---

name: video-message description: Generate and send video messages with a lip-syncing VRM avatar. Use when user asks for video message, avatar video, video reply, or when TTS should be delivered as video instead of audio. metadata: { "openclaw": { "emoji": "🎥", "requires": { "bins": ["ffmpeg", "avatarcam"] }, "install": [ { "id": "npm", "kind": "npm", "package": "@thewulf7/openclaw-avatarcam", "global": true, "bins": ["avatarcam"], "label": "Install avatarcam (npm)", }, { "id": "brew", "kind": "brew", "formula": "ffmpeg", "bins": ["ffmpeg"], "label": "Install ffmpeg (brew)", }, { "id": "apt", "kind": "apt", "packages": ["xvfb", "xauth"], "label": "Install headless X dependencies (Linux only)", }, ], }, }

Video Message

Generate avatar video messages from text or audio. Outputs as Telegram video notes (circular format).

Installation

npm install -g openclaw-avatarcam

Configuration

Configure in TOOLS.md:

### Video Message (avatarcam)
- avatar: default.vrm
- background: #00FF00

Settings Reference

Prerequisites

System Dependencies

Note: macOS and Windows don't need xvfb — they have native display support.

Docker Users

Add to OPENCLAW_DOCKER_APT_PACKAGES:

build-essential procps curl file git ca-certificates xvfb xauth libgbm1 libxss1 libatk1.0-0 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgtk-3-0 libasound2 libnss3 ffmpeg

Usage

# With color background
avatarcam --audio voice.mp3 --output video.mp4 --background "#00FF00"

# With image background
avatarcam --audio voice.mp3 --output video.mp4 --background "./bg.png"

# With custom avatar
avatarcam --audio voice.mp3 --output video.mp4 --avatar "./custom.vrm"

Sending as Video Note

Use OpenClaw's message tool with asVideoNote:

message action=send filePath=/tmp/video.mp4 asVideoNote=true

Workflow

1. Read config from TOOLS.md (avatar, background)
2. Generate TTS if given text: tts text="..." → audio path
3. Run avatarcam with audio + settings → MP4 output
4. Send as video note via message action=send filePath=... asVideoNote=true
5. Return NO_REPLY after sending

Example Flow

User: "Send me a video message saying hello"

# 1. TTS
tts text="Hello! How are you today?" → /tmp/voice.mp3

# 2. Generate video
avatarcam --audio /tmp/voice.mp3 --output /tmp/video.mp4 --background "#00FF00"

# 3. Send as video note
message action=send filePath=/tmp/video.mp4 asVideoNote=true

# 4. Reply
NO_REPLY

Technical Details

Processing Pipeline

1. Electron renders VRM avatar with lip sync at 1280x720
2. WebM captured via canvas.captureStream(30)
3. FFmpeg processes: crop → fps normalize → scale → encode
4. Message tool sends via Telegram sendVideoNote API

Platform Support

Headless Rendering

Avatarcam auto-detects headless environments:

• Uses xvfb-run when $DISPLAY is not set (Linux only)
• macOS/Windows use native display
• GPU stall warnings are safe to ignore
• Generation time: ~1.5x realtime (20s audio ≈ 30s processing)

Notes

• Config is read from TOOLS.md
• Clean up temp files after sending: rm /tmp/video*.mp4
• For regular video (not circular), omit asVideoNote=true