So if you're trying to scale video content today,
you've probably run head first into this conflict.
You need these professional, realistic AI avatars,
maybe for marketing, maybe explainer videos,
but... Every platform seems like every single
one traps you pretty quickly. Yeah, it's the
extensive subscriptions, right? Yeah, and the
the credit limits they get you every time you
feel kind of locked in exactly and you realize
Wow, if I want to make say 50 videos this month,
you're gonna need a second mortgage Yeah, it's
nuts. But you know the core idea from the sources
you send over it's actually brilliant we can
like Completely sidestep that whole system right
and the promise here. It isn't just about getting
better avatars. It's about getting Well, unlimited
creative freedom and really cutting down the
costs. That's it. So today we're diving into
this custom three tool blueprint. The idea is
it turns this expensive limited process into
something faster, like an asset creation machine.
Yeah, that's the mission today. We're going to
unpack this workflow. It really focuses on consistency
first using a tool called NanoBanana, then smart
scripting using ChatGPT, and then finally bringing
in the heavy hitter for realism, that's Hagen,
but specifically with Google's VEO 3 .1 model
integrated. All right, let's unpack this then,
starting with the problem, the bottleneck, financially
and creatively. Why does just using one platform,
let's say, sticking only with Hagen, why does
that fail if your goal is serious scaled content?
Well, the single tool problem, it's like you're
paying the vendor for two really different things
at the same time. Okay. You're paying them for
the creation part, which is actually pretty costly
getting the avatar just right, the outfit, the
look. And then you're also paying them for the
final video render, that creation part. It just
burns through credits like crazy. And I guess
if you need just a small change, like the avatar
needs a blue shirt today instead of yesterday's
gray one. Exactly. You're basically paying for
creation all over again. You're stuck with their
options, their internal library. Any change means
another expensive credit burn. The whole trick
is to sort of decouple those two steps. Ah, so
the solution is don't start building the avatar
from scratch inside the expensive video app.
You pre -make it, pre -customize it somewhere
else first. Yeah, use cheaper tools or even free
ones to get the look right. Then you just import
the finished asset. It's a shift in where the
cost happens. It's just smart economics, really.
And that brings us right to the three tools.
NanoBanana is the base, the foundation. It makes
that consistent face, but lets you change everything
else. Clothes, backgrounds, emotions. It locks
the identity. Okay, tool one, identity lock.
Now tool two is ChatGPT. You call it the strategist.
Or like the creative director. It helps you generate
the perfect detailed instructions, the props
for NanoBanana. And crucially, it helps you write
conversational scripts. Scripts that actually
sound human. which is harder than it sounds.
And the final piece, the heavy lifting for the
video itself, that's left to Hagen. Yep, hey
Jen, but only for the final video render. You
feed it that pre -made image from NanoBanana,
and VEO 3 .1 turns that static picture into this
really lifelike video. But you skip the big creation
fee inside Hagen itself. OK, this makes sense.
The whole system seems to rely on separating
that cost. So why is the order of using these
three tools so critical? Why does it save money
and give more freedom? The order saves money
because creation happens before expensive video
rendering costs are applied, right? You front
load the free creation work. Got it. So step
one then nano banana you called it magic What
exactly is this thing and how does it fix that
big avatar problem the face changing all the
time? So nano banana, it's a pretty powerful
Google image model right now You can access it
for free inside Google AI studio, which is like
their testing area Okay, and it's killer feature.
The thing that makes it special is character
consistency character consistency That sounds
a bit like jargon maybe but it's the fix for
that image drift right where the face subtly
changes exactly It means keeping the person's
face, their core identity, precisely the same,
even when you change the outfit, the background,
the lighting, maybe even the expression slightly.
This is the big problem with other tools like,
say, DLA or Mid Journey. The face tends to wander
with each new prompt. You know, I still wrestle
with prompt drift myself sometimes, especially
when I try to keep things consistent across different
scenes, adding more details about the background
or whatever. That subtle face change, it's tough
to nail down. Yeah, it's a real frustration.
And it just shows why starting simple is usually
better. You upload a base image, a good clear
headshot works best. That acts as the identity
lock. Then you just start making variations,
unlimited variations, really. Can we run through
a couple of examples? Like, how different can
the variations be using the same face? For sure.
Take a simple headshot. Example one, you prompt.
Change the shirt to a dark red turtleneck sweater.
Put him in a cozy coffee shop with dim lights.
Boom. Same face. Totally new context. Takes like
15 seconds. And what if I need that same person,
that same face, but for like a professional pitch
video? Easy. Same face, new prompt. Change the
outfit to a sharp gray suit and tie. The background
is a modern office skyscraper lobby. Bright window
light, done. You could honestly generate 50 versions
for 50 different uses in maybe an hour. The source
has also mentioned trying to avoid that kind
of generic, too polished AI look. What are the
best practices for prompts to get more realism
with Nano Banana? OK, yeah, good point. Be specific
with the details. Like, don't just say jacket,
say black leather jacket. And. Crucially, you
have to proactively add phrases about realism.
Things like natural imperfections or subtle skin
texture. Oh, OK. And definitely avoid telling
the AI to make it flawless or perfect. That's
like a direct ticket to the uncanny valley. It
looks weird. Right. So if you had to pick just
one prompt phrase, what's the most important
one for fighting that super smooth, uncanny AI
look? Adding subtle texture details like film
grain combats the uncanny to perfect AI look.
Film grain. interesting okay moving to step two
Chad GPT we're using it for more than just writing
the script right you said like the architect
yeah exactly we use it to build the characters
do it okay scaffolding let's call it like what's
their persona is this avatar a serious finance
analyst or I don't know it chill fitness guru.
ChatGPT helps define their style, maybe common
phrases they'd use. It makes them feel more believable
than just some random face. And it also helps
engineer the prompts for Nano Banana. Massively
speeds things up. You can tell ChatGPT, hey,
I need five detailed prompt ideas for professional
tennis coach avatar. Give me different settings.
And boom, it structures them for you. On the
court, in the locker room, doing a practice drill,
maybe an interview setup, you're not staring
at a blank page trying to think of variations
every single time. This is also where we tackle
that robot voice problem you hear in so many
AI videos. Why do they often sound so stiff?
Well, usually it's because people write the scripts
like they're writing a formal email. Yeah. All
proper and buttoned up. Right. We have to specifically
tell chat GPT, use a casual tone, use the first
person, make the avatar say I. and really aim
for a conversational flow, like how people actually
talk. And even if ChatGPT drafts the script,
those editing tips you mentioned sound, well,
non -negotiable. Oh, absolutely critical. Use
simple words like use instead of utilize. Keep
sentences short, lots of contractions, don't,
can't. That's conversational. And the number
one test, read the script out loud yourself.
If you stumble over the words, or if it sounds
formal coming out of your mouth, the AI voice
is going to sound even more unnatural. So it's
not just generating prompts, it's building this
reusable character library framework. Beyond
the scripting part, how else does ChatGPT really
save time in this whole avatar creation process?
It dramatically speeds up the process by creating
reusable, customizable prompt templates immediately.
Got it. Reusable templates, makes sense. Minroll
sponsor, Read Placeholder. Welcome back to the
Deep Dive. Okay, so we've got our consistent
custom avatar images made with NanoBanana, and
we've planned out a natural conversational script
using Chad GPT's help. Now for the final step.
actually bringing that avatar to life using VEO
3 .1 inside Heygen. Right, this is where it all
comes together. We take that nice clean avatar
image we made for free, remember using Nano Banana,
and we upload that into Heygen. We're effectively
skipping Heygen's own more expensive avatar creation
step entirely. And this integration of Google's
VEO 3 .1 model into Heygen, it's being talked
about as a real leap forward in realism. What
specifically makes VEO 3 .1 technically better
than the older models? It really comes down to
about three key upgrades. First is just superior
realism. It renders in sharp 1080p, yeah. But
the big thing is it uses a much larger understanding
of context to figure out lighting and textures.
So you get these hyper -natural shadows, subtle
skin details. It looks much more lifelike. Okay,
better textures and light. What's second? Second
is Perfect Sync. The audio track and the video,
the lip movements, they're generated together
as one unit. This pretty much eliminates that
weird robotic mouth movement or the slight delay
you used to see all the time. Yeah, that lip
sync issue was always the dead giveaway you were
watching an AI video. It totally was. And the
third thing is branding consistency. Because
we're starting with that locked nano -bena image,
VDO 3 .1 does a much better job of maintaining
that exact look across lots of separate videos,
which is huge if you're doing, say, a marketing
campaign and need the same spokesperson intended.
different ads. That claim, perfect sync, sounds
almost too good to be true. Are there edge cases
where VEO 3 .1 might still have trouble, like
really fast talking or strong accents? It's definitely
excellent VEO 3 .1 is. But yeah, extremely rapid
speech or maybe some very distinct localized
accents, those can still occasionally challenge
the model a little bit. The safest approach is
just to keep the scripts at a pretty normal conversational
speaking pace. Whoa. But just imagine scaling
this whole system. You could potentially produce,
I don't know, thousands of localized video ads
really quickly, like for global campaigns. You
could A -B test different emotional deliveries,
different regional languages, all while using
the exact same spokesperson's face. That consistency,
that's like... Exponential value. It completely
changes the ROI calculation for your creative
assets, yeah. And because we're only paying Hagen
for that final render step, we're skipping the
most credit -intensive part of the process. OK,
on a practical note, what's the longest continuous
video clip VEO 3 .1 can currently generate in
Hagen before you have to cut and start a new
segment? VEO 3 .1 allows for single continuous
video segments up to 60 seconds long. 60 seconds.
Oh, no. OK. Good to know. Now let's talk troubleshooting.
Because when you set up a system like this, multi
-tool systems, things inevitably go wrong sometimes.
People hit snacks. Instead of just listing problems,
maybe we can group the fixes. First, what about
fixing issues with the image quality coming out
of NanoBanana? OK, yeah. If NanoBanana gives
you a weird face, like distorted features or
something odd, the first fix is usually just
simplify your prompt. Don't try to describe the
entire universe in one go. Right. Focus on the
face first. A young woman. Neutral expression,
soft lighting, get that right. Then start adding
complexity like outfits or backgrounds. And what
if you get a great image from Nano Banana, you're
happy with it, but then Hagen rejects it when
you try to upload. That's almost always resolution.
Hagen needs a minimum image size, typically a
24 by 124 pixels. So the fix is simple. Before
you upload to Hagen, run your Nano Banana image
through a free online upscaler tool. OK, good
tip. It just blows the image up to the right
size. Don't skip that prep step. It saves headaches.
All right, now for some of the more advanced
stuff, the pro tips from the source material,
let's talk about building an avatar team. What's
the idea there? Yeah, this is cool for maybe
an explainer video series where you want multiple
hosts that look like they belong together. The
key is what the source called. prompt parallelism
prompt parallelism yeah basically you create
the different characters but you make sure the
prompts you use are structurally very similar
like use the same lighting style description
the same overall camera angle phrasing you only
change small details hair color shirt color maybe
slight facial structure tweaks they end up looking
like they're from the same show or universe ah
maintaining stylistic consistency through the
prompts makes sense you also mentioned combining
image elements like taking a hairstyle from one
photo and an outfit from another. Yeah, that's
leveraging Nano Banana's ability to use reference
images. You can point it to one picture and say,
use this hairstyle, point to another and say,
use this jacket, all while keeping your main
avatar's face locked from the original upload.
It's pretty powerful for customization. And the
last practical fix, dealing with small errors.
Like if the AI generates weird fingers or strange
eyes, but the rest of the image is perfect. Yeah,
that's where inpainting comes in. Inpainting
basically means you tell the AI, hey, regenerate
only this tiny spot right here, like the weird
finger or shadow that looks off without messing
up the rest of the picture. Tools like Canva
or the Photoshop Beta have features for this.
It saves you re -rendering the whole thing just
to fix one little glitch. OK, so when you're
building that avatar team and aiming for a cohesive
look, what's the single most important element
to keep similar across the prompts for the different
characters? Keeping the prompts similar ensures
a matching look across the entire cast of avatars.
Right, the stylistic elements in the prompt.
So let's zoom out. What does this whole three
-tool blueprint ultimately give someone, a content
creator, a marketer? What's the big, so what?
Well, fundamentally, it delivers efficiency,
quality, and adaptability. You're getting genuine
cost savings. You're getting effectively unlimited
creative variations on your avatars. And you're
getting really high visual quality, thanks to
that VEO 3 .1 integration. Practically, it means
you can easily A -B test different avatar styles.
maybe male versus female, casual versus formal.
You can do that across different campaigns, different
regions, different languages, even. So it shifts
the avatar from just being a visual in one video
to being more like a strategic asset you can
deploy in many ways. For creators, maybe they
can build a consistent brand with multiple hosts
without needing actors or complex licensing.
Exactly. It's like building an asset library
powerhouse. It really transforms your whole approach.
You go from slow, expensive, and limited to being
rapid, strategic, and pretty expansive in what
you can create. You know, the real takeaway for
me here isn't just the cost savings, though that's
huge. It's the speed, the potential speed of
asset creation. The sources suggest once you
get comfortable with this flow, you could generate
maybe 20 or more unique ready to go avatar images
in less than half an hour. Yeah, it totally shifts
your focus. You stop worrying about budgeting
credits minute by minute, and you start thinking
about building this digital factory of potential
spokespeople. Just imagine having, say, 50 unique
Consistent characters ready to deploy. Tailored
for any situation you need a serious lawyer avatar.
Got it. An enthusiastic team for a different
campaign. Got it. Fitness guru, corporate CEO,
all sitting in your library ready to be turned
into high quality video for fractions of what
it used to cost. You could actually start building
that library today. The tools are out there.
They're mostly accessible. The method seems pretty
well proven according to the source. Time to
start creating. Out T -Row music.