AI D​A​M​N/Alibaba Cloud Open-Sources Advanced AI Animation Model Wan2.2-Animate

Alibaba Cloud Open-Sources Advanced AI Animation Model Wan2.2-Animate

Alibaba Cloud Releases Open-Source AI Animation Model

On September 19, 2025, Alibaba Cloud announced the open-source release of Wan2.2-Animate, the latest action generation model from its Tongyi Wanxiang AI research division. This advanced technology enables dynamic animation of human portraits, anime characters, and animals with unprecedented quality.

Technical Capabilities and Applications

The model builds upon the previously released Animate Anyone framework, delivering significant improvements in:

  • Character consistency
  • Generation quality
  • Motion accuracy

Image

Wan2.2-Animate supports two operational modes:

  1. Action Imitation: Transfers movements and expressions from reference videos to static images
  2. Role Replacement: Swaps characters in videos while preserving original motions and environments

The technology has immediate applications in:

  • Short video production
  • Dance template generation
  • Professional animation workflows

Technical Innovations

The Tongyi Wanxiang team developed several breakthrough features:

  • Unified representation format combining character, environment, and action data
  • Specialized skeleton signals for body movements
  • Implicit facial expression features
  • Action re-direction module for precise motion transfer
  • Independent lighting fusion LoRA for seamless visual integration

The model was trained on an extensive dataset covering speech patterns, facial expressions, and full-body movements.

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative testing shows Wan2.2-Animate outperforms leading alternatives: | Metric | Wan2.2-Animate | Competitors | |--------|----------------|-------------| | Video Quality | Superior | StableAnimator/LivePortrait | | Subject Consistency | Best-in-class | All open-source models | | Perceptual Loss | Lowest recorded | Including closed-source options |

Notably, human evaluators rated Wan2.2-Animate above commercial solutions like Runway's Act-two.

Availability

Developers can access the model through multiple platforms:

The model is also available via API through Alibaba Cloud's BaiLian platform and through direct experience on the Tongyi Wanxiang website.

Key Points:

  • Major open-source release from Alibaba Cloud's AI research division
  • Significant improvement over previous animation models
  • Dual-mode operation expands creative possibilities – Outperforms both open-source and some commercial alternatives = Accessible through major developer platforms