How to Control Motion with Kling's Motion Brush

Paint motion paths directly onto an image in Kling to control exactly what moves and where.

8 minIntermediate

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The Motion Brush in Kling lets you paint over parts of an image and assign each painted area its own direction of movement. Instead of hoping a text prompt animates the right thing, you tell the model precisely which pixels should move and which should stay locked. This is the single biggest control upgrade in Kling.

What you need

A Kling account with Motion Brush access
An image with distinct regions you want to move separately
Patience for a couple of test renders
About 8 minutes

Step 1: Load the image and open Motion Brush

Start an Image to Video job, upload your image, then click the Motion Brush icon below the canvas. The image opens in a painting view with a brush, an eraser, and a small panel for assigning motion to each area you paint.

Kling - Motion Brush

Motion Brush Areas: 2 / 6

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[ Area 1: river ] motion: -> (flow right)

[ Area 2: clouds ] motion: <- (drift left)

[ Static mask: trees ] locked

Brush size: [====----] [ Add area ] [ Apply ]

Painting the river region and assigning a downstream direction.

Step 2: Paint your first moving area

Select Area 1 and paint over the first thing you want to move, for example a river. Keep your strokes inside the object's edges; bleeding onto neighbors causes them to smear. When the area is covered, drag the motion arrow in the direction it should travel.

Step 3: Add a second area with its own direction

Click Add area to create Area 2, then paint the clouds and set their arrow to drift the opposite way. Each area moves independently, which is how you get a river flowing right while clouds drift left in the same shot.

Lock what should stay still

Use a static mask on anything that must not move, like a face or a building edge. Locking it stops the model from accidentally animating it and is the easiest way to keep a shot looking clean.

Step 4: Add a light text prompt

Motion Brush works best with a short prompt that matches what you painted. Keep it minimal so it reinforces the brushed motion instead of fighting it.

brush-prompt.txt

calm landscape, river flowing gently, clouds drifting slowly,
trees and foreground remain still

Step 5: Generate and refine the masks

Render the clip. If an area moves too far or smears at its edge, go back, shrink the brushed region slightly, and reduce its arrow length. Two or three quick passes usually dials it in.

Kling - Result

[ > 0:00 / 0:05 ] landscape_brush.mp4

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River: flowing right Clouds: drifting left

Trees: static (no drift) [ Download ]

The rendered clip with independent motion per painted area.

Result

You get a landscape where the river and clouds move in opposite directions while the trees stay perfectly still, control that pure text prompting cannot deliver. The static mask is what separates a clean Motion Brush shot from a smeary one.