v2.4.0: Positives only, no requested silence, details that hold their size, and a new anime style

v2.4.0: Positives only, no requested silence, details that hold their size, and a new anime style

How VE reads exclusions and silence, a framing rule for fine detail, lip-sync in other languages, one new style, and a tighter browser workflow.

Exclusions work only in [NEGATIVES]. VE reads every other section as things to include, even with "no", "not" or "never" in front: "no music, no hum" inside [PRODUCTION SOUND] adds music and hum, and "never reversing" in [CAMERA] names reversing. VideoExpress's developers give the same guidance.

• Write positives everywhere else: what should exist, what stays still, how the camera holds ("then holds on that framing").
• Every exclusion, sound included, goes in [NEGATIVES], each written with "No" ("No music, no hum"). In testing, a bare list there ("music, hum, rumble") added the listed sounds.
• The rule, the templates and the worked example are updated; the failure table has a new row for an excluded sound, motion or object that appears anyway.
• Style sheet anchors are unchanged: their tested wording stays as it is.

Never ask for silence. A segment or clip whose sound is "silence" renders as a low rumble and crackle, because VE's audio has a noise floor that shows whenever it has nothing to generate. This replaces the old "complete silence before, between and after them" and "silent segments say so" advice.

• Every segment carries sound tied to its own action; keep pauses under a second and give any quiet stretch a soft action sound (cloth shifting, a boot settling on stone).
• Fit the manual length to the action and speech, so there is little empty time.
• New failure-table row for rumble and crackle under a pause.

A detail holds only at the size VE last drew it. A face or prop that is small in the opening frame is redrawn from the text when a push-in or a cut to a closer framing enlarges it, and fine detail (a machine eye, a scar, a weapon's mechanism) drifts.

• Start each clip from a start image at its closest framing and keep one framing per clip; a closer shot is a new clip from its own start image.
• Chaining works at any distance while the camera doesn't enlarge the face or a prop, so a long talking scene can chain close-up into close-up.
• The full-body ending rule is relaxed: end at the framing the next clip needs.
• The hard-cut dialogue tip now notes that a cut to a closer framing can drift a detailed face.
• New failure-table row for face detail drifting during a push-in or after a cut.

Lip-sync in other languages. Write the line in its own language and script (for example Japanese in kanji and kana), quoted once in [ACTION], with "speaking in [language] as a native [language] speaker" in the voice description. Captions are added in the edit.

New style: Anime: Shōnen Cyberpunk (anime-shonen-cyberpunk.md). Shōnen line and action with cybernetic character design: thick ink outlines, hard two-tone cel shading, metal drawn as flat cel colour, a cool palette with one hot accent, and the fast-beat-then-long-hold cadence. Tested in production. Demo clip to follow. That makes 44 Creative mode styles.

Reference images made in VE. For a detailed character, the staged reference route now iterates on VE's own best head shot and cleans its artefacts before it goes into slot 1. Another image tool is offered only as a last resort, when VE consistently fails after iteration.

Browser workflow.

• Always two tabs (Creation and Review); no longer asked.
• Every review question says what a correct image or take shows, from its prompt.
• Ask which take to keep straight after submitting, instead of first asking whether the renders have finished.
• Refresh the library once a tile reaches 50%: the grid stops updating partway through a render, and the take has often already finished.
• Known VE behaviours written in as steps: one image candidate per pass with Consistent Character off and two with it on, the Manual Video Length checkbox, the orientation toggle, clearing reference slots after unticking Consistent Character, the missing "Your video will appear" message, naming a new project on its first save, and finding saved images by their [Image X] prefix.

Where it changed. prompt-rules.md, multishot-template.md, light-sound-dialogue.md, camera-and-motion.md, bible.md, browser-workflow.md, styles/README.md, the new styles/anime-shonen-cyberpunk.md, and the rules in SKILL.md.

Upgrading. Marketplace installs pick this up on their next sync. If you use the zip, remove the old skill and upload the new one. Prompt packs are worth updating before their next generation: move any "no …" phrases out of [PRODUCTION SOUND] and [CAMERA] into [NEGATIVES], and replace requested silence with a soft action sound.

Both builds (Claude, ChatGPT) are identical in substance. Scope remains VideoExpress 3.5 and later.