferris wheel at sunset
15 s · 300 crA Ferris wheel turns slowly at a seaside fair as the sun sets and its bulbs switch on ring by ring. The camera starts close on one gondola, then pulls back and rises to show the whole pier.Fifteen seconds is the longest Grok Imagine clip, and only text-to-video reaches it.
Video classic: animate an image
Attach a still and describe only what moves and how the camera travels; the image already sets the subject and the look. Clips run up to 10 seconds.
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Waves on the rocks
6 s · 120 crThe waves roll in and break on the rocks, spray drifting to the left in the wind. The camera slowly pulls back. -
Calligraphy stroke
5 s · 100 crThe brush sweeps across the paper, leaving a thick black stroke that thins and breaks at its tail. Overhead shot, locked off. -
Flag in the wind
8 s · 160 crThe flag ripples in a steady wind while clouds race across the sky behind it. The camera stays locked off. -
Horse in the paddock
6 s · 120 crThe horse lifts its head, flicks its ears and shakes out its mane in the wind. The camera drifts slowly to the left.
Grok Imagine 1.5: bring a still to life
Grok Imagine 1.5 only animates an attached image. The photo becomes the first frame, so the prompt says what happens next. Clips run up to 10 seconds at 32 credits a second, at 16:9, since other ratios are unverified on 1.5.
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Film camera on a plinth
6 s · 16:9 · 192 crThe vintage film camera turns slowly on its plinth while a band of light slides across its chrome. The camera circles a little to the right. -
Old photograph: the pigeons lift off
6 s · 16:9 · 192 crThe pigeons in the old photograph lift off the town square in one wave, and the café awnings stir in the breeze. Gentle push-in; the photo's grain and faded colour stay as they are. -
Valley mist
10 s · 16:9 · 320 crMist drifts through the valley and the river catches the light as clouds move from right to left. Slow aerial glide forward. -
Goat on a ledge
6 s · 16:9 · 192 crThe goat on the rocky ledge looks up, chews slowly, then hops to a higher rock. The camera tilts up to follow it. -
Painted fox
8 s · 16:9 · 256 crThe fox in the illustration leaps from rock to rock through falling leaves, the brush strokes staying visible. The camera pans to follow it. -
Building at nightfall
10 s · 16:9 · 320 crNight falls over the building: the sky deepens to navy and the windows light up one by one. Camera locked off.
Which studio takes which Grok Imagine card
Image cards and video cards open in different studios. You pick the model per job in the model picker.
- Image and edit cards go in the image studio. Choose Grok Imagine Image, set the chip's ratio and attach photos for an edit. Switching to Grok from 4K drops the setting to 2K for you.
- Video cards go in the video studio. The picker lists the two xAI video models as Imagine Video (the classic model) and Imagine Video 1.5. Use Describe for text cards and Animate for image cards, at the chip's length.
- Check the total. Credits are held at submit and refunded if the job fails or is cancelled. Before a long run, price a batch of Grok drafts in credits.
Within our lineup, classic Grok Imagine is the cheapest video model at 720p and Grok Imagine Image the cheapest image model, so both suit a first pass. For the 2:1, 20:9 and 9:19.5 cards, pick an unusual frame by its pixel size before you export.
For a finished still, the Playcut AI image generator also runs the Nano Banana models, and the AI image prompts grouped by job tag each prompt with a model.