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Set Generation

One image per scene. Generate it, describe it, or upload your own — and what approving commits.

A set in StoryDirector is one image per scene — and every shot in that scene is built on it. Get the set right and the scene inherits it. Get it wrong and no amount of prompt editing on individual shots will recover the look.

Why there is one image per scene, not one per shot

StoryDirector groups your shots by continuity. The first shot of each group — the one that establishes a place — gets a set image. The shots that follow it continue from the previous shot's frame, so they inherit the place rather than re-establishing it.

That is why you see fewer set cards than shots, and it is deliberate: generating a fresh image for every shot in a scene is exactly how a location stops looking like one location.

Describing the place

Each set card has a description field, and the placeholder tells you the rule: describe the place — not the people or the props that arrive later.

This is the most common mistake on this screen. A set is where the scene happens: the room, the light, the weather, the era, the state of repair. Your characters arrive by a different route entirely, and props that appear during the action are the shot's business, not the set's. Putting people into a set description tends to bake them into the backdrop of every shot in the scene.

Do

  • Describe the space, its light and its condition — "a stripped-back workshop, north light, sawdust on everything".
  • Say the time of day and the weather if they matter.
  • Name the era or the period if the story has one.

Don't

  • Put your characters in it — they are cast separately and arrive per shot.
  • Describe an action happening in it; a set is a place, not a moment.
  • List props that only appear later in the scene.

Saving is free

Save description costs nothing and can be done as often as you like. Only generating an image spends anything — so write the words, save them, and generate once you are happy with them.

If a scene has no set image yet, your saved words are not lost — they wait, and ride into the first generation when you make one.

The free generation

The first set image for each scene is free. Making another one for that scene uses credits, and the button says so — it changes from Generate Set to Generate New Set (uses credits) once the free one is gone.

Generation runs while you wait and takes about half a minute. The card shows an honest in-flight state for exactly as long as the work is running — there is no fake progress bar.

Wait for it to finish

All the buttons on a set card share one queue. Clicking another one while a generation is running does not cancel it — it stacks behind it, and a second paid generation can be the result. Let it finish.

Uploading your own set

You do not have to generate. If you have a photograph, a plate, a concept render or a location scout, you can upload it and the scene will be built on that instead.

  1. Choose an image Any standard image file up to 10 MB. 16:9 landscape matches the video frame best — anything else will be fitted into it.
  2. Confirm you have the right to use it A required checkbox. StoryDirector records that confirmation with the upload.
  3. Upload and use The upload is approved on arrival — there is no separate approval step for an image you chose yourself.

An uploaded set does not consume the scene's free generation, so you keep that in reserve. And if you later generate over an upload, StoryDirector asks first — replacing an image you supplied is not something it will do quietly.

Approving a set

A generated set needs approving. Approval means exactly what it says: every shot in this scene will use it.

Before you approve, open the image at full size. The set is the quality ceiling for the entire scene — every shot rendered from it inherits its lighting, its geometry and its mistakes. A detail you can ignore in a thumbnail becomes a detail in twelve shots.

Do

  • Enlarge every set image before approving it.
  • Check the light direction matches what the scene needs.
  • Regenerate now if it is wrong — it is far cheaper than re-rendering shots later.

Don't

  • Approve from the thumbnail.
  • Accept a set that is "close enough" — the whole scene inherits it.
  • Leave a failed generation sitting; retry it or upload your own.

If a generation fails

The card says so plainly and offers you the two useful options: try again, or upload your own. A failed generation is not a dead end for the scene.

Next

Sets and cast are the two crafts on the same screen. The Director Review covers that screen as a whole and what approving it commits you to.

Previous Character Generation & Identity Next The Director Review

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