P—06 / ORBITAL SCRAPYARD HANDOFF

Wan 3.0 reference to video prompt — the maintain clause, and the line it is missing

The longest prompt here, with a paragraph devoted to keeping two characters the same — and not one asset citation in it.

Two characters meet in an orbital scrapyard, exchange something, and the power goes out. It is the only prompt in this library written in separated paragraphs, which is how you give Wan 3.0 beats without pretending it can read timecodes, and it carries a full maintain clause. It also demonstrates the one thing the published examples all get wrong: it never cites its references by number.

Mode
Reference to Video
Model
Prime
Duration
5s
Ratio
16:9
Resolution
720P
Audio
Industrial bed, generated in the same pass
Credits
120

Alibaba’s published example for this model — not generated on this site. Source: wavespeed.ai

Output reference

A silver-haired navigator holds a cyan star map opposite a black-coated operative in an orbital scrapyardVideo
The clip
1,377 / 20,000

Images 0/10 · Clips 0/5 · Audio 0/5 · 15s of reference video max

The free clip is the same Wan 3.0 with its sound, capped at 480P · 3s, and it queues on shared capacity. A plan raises the ceiling to 1080P and thirty seconds — the free tier is a resolution, not a different model.

1 FREE CLIP · WAN 3.0 · 480P

01 — Inside

One prompt, one workflow

The clip beside the prompt that produced it, printed whole. Copy it into the console above, change what you need, generate.

Reference output

A silver-haired navigator holds a cyan star map opposite a black-coated operative in an orbital scrapyardVideo
The clip
The promptthe clipWan 3.0 Prime · Reference to video
1,377 chars

The exchange

Five paragraphs: staging, exchange, turn, camera plan, maintain clause. Beats are separated by blank lines rather than by numbers.

A cinematic science-fiction scene inside a colossal orbital scrapyard above a distant planet. The silver-haired female navigator walks carefully through rows of abandoned spacecraft while holding the transparent star-map device. The black-coated synthetic operative waits beside a damaged shuttle, holding the floating black sphere above his mechanical hand.

She stops several steps away from him and activates the star map. Cyan holographic constellations expand between them. The man raises the black sphere, and its geometric shell slowly opens, revealing a small intensely glowing energy core.

Both characters suddenly look upward as the entire scrapyard loses power. The surrounding machinery shuts down and distant warning lights turn red.

The camera begins with a wide shot revealing the enormous orbital scrapyard, slowly tracks beside the female navigator as she approaches, then settles into a low cinematic two-shot during the exchange. End with both characters illuminated only by the cyan star map and the orange energy core.

Maintain the exact identities, hairstyles, facial features, outfits, equipment, colors, and proportions of both reference characters. Realistic restrained acting, slow atmospheric camera movement, industrial science-fiction production design, cinematic volumetric lighting, subtle zero-gravity debris, high-end sci-fi movie aesthetic.

6 layers

What each layer is doing

Wan 3.0 reads one plain string, but it reads it along seams. Take a layer rather than the whole prompt — the aesthetic and sound lines transfer to almost any subject, and they are the two most people write worst.

  1. Entity

    The silver-haired female navigator … The black-coated synthetic operative … the transparent star-map device … the floating black sphere

    Two people and two props, each named by one distinguishing feature and then referred to by role. The definite articles point at reference material — which is exactly where a numbered citation belongs instead.

  2. Scene

    a colossal orbital scrapyard above a distant planet … rows of abandoned spacecraft … a damaged shuttle

    Built in one sentence and never revisited. Every later paragraph moves inside this space rather than describing more of it.

  3. Motion

    walks carefully … stops several steps away … activates the star map … raises the black sphere … Both characters suddenly look upward

    Three paragraphs, three beats, and the blank lines between them are the ordering. It is more readable than connectives and it works for the same reason: sequence, not schedule.

  4. Aesthetic control

    The camera begins with a wide shot … slowly tracks beside the female navigator … then settles into a low cinematic two-shot … End with both characters illuminated only by the cyan star map and the orange energy core.

    A whole paragraph for the camera, ordered with begins / then / end. The last sentence is the important one: it says how the clip stops, which is the thing Wan 3.0 otherwise invents.

  5. Stylization

    Realistic restrained acting … cinematic volumetric lighting, subtle zero-gravity debris, high-end sci-fi movie aesthetic

    "Restrained acting" is a direction, not a look, and it is what keeps two characters exchanging an object from turning into two characters gesturing at each other.

  6. Sound

    Not written — left to the model.

    Unwritten, on a beat that is literally a power cut. A shutdown is a sound before it is a picture, and naming it would have scheduled the frame it happens on.

4 levers

Make it yours

What is safe to change. Most libraries publish only this list, which is why so many copied prompts come back worse than the original.

  1. 01

    The paragraph break

    Blank lines between beats. It reads better than a wall of connectives and Wan 3.0 treats it the same way — as order. Use it any time you have three or more beats; use "finally" as well when the ending matters.

  2. 02

    The written ending

    "End with both characters illuminated only by the cyan star map and the orange energy core." A Wan 3.0 clip that does not say how it stops will drift to a stop. This one sentence is the difference between a last frame and a fade.

  3. 03

    The maintain clause

    Identities, hairstyles, facial features, outfits, equipment, colours, proportions. Enumerating what must not change is stronger than "keep them consistent", because a list is checkable and an adjective is not.

  4. 04

    The citation it is missing

    Add it. `Image 1 is the silver-haired navigator. Image 2 is the black-coated operative.` — capitalised, with a space, numbered by array position. Then say "the navigator from Image 1" where the prompt currently says "the female navigator". That is the only syntax Wan 3.0 actually parses, and this prompt uses none of it.

Three ways to break it

  • Writing the citations as `image1` or `Picture 1`

    The form is case-sensitive and spaced. `Image 1` binds; `image 1`, `Image_1` and `picture 1` bind to nothing and are read as ordinary words, so the model invents a subject and the reference sits unused.

  • Citing a number you did not upload

    `Image 3` in a request carrying two images points at nothing. The prompt still runs, the model still produces something, and the something is not the character you meant.

  • Loading the request with audio references only

    Audio cannot be the only reference material in a Wan 3.0 request. It needs at least one image or video alongside it, and the limits are ten images, five videos and five audio clips with each media family capped at fifteen seconds in total.

What it does

What the orbital scrapyard handoff template does

This is the longest and most complete prompt in the library, and it is worth reading twice — once for what it does well, which is most of it, and once for the one thing it leaves out.

Start with the structure. Five paragraphs, separated by blank lines: staging, the exchange, the turn, the camera plan, the lock. Nothing is numbered, no beat has a timecode, and the order is carried entirely by the sequence in which the paragraphs appear. That is the correct shape for Wan 3.0. The model has no schedule grammar — there is no way to say a beat lands at 3.5 seconds — so the only ordering available is the order of the words. Paragraphs make that order visible to the person editing the prompt as well as to the model, which is why this reads more clearly than the run-on comma lists elsewhere on this page.

The camera paragraph is the best-constructed piece of writing in the library. It has three moves in order — begins with a wide, tracks beside her, settles into a two-shot — and then a fourth sentence that most prompts never write: "End with both characters illuminated only by the cyan star map and the orange energy core." That is the ending, stated. Wan 3.0 will produce an ending whether or not you specify one, and the unspecified version is almost always a drift: the camera keeps easing, the action peters out, the last frame is nobody's choice. Writing the final image down is one sentence and it is the highest-value sentence in any long prompt.

The lock paragraph is doing the job the mode exists for. "Maintain the exact identities, hairstyles, facial features, outfits, equipment, colors, and proportions of both reference characters" is an enumeration rather than an adjective, and that matters. "Keep the characters consistent" gives the model a goal it can claim to have met; a list of seven named attributes gives it seven things it can be measured against. Enumerating what must not change is the reliable form.

And now the gap. Wan 3.0 has exactly one piece of syntax that it parses rather than reads: an asset citation. Materials attached to a reference request are addressed in the prompt as `Image 1`, `Video 1`, `Audio 1` — capitalised, with a space, numbered by their position in the array. That is how a sentence gets bound to a specific uploaded file. This prompt never uses it. It says "both reference characters" and trusts the model to work out which description belongs to which upload.

With two visually distinct characters that mostly works. With four, or with two people who share a hair colour, it does not — the model averages the descriptions across the references, and the result is a cast who all look faintly like each other. The fix is two sentences at the top: `Image 1 is the silver-haired navigator. Image 2 is the black-coated operative.` And then every later mention becomes "the navigator from Image 1". It costs about forty characters and it converts an inference problem into a lookup.

The limits are worth having in mind while you write. Ten reference images, five reference videos, five reference audio clips, with the video and audio families each capped at fifteen seconds in total. Reference material and keyframes cannot travel together. And the one that shows up on the invoice rather than in the response: reference video is billed at the same per-second rate as the output and counted against the same thirty-second ceiling, while images, audio, documents and links are free. A fifteen-second reference video is the most expensive thing you can attach to a Wan 3.0 request, and it is the fact this page would most like you to know before you attach one.

This example ran on Prime. As on the other two Prime templates: that is the high-speed tier, with the same published output specification as the standard model, at roughly half again the cost per second. It came back sooner. The picture is not the reason to pick it.

Everything here runs in reference to video.

6 questions

Orbital scrapyard handoff — common questions

  • 01

    How do I reference an uploaded image inside a Wan 3.0 prompt?

    Write `Image 1` — capitalised, with a space — numbered by the position of the file in the array. `Video 1` and `Audio 1` work the same way.

  • 02

    What happens if I write `image1` instead?

    Nothing binds. The citation is case-sensitive and spaced, so a malformed one is read as ordinary words and the model invents the subject instead of using your file.

  • 03

    How many references can one request carry?

    Ten images, five videos and five audio clips, with the video and audio families each capped at fifteen seconds in total. Audio cannot be the only reference.

  • 04

    How do I stop two references being averaged together?

    Cite them by number and say which is which before you describe the action. Two unattributed descriptions of two people is the exact condition under which a model blends them.

  • 05

    Why write the ending down?

    Because Wan 3.0 produces one either way. An unwritten ending is a drift; a written one is a last frame you chose.

  • 06

    Which attached materials are billed?

    Reference video only. It is charged at the output rate and counts against the thirty-second total. Images, audio, documents and links are not billed.

Copy it, change one layer, run it.

Every character is on this page. 5s at 720P costs 120 credits.

Written and maintained by the wan-3.run editorial teamPublished Last updated