GIF Download & Short Video Synthesis Workflow

Problem

When producing vertical short videos, the tedious part is often the upstream asset pipeline rather than editing itself: find GIFs for a theme, distinguish real animated files from thumbnails, static images, or broken downloads, and then align background, captions, transitions, endings, and output ratios. Doing this by hand spreads work across browsers, file managers, Python scripts, and editors, which makes parameters easy to drift. The skill compresses download, validation, and compositing into two reusable local script paths for vertical content on platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Kuaishou.

How It Works

Download path: the script connects to a local browser through CDP, opens Baidu Image search with user-like navigation, triggers lazy loading, and extracts .gif URLs from rendered page data. It then filters downloads by file size and Pillow frame count to reduce the chance that static images or small files enter the video.
Compositing path: gif_to_video.py reads GIFs from src_dir and renders a 1080x1920, 9:16, 30fps, H.264 video. Each GIF is centered and scaled; short GIFs are looped to the configured duration; text transitions and an ending card are inserted between clips. The pipeline also supports dark backgrounds, accent colors, progress bars, page indicators, and font fallback.
Limits: the workflow depends on local Chrome/CDP, Pillow, and FFmpeg, and is mainly tuned for Baidu Image search pages. Anti-automation controls, login state, network conditions, and page structure changes can affect download success. It is a template-driven short-video pipeline, not a general-purpose editor; copyright, content compliance, and platform review remain the operator's responsibility.