Module 6: AI Image Generation
Master the image tools that create the visual foundation for all your AI videos. Learn the universal image prompt formula, character consistency techniques, and which tool to use for each task.
Why Images Come Before Videos
Understanding the image-first pipeline that professionals use
In AI filmmaking, images are the raw material for video. The image you generate becomes the first frame of your video clip — and AI video tools animate outward from that starting point. This means the quality, composition, and precision of your image directly determines the quality of your video.
A blurry, poorly composed, or inconsistent image will produce a blurry, poorly composed, or inconsistent video. A photorealistic, well-lit, expertly framed image will produce a cinematic video clip every time.
9 AI Image Tools — Full Comparison
Which tool to use for which visual outcome
🎨 Midjourney v7
Most visually poetic AI. Cinematic beauty, surreal textures, painterly depth. Best for stylised, mood-heavy visuals. V7 adds Omni-Reference for character consistency.
midjourney.com →🎯 DALL-E 3
Balanced realism and creativity. Best for product mockups, branding illustrations, and editorial content. Integrated into ChatGPT Pro for iterative refinement.
openai.com →🎥 Runway (Image)
Purpose-built for creators who will convert images to video. Upload up to 3 reference images. Designed for scene and character consistency across clips.
runwayml.com →🌐 Gemini / Imagen 3
Context-aware and narrative-aligned. Best for educational visuals, storyboard panels, and structured information-rich scenes. Tight Google integration.
gemini.google.com →🔥 Adobe Firefly
Commercially safe (trained on licensed content). Professional-grade. Tight integration with Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop for post-production.
adobe.com/firefly →⚡ Grok / Aurora
Real-time, trend-sensitive image generation. Strong for social-first content. Direct image-to-video pipeline within the X platform ecosystem.
x.com/grok →🌀 Google Whisk
Story-first image generation with storyboard panel support. Camera angle direction, character continuity, and scene-to-scene narrative connection.
labs.google →🎭 Ideogram
Best-in-class text rendering inside images. Ideal when your visual needs readable words, signs, labels, or typography as part of the composition.
ideogram.ai →🔧 Stable Diffusion
Open-source and self-hostable. Enormous community model library. Best for creators wanting full control, privacy, and offline generation capability.
stability.ai →The Universal Image Prompt Formula
Build prompts that produce consistently cinematic, production-ready images
Character Consistency Across Multiple Scenes
The techniques professionals use to keep characters looking identical across every clip
Keeping a character's face, body, clothing, and style consistent across 10 or 20 different scenes is the hardest technical challenge in AI filmmaking. These are the methods that actually work:
Method 1 — Midjourney Omni-Reference (Best for Midjourney)
In Midjourney v7, upload a portrait image as your session's Omni-Reference. Every image generated in that session will maintain the character's appearance. Generate all character scenes in one session before moving to video.
Method 2 — Runway Reference Images (Best for Runway)
Upload up to 3 reference images when starting a Runway generation. Runway uses them to anchor character appearance in every clip it generates from that reference set.
Method 3 — Hailuo Character Mode (Best for Video)
Hailuo MiniMax maintains face and body consistency across image-to-video generations better than any other video tool currently available. Upload your character portrait, write your scene prompt, and the generated video will maintain the character's appearance even through motion.
Method 4 — Luma Character Reference
In Luma Dream Machine, upload a character image and type @character in your scene prompt. Luma will anchor the generation to maintain that character's appearance.
Module 6 — Knowledge Check
Test your image generation understanding