Have you ever tried to make an AI film where
your main character, the one you spent ages designing
Just changes faces in every other scene. Oh,
that issue of character consistency. It is probably
the biggest and most frustrating hurdle in the
field right now. It just kills the immersion.
It completely takes you out of it. But we have
the golden key today, a trick called the three
by three grid that locks the look right from
the first picture. OK, let's unpack this. We're
diving deep into a guide that's designed to fix
that problem for good. That's right. Our listener,
you, shared these really comprehensive notes
on mastering character consistency in AI filmmaking.
Our goal here is to move past those, you know,
blurry changing versus and produce something
that looks truly professional. We'll analyze
the tools. We're going to break down this complex
prompt formula into five clear parts and walk
through the workflow. We're aiming for films
that look polished, not like a collection of
random photos. Exactly. You know, character consistency
isn't just a technical thing. It's the key to
storytelling. If your detective girl's yellow
coat suddenly turns orange or her face changes,
the whole film just looks unprofessional. So
the three by three grid is basically a blueprint
for that. Instead of one photo, we're creating
a kind of reference sheet with nine different
camera angles all at once. And that's how we
lock the look. So what tools are powering this?
The source suggests three crucial pieces of software.
Right. First up is dzine .ai. Think of it as
the creative hub built for filmmakers. It's what
handles the character control. OK. Second is
topaz gigapixel. This tool does something called
upscaling. which just means making your images
bigger, like 2x or 4x, but without losing quality.
Exactly. It adds back details, like strands of
hair. And then finally, for movement, you turn
those high quality photos into smooth video using
tools like Lumadri Machine or Runaway Gen 2.
So why is generating a nine -shot reference sheet
better than just, you know, generating nine separate
images of the same character? Because the AI
uses its internal memory, its short -term state,
to maintain uniformity across that entire single
page, it keeps it all consistent. Okay, this
is the real heart of the process. A short, messy
prompt means the AI is just going to fail. We
need what the source calls an unbeatable formula,
split into five clear parts. And before you even
write anything, you have to set up the workspace
in dzine .ai. Specifically, choosing the 1 .1,
the square aspect ratio. Right. Why is that?
A square shape just keeps those nine frames neat.
It prevents the AI from cutting off the character's
head or feet. Ah, that makes sense. Okay, so
part one of the prompt. It's the command. A cinematic
3x3 grid presenting multiple camera angles. That
tells the AI to divide the image into netting
sections. Simple. Part two is what you call the
detail bomb. Subject and location. Yeah, don't
just say a girl. Describe her hair, her eye color,
the material of her clothes, any scars. The more
detail you give it, the better the AI remembers
her. And part three is where the magic happens.
The nine specific camera angles. This makes sure
your reference sheet is really versatile. You
absolutely need these. You need an extreme close
-up of the eyes, a medium shot from the waist
up and over the shoulder, a wide shot, high angle
top down, and a low angle, which makes the character
look powerful. Right. Right. And then you need
the side views, too. The profile, a 3 quarter
rear view, and a full back view. If you skip
those, the AI just improvises when your character
turns around. And it's usually not good. OK,
here's where it gets really interesting. Part
four is cinema style and lighting. Things like
volumetric fog, cinematic lighting, moody blue
and orange. This is what Hollywood Eyes is the
result. And it locks in the color palette. It's
the glue. And then the final piece, part five,
the cleanup command, images stacked together
with no grid lines and no borders, no text. That
no text part is so vital it saves you so much
time later. The source gives this great example
of a cyberpunk warrior prompt that uses all five
parts. It just works. It works. So what happens
if I skip the lighting keywords? What's the immediate
consequence for my character? The lack of those
lighting details will cause skin and clothes
colors to change between scenes. Totally breaking
the flow. OK, so we're moving from theory to
application. We've made our 3x3 reference sheet.
The source says you do a quality check, making
sure details like eye color are about 80 % to
90 % similar across the nine boxes. And once
you've got that, the true secret is the character
reference feature inside dzine .ai. OK. You save
that successful 3x3 grid image, then you upload
it using the little person icon button. And once
it's uploaded, the AI now remembers the character.
Yes. It has that file to check against. So now
you can write short new prompts like, the girl
is walking in the rain, and the AI automatically
applies the face from your reference grid to
that new scene. This whole process is so much
faster than traditional filmmaking. Oh, it's
not even close. After you master the workflow,
the source suggests a full one -minute AI film
takes only about two to three hours. Two to three
hours. It's incredible. And after creating those
new scenes, we need to upgrade them. That's where
Topaz Gigapixel comes in. Right, for the upscaling.
You drag the photos in, you choose 4x enlargement,
and critically you select face recovery. That
face recovery setting is what makes the eyes
and skin look really, really real. It turns a
good image into a high quality professional film
asset. So what if I generate my grid? but one
hand looks totally strange in the bottom right
box. Do we have to restart everything? No, you
don't. You can use the local edit tool to just
brush over that area and fix that single box.
All right. Let's move on to the pitfalls, the
traps. The source warns against the prompt is
too short trap. Right. This is for the scenes
after you've made the grid. Exactly. If you don't
detail the dirty green uniform or the old map
in the character's hands. The AI will just randomly
change the look. You have to keep giving it that
context. Yeah, I still wrestle with prompt drift
myself, especially when I'm shifting environments.
You have to treat that initial prompt like a
detailed map for the AI to follow every single
time. That's a great way to put it. And another
huge mistake is changing the lighting. Lighting
is the glue that creates continuity. So if you
start with soft fog, And then switch to harsh
midday sun. The colors will break. The film will
feel disjointed. Completely. And the simple technical
error, forgetting no text or no borders. We mentioned
this, but it's so important. The AI is trained
on labeled data, so it tries to sneak in random
words. And if your initial grid has any text
on it, the source says to just scrap it. Generate
a new, clean one. So what does this all mean,
really? Beyond just the creative side, there
are real monetary applications here. Absolutely.
When you achieve character consistency, this
becomes a viable skill. You can create ads for
businesses. You could start YouTube story channels.
Or sell the character concept art to game developers.
Right. They need this stuff. Does this workflow
require, like, a specialized gaming or rendering
computer to even get started? Not usually. Most
of the complex work happens online, though a
good GPU definitely speeds up that Topaz upscaling
part. So the big takeaway here is control. I
mean, AI filmmaking can look like magic, but
consistency is all about structure. The 3x3 grid
shifts the whole process from just random generation
to predictable, repeatable character design.
We found the specific steps. Use that 1 .1 ratio,
apply the five -part prompt formula, and then
use the character reference feature to teach
the AI what your character looks like. And that's
the whole game. What's fascinating to me is just
how quickly this field is evolving. We're talking
about automating one of the hardest parts of
visual art. Whoa. Imagine scaling this core workflow
to a billion queries. It's staggering to think
about. Yeah. And the source material ends by
asking, you know, what's next? Should it be adding
voices and music? Which raises a really important
question. If the visual consistency is locked
down, how do we ensure the audio consistency?
That's a whole other deep dive. Yeah. For now,
we hope this look at character consistency helps
you realize your imagination can come to life
faster than ever before. Go out there, try it,
make mistakes. and try again. Thanks for sharing
your sources with us for this deep dive.