Prompting Wan 2.6
Wan 2.6 (Alibaba) is built for reference-to-video role-play — putting a specific person or character in the video with consistent identity and voice — plus multi-shot narrative and audio-visual sync. This guide shows how to prompt it. Model overview: Wan 2.6 API guide.
Reference-to-Video (Wan's Signature)
Supply a clean reference image (and voice, where supported), then describe the action. The reference sets identity; your prompt sets motion and speech:
curl -X POST https://api.linkmodel.ai/api/v1/video-generation \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $LINKMODEL_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{ "model": "wan2.6", "prompt": "The person in the reference presents a product to camera and smiles: \"Here is our new release.\" Natural gestures, studio lighting.", "image_url": "https://your-cdn.com/portrait.jpg" }'Use a clean, front-facing, high-res reference for the best identity retention.
A Prompt Structure That Works
Order: who (reference) → action/speech → camera → setting/mood → audio.
The person in the reference walks along a beach at sunset,
speaks to camera: "Let's begin.",
handheld follow shot, warm golden light,
gentle waves and ambient audio
Multi-Shot Narrative
Wan handles short multi-shot sequences with identity held across cuts. Describe shots in order and keep the same reference:
Shot 1: close-up, the person looks up and smiles;
Shot 2: wide shot, they walk toward the camera; consistent appearance and voice
Name the language for accurate lip-sync, and keep clips to Wan's length window (up to ~15s) — chain clips for longer stories.
Tips
- One clear action or line per clip.
- Match aspect ratio to your channel (9:16 for social).
- Draft then finalize — iterate before the final render.
- Compare role-play vs all-round in Wan vs Seedance; for avatars specifically, AI avatar video API.
Consent Matters
Only use a real person's likeness and voice with their explicit consent — build consent into your workflow. Confirm parameters in the docs.
Bottom Line
Lead with a clean reference, describe action + speech + camera, name the language for lip-sync, and chain short shots for narrative. More models in best AI video generation APIs.
Start free with a $1 credit and test your prompts.