IP & Short Drama
While keeping the classic animation and its recognizable characters, Wolffy and Wolnie enter a plush 3D world to continue a story of togetherness on Qixi, the Chinese Valentine's Day.
Click an image to view it at full size
01 / Background
For the 20th anniversary of “Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf,” CCTV.com and Kuaishou Kling AI created a segment for their Qixi AI gala “AI Heartbeat Night” about the relationship between Wolffy and Wolnie. The new AI visuals had to let viewers recognize both characters at a glance while telling a story of companionship and confession.
The rights holder required the original animation and the AI visuals to be clearly distinguishable, while hats, scars, headpieces and costumes had to stay consistent throughout. Going 3D meant achieving two things at once: viewers had to recognize Wolffy and Wolnie instantly, and the new world had to feel like a Qixi adventure. The full film keeps the original 2D animation; our AI work focused on the plush 3D segments.
02 / Creative Highlights
Wolffy's hat and scar, and Wolnie's headpiece, sleeves and collar, are what let audiences recognize them. The fuzzy texture changed how they feel, but none of these features was lost, and the look audiences know stayed the same.
The film first has the two characters spot Wolf Castle in a green forest, then a ribbon of light sweeps over the castle, hearts rise and leaves change color, turning the same place into a pink Qixi world. The environment changes along with the characters' cross-dimensional journey, and the Magpie Bridge and gifts become story clues discovered along the way.
Letters fall from the Magpie Bridge into the Milky Way, and a plush scroll rises and slowly unrolls to the left and right. It lies flat like an unrolled painting, and the figures in the fans' drawings move gently. This segment weaves fans' letters and drawings into the couple's shared history, giving the 20th anniversary a response from its audience.
After the AI segments, the film returns to memories, dialogue and a starlit confession from the original, so the new 3D segments and the classic clips are easy to tell apart. The 3D adventure adds fresh imagery to the theme of companionship, while the later section uses the familiar 2D characters to continue their love story.
03 / Scene Breakdown
The opening is the rights holder's original 2D animation: Wolffy has just received a Qixi gift for Wolnie, but the time-travel machine at home breaks down and the two are swept into a purple vortex. We didn't make this part; it's shown here so you can see exactly where the AI segment picks up.
Holding roses and a delivery box, Wolffy happily announces that the Qixi gift he got for his dear Wolnie has finally arrived.
A purple vortex bursts out of the time-travel machine on the wall, and the delivery box and letters are sucked straight in.
Wearing a cucumber-slice face mask, Wolnie rushes out to ask what's going on, and Wolffy tells her everything has been sucked into the time machine.
The two are pulled into the space-time tunnel after it, tumbling through the stars as the cross-dimensional journey begins.
From here on is the AI 3D segment we made, with “Kling AI” marked in the lower-left corner. The two characters fall from high above into a plush forest, then get up to take in this new world.
Wolffy and Wolnie crash down from high above into cotton-like smoke, with two cucumber slices still stuck on Wolffy's eyes.
A plush Wolf Castle stands in the distance as the caption asks: is this Wolf Castle from another universe?
The camera circles the two as Wolffy grins. Wolnie's crown, fur collar and cuffs and the patch on Wolffy's hat all match their 2D designs.
With their backs to the camera, the two see Goat Village floating in the air in the distance: “Who knew Goat Village could be this cute?”
As the two walk along a forest path, a beam of light sweeps across, turning Wolf Castle, the forest and Goat Village pink one after another, until a Qixi Magpie Bridge is revealed.
The two walk along a forest path as a magpie flies out of the mist; a little farther on, the trees on both sides have already turned pink.
The same Wolf Castle becomes a pink castle, with hearts floating up around it.
A beam of light sweeps up from the bottom of the frame, turning the green forest pink, and the floating Goat Village changes color along with it.
A flock of magpies flies past as the caption says, “Wow, this bridge is the Magpie Bridge,” and the camera settles on a pink stone bridge.
On the Magpie Bridge, the two find a gift; the letters are blown into the Milky Way, and a plush scroll rises from the river, filled with fans' drawings of their 20 years.
The two walk side by side onto the pink Magpie Bridge and find a purple mailbox and a pink gift box on the deck.
Wolffy picks up the gift box, and a gust of wind blows the letters in the mailbox into the sky, leaving both of them stunned.
Wolffy leans over the edge of the bridge to look down as the letters fall into the Milky Way amid a sea of clouds, and a plush scroll rises from the river.
The scroll slowly unrolls to both sides across the starry sky, revealing fans' humanized drawings of Wolffy and Wolnie, and the figures in the drawings gently start to move. The narration reads a letter: “We're fans who have watched you for 20 years.”
The two stand on the bridge with their backs to the camera as the long scroll stretches across the sky, revealing one fan drawing after another.
Inside a heart made of roses, the two smile at each other: “Who knew we had so many fans who care about us?”
The AI segment ends here, and the film returns to the rights holder's original 2D animation: the two fly hand in hand through the stars, reminiscing about 20 years, and it closes with Wolnie posting online.
Two hands clasp together, the picture turns back to 2D, and the two fly side by side through the stars: “For us, it feels like it was just yesterday.”
Old clips float up one by one in the starry sky as the caption reads: “Wolffy, marrying you made me so happy.”
Wolffy brings out the Qixi gift he prepared, and the moment he opens the box, he freezes.
With a dark cloud over his head, Wolffy tearfully apologizes to Wolnie, who simply replies, “It's okay.”
The two talk about the fan letters: “I love them so much, I'm almost in tears.”
A post appears on screen: “Hi everyone, I'm Wolnie, and for Wolffy I'd like to…” and Wolnie smiles as she hits send.
04 / Storyboards & Final Frames
Shown in the order they appear in the film, covering only the AI 3D segment we produced. Shots with two images show the video's first and last frames.
Shot 1.1
The two fall from high above into the forest, kicking up a big cloud of cotton-like smoke as they land, with two cucumber slices still stuck on Wolffy's eyes.
Shot 1.2
A felt-textured Wolf Castle stands far off in the forest as the camera slowly pulls back, showing that this is Wolf Castle in another universe.
Shot 1.3
The two get up out of the smoke and look around. Wolnie's black right cuff and Wolffy's scar and hat patch all match their 2D designs.
Shot 1.4
First a front view of the two, then from behind as they see Goat Village floating in the air in the distance.
Shot 2.1
The two walk along the path toward the distant Wolf Castle, a magpie flies in, and the next moment the forest has turned pink.
Shot 2.2
The same Wolf Castle changes from its original colors into a pink castle; the two images are the video's first and last frames.
Shot 2.3
The green forest before the band of light sweeps through, and the pink forest full of hearts after.
Shot 2.4
The floating Goat Village turns pink too, staying consistent with the earlier shots.
Shot 2.5
The camera rises onto the Magpie Bridge, where a purple mailbox and a pink gift box sit on the deck, setting up the next part.
Shot 3.1
The two walk onto the Magpie Bridge, and the camera circles around to the front, stopping at the moment they discover the boxes.
Shot 3.2
Wolffy picks up the gift box, and the letters in the mailbox are blown up by the wind.
Shot 3.3
Wolffy leans over the edge of the bridge to look down as the letters drift into the Milky Way amid a sea of clouds.
Shot 4.1
The plush scroll unrolls from the center outward across the starry sky, revealing fans' hand-drawn art.
Shot 4.2
The two stand on the bridge looking up as the long scroll stretches across the sky, revealing one fan drawing after another.
Shot 4.3
The final shot of the AI segment: inside a heart made of roses, the two hold hands and smile at each other, before the film returns to the original 2D animation.
05 / Results
We delivered an AI 3D plush segment of about 1:34 (plus an unwatermarked version), which the rights holder composited into the full 3:56 short. It aired on August 28 at CCTV.com's Qixi AI gala “AI Heartbeat Night,” premiered on Kuaishou, and went live simultaneously on Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, WeChat Channels and Yangshipin.
20M+ views and 800K+ likes across platforms, including 18.994M views and 776K likes on Kuaishou alone.
Case Study
Wolffy and Wolnie have kept audiences company in 2D animation for 20 years.
This Qixi, they fell into a fuzzy, plush world: the trees are felt, the castle is felt, and even the letters floating up from the Magpie Bridge are soft and squishy.
This was a segment of “AI Heartbeat Night,” CCTV.com's Qixi AI gala. We were responsible for its AI 3D section of about 1:34; the 2D animation before and after comes from the rights holder's original work.
The segment drew 18.99M views on Kuaishou and 20M+ views across platforms.
01
CCTV.com and Kuaishou Kling AI staged an AI gala for Qixi, just as “Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf” turned 20. The segment set out to tell the love story of Wolffy and Wolnie, with the spirit of the famous line “If I marry, I'll marry Wolffy.”
The rights holder's requirements were clear: AI visuals had to be clearly distinguishable from the original animation, with the AI segment labeled “Kling AI”; there could be an “AI universe” as one space-time within the Pleasant Goat world; Wolf Castle could be recreated by AI, and the single-log bridge from the original had to become the Qixi Magpie Bridge; and no AI voices for the characters.
The real challenge was the characters' appearance. The rights holder provided a very detailed checklist: Wolffy's scar is on the left, always three lines; the hat patch is on the right, with black stitching; the notched ear is on the right; the eyes are half-closed. Wolnie's mole is on the right, her fur collar is black on the left and white on the right, and she must have blush on her cheeks. Neither character's mouth could protrude too much, and the colors couldn't be too dark.
After switching to a plush texture, not a single one of these details could be lost. Viewers had to recognize at a glance that these were still the same two characters.
The crown, fur collar, cuffs, hat patch and scar were all checked item by item against the rights holder's checklist.
02
Instead of having AI generate the 3D characters directly, we broke every shot into three steps.
Step 1: create the 2D image. We first set the action and composition in the original style and corrected the character features against the checklist. Step 2: convert to a felt texture. The whole 2D image is converted into the look of a plush figure. Step 3: hand fixes by an illustrator. Some features drift after conversion, so an illustrator restores them and unifies the color grade.
Why not do it all in one step? Because plush imagery is hard to edit locally. Fixing a hat patch at the 2D stage takes a few minutes; fixing it after the plush conversion means redrawing a whole patch of fuzz. So we pushed changes as early as possible, and only after the approved frame was confirmed did we hand it to Kling AI to generate the video.
03
Qixi needed its own colors, but the rights holder didn't allow a separate, original world.
So instead of creating a new location, we gave a place viewers already know a makeover: first Wolf Castle and the floating Goat Village appear in a green forest, then a beam of light sweeps across the frame, turning the leaves, the castle and Goat Village pink one after another as hearts float up and magpies fly in. The single-log bridge the two often cross in the original also becomes the Qixi Magpie Bridge here.
One frame was approved before the color change and one after, with the video transitioning between them. It's still the same place, but once the color changes, viewers know the story has entered Qixi.
The green forest turns pink, and the floating Goat Village changes color along with it.
04
The client wanted fans to appear in the story: this was the 20th anniversary, and the audience is part of the story too. The rights holder added one requirement: the drawings in the scroll had to be drawn by fans themselves, with AI only bringing them to life.
We designed it as one thread: the letters are blown into the Milky Way, a plush scroll rises from the river, and as it unrolls, it reveals fans' drawings of the Wolffy and Wolnie couple across 20 years.
After seeing the first version, the client wanted the scroll to unroll slowly like a painting rather than open from a fold, and wanted the figures in the drawings to move. We changed the scroll to slide open from the center outward; the fan drawings kept their original brushwork, with only small movements added, such as blinking and hair blowing in the wind.
The scroll slowly unrolls to both sides, and the figures in the drawings gently move.
05
Before final approval, the rights holder narrowed the priorities to three things: the Wolf Castle shot needed a sense of pulling back; all character details had to be accurate, including the scar position, the color of the fur on Wolnie's clothes and smooth fur; and the characters shouldn't frown.
We revised shot by shot against the checklist: the Wolf Castle shot became a slow pull-back; Wolnie's right cuff was changed to black in every shot it appeared in; and when generating video, we kept expressions like fierce or sly out of the prompts so both characters always looked cute.
From receiving the brief in early August through script revisions and sample clips to the August 28 broadcast at the gala, the whole project took less than a month.
06
When turning a 2D IP into 3D, the hard part isn't whether it looks 3D enough, but whether it's still the same character.
This time we worked out a method: list the features first, correct them in 2D, convert to plush, fix by hand, and generate video only after final approval. Every step can be checked item by item against the checklist, which gives the rights holder confidence during review.
After launch, the segment drew 18.994M views and 776K likes on Kuaishou alone, and 20M+ views and 800K+ likes across platforms.
For brands and rights holders, classic characters can make an appearance in a new texture through AI and still be recognized at a glance.
The final shot of the AI segment, before the film returns to the original 2D animation.
FAQ
In this project, we first turned the rights holder's design requirements into a checklist (scar position and count, hat patch, notched ear, mole, fur collar color, cuffs and so on). Each shot was corrected in 2D first, then converted to a felt texture, and finally restored item by item by an illustrator. Video was generated only after the approved frames were confirmed, so every shot could be checked against the checklist.
We received the brief in early August, revised the script and made sample clips with the client, finalized everything in late August based on the rights holder's feedback, and it aired on August 28 at CCTV.com's Qixi AI gala “AI Heartbeat Night,” less than a month in total.
At the rights holder's request, the AI segment uses a consistent plush 3D texture, with “Kling AI” labeled in the corner of the frame, so it's instantly distinguishable from the 2D original before and after; the character voices don't use AI.
Yes. In this film, fans' hand-drawn art was placed into the plush scroll as is, keeping the original brushwork, with only small movements added, such as blinking and hair drifting.
Approach
Characters and environments were handled separately: the 2D storyboards were first corrected against the characters' features, then converted to a felt texture; afterward, hand-painted fixes and color grading restored details on the sleeves, hats and faces. That way, during character review, every shot had appearance features that could be checked one by one.
In the animated segments, motion was planned shot by shot: the Wolf Castle shot slowly pulls back; in the Magpie Bridge segment, the characters' look was checked shot by shot; and the scroll unrolls slowly to both sides, with the fans' drawings keeping their original brushstrokes and only slight movement added. This keeps the characters recognizable and the pacing comfortable to watch.
More Work
Ideal for brand launches · public-sector communications · cultural-tourism campaigns · IP transformation · event openers · earnings visualization · social campaigns · AI workflow development
