I’d like to use the diagrams created by Shot Designer to produce storyboards and pre-visualization images. So far, AI has been a disappointment. It obviously can’t interpret basic geometry. (Really, no surprise there. It’s LLM-based.)
But, I thought I’d ask if anyone else has been successful generating storyboards or previs using Shot Designer? Thanks.
Hi Carlo,
That’s what Shot Designer 3D, launching late in the year. In order for AI to work, it needs to be bootstrapped from a physical world where you can control the movement and performance, so Shot Designer is a 3D film studio where you work out the sets and performances, and prompt the rendering of individual objects, resulting in AI-quality rendering where you’re in completely control.
It’s our hypothesis that in order for someone to seriously make a movie using AI, you’d have to develop what we’ve been working on for years. It becomes a central place where you pull together procedural animation, AI generated animation, motion capture (so you can bring actors in to perform in the scene), AI generated objects, and prompt-based rendering etc, so you get to work in a stable reality. And then it has real-time collaboration, so one person can move the character while another person moves the lights.
Per
Hi Per,
Yes, that sounds like it would be of great use. I currently subscribe to nearly all AI services, and none of them are any good for true production workflow. They are more or less “toys” for people who want to fool around with AI videos, not for serious produciton.
What’s interesting is that HCW should be able to encompass the full workflow, given Causality as the starting point. Beats->scenes->storylines->script->shots->storyboards->actors/objects/locations->previs/start-frames->AI generated video.
All within the same tool.
The reason they must be the same tool is that every step the writer/director often goes back and makes changes to beats/scenes, which then change the shots, that change storyboards, etc.
In the meantime, my workflow requires using FrameForge to generate shot angles that I use as reference frames into AI for storyboards and previs.
Hi,
Yes, more or less like that. Causality and Shot Designer won’t be the same program, but they’ll be BFFs, and the idea is exactly to be able to write a scene, shoot it, rewrite it, reshoot it, assembly all the outputs in Causality and then press play on the script.
Shot Designer is a bit more ambitious than just previz. We want this to be a place where all of AI and human creativity comes together, and where you’d actually be able to shoot a real movie. On the AI side, we generate anything from animation to sets to characters to voices. On the human side, the actors can literally motion capture into the app, and it’s real-time collaboration, so that one person moves the lights while another moves the cameras.
The problem for all AI is that a prompt is an awful way to describe choreography, and it’s impossible to get specific about anything. What makes a movie work is that it’s dripping with intent and specificity. Someone wanted that thing there exactly this way. Specificity is what makes a movie feel like a movie, but prompt-based AI can’t capture it. You need to be in control of the space, and you need to be able to change anything individually without breaking everything else. AI with an underpinning of 3D works, and Shot Designer makes that very easy.
Per