Anodize: the color chip is the product

Still first. Motion optional. For an anodizer the SKU is a colour, a finish, and a thickness — a chip. If the chip is wrong, a cinematic orbit of a part is a recall. Generate and approve the chip as a still. Buy motion only when a buyer needs to see the part turn.

Video spends the expensive meter on physics. It does not spend that meter on discovering whether the red is your red.

The chip is the SKU

Anodize is sold as a colourway. The buyer matches a chip to a drawing, not a vibe. "Aerospace gold, dramatic rim light, 85mm" is an ad frame wearing a guess. A flat, lit chip of the actual hue and sheen is the product.

Lock the things that would force a regen before anyone talks about camera:

• Hue and sheen. If the dye lot is a named chip, the still has to be that chip.
• Finish. Matte, satin, bright. Extra specularity changes the SKU.
• Geometry as context only. A signed colour on a new bracket is a new still.

If you cannot hold the chip next to the frame and say yes, you have a mood, not a still.

Approve it as a still

Text to image is the cheap meter. Pick the aspect you will ship — 1:1 for a chip card, 4:3 or 16:9 for a part plate — and iterate there. The roster is the live catalog: Ideogram V4 when type sits on the card, Flux and Imagen for photoreal metal, Seedream when the card is a layout. Switch rows without a new subscription.

Do not start in text-to-video because "we will need a reel anyway." T2V invents the part and moves it. When the gold comes back as brass, you paid video credits to fail at colour. Same prompt, new noise, new chip.

A still is locked when someone who owns the colour book signs it. Then you may talk about motion.

Motion is a later, optional row

Lock the still before you spend on motion is the doctrine. Image-to-video treats the chip or part plate as frame one. The prompt names only movement: a slow tilt, a grazing highlight, a hand rotating the coupon. Leave "anodized red" out of the paragraph. The red is already in the pixels.

AI image-to-video is that path. Some rows take a last frame if the coupon must land at a second approved angle. That is interpolation between two signed stills, not a new casting session.

Reference-to-video is the other contract: identity travels, the scene is new. Use it when the same finish has to appear on a part you do not have a photo of. Do not feed a finished chip card to R2V and ask it to "just add motion." It will restage, and restaging a chip is how you get a different red.

When a turn is actually worth buying

Buy motion when the buyer needs to see the sheen travel — a grazing light, a 180° coupon turn. Do not buy it because the feed "wants video." A locked chip card is often the listing. Seconds of almost-the-right-gold are worse than a still of the right gold.

If this chip were taped to a traveller, would we run the tank? If no, do not animate. If yes, animate that file. A regen of I2V on a signed chip is a new take of the same colour. A regen of a cinematic paragraph is a new dye lot.

FAQ

Can I skip the still if the video model is good at metal now?

No. Better models reduce drift. They do not create a colour book. If the chip has to match itself tomorrow, tomorrow's job needs the still. Prompt memory is not a chip.

Should the chip include the part, or be a flat coupon?

Whichever object the buyer signs. A coupon is easier to lock. A part plate is the listing if the geometry matters. Do not hide a colour change inside a new part. One variable per generate.

Is a last-frame hold enough to lock the colour?

Only for the clip that ends on it. The next shot does not inherit that hold unless you feed the frame back in as I2V or as a reference. Save the still. Hoping the next paragraph remembers the red is not a process.

Do I need Ideogram for a colour chip with no type?

Not for the hue. Ideogram's catalog job is text rendering, posters, logos. A silent chip can live on a photoreal stills row. Use Ideogram when the chip card carries a code, a name, or a spec line you cannot afford to misspell.