Characters

A character is someone who appears in your film. You describe them once — with photographs if you have them — and cutipAI generates a character sheet: a turnaround, head studies and close-ups of any marks. Every first frame and video that tags the character uses that sheet, so they look like the same person from shot to shot.

Create a character

1. Click Characters in the rail on the left of the editor, then +. The new character opens in the inspector.

2. On the Profile tab, give the character a Username — one word, which is how you tag them with @ in a prompt. Then set their Age, Kind, Body plan, Gender and Height.

3. On the Appearance tab, add Reference images, and describe the rest: build, hair, eyes, skin tone, distinctive marks and Wardrobe.

The more you fill in, the more accurate and consistent the character will be.

Reference photos

Reference images has two tabs, and they are separate sets:

• Face — photographs of one face. Front-on works best; add a profile for stronger side views.
• Body — full-length images. With the Face tab empty, these are used whole, so they can be the entire character.

Generate the character sheet

1. Open the Generate tab. Choose a Style, and write the Appearance prompt — or click the sparkle button to have one written from the details you filled in.

2. Click Generate character sheet. Once a sheet exists the button reads Regenerate sheet.

   

   

The sheet is marked outdated when you change the character after it was made. Its other controls:

• Upscale sheet to 4K — a sharper copy of the sheet. Paid.
• Repair turnaround faces — redraws the small faces in the turnaround so they match the face photos and the head close-ups. Paid.
• Versions — every sheet you have generated. Click Restore on one to use it again.

Already have a sheet you drew or made elsewhere? Tick Import your own character sheet and Browse for it instead.

Outfits and styles

Once a character has a sheet, you can give them more looks without starting again.

• Add a new outfit adds a wardrobe section to the Appearance tab: the same character in different clothes. Describe the outfit, then click Generate character sheet with this outfit.
• Add a new style draws the same character in another visual style. Choose the Style, then click Generate sheet.

Adding an outfit or a style is free; generating its sheet is paid.

A voice

On the Voice tab, design the voice the character speaks with. Their dialogue on the storyboard is recorded in it. See The storyboard.

Viewing and editing a sheet

Hover over a sheet and click Edit to open it in the image editor. The hand tools — paint, transform, text, shapes, adjustments, filters and Expand canvas — are free; Generate, Remove, Fill empty areas, Upscale and Remove background spend credit.

1. Click Edit on the sheet. The picture opens as its first layer, Base image.
2. Choose Brush (B), set its size, hardness, flow and colour, and paint. Your first stroke adds a layer called Paint 1 above the picture, so the picture itself is never painted on. A pen's pressure changes the width of the line.
3. Choose Eraser (E) to remove paint you added on the selected paint layer. It never erases the original picture.
4. Choose Colour picker (I), or hold Alt with the brush, and click the picture to take a colour.
5. Choose Clone stamp (S). Hold Alt and click where it should copy from, then paint: the brush copies that part of the picture. Sample chooses whether it copies the original picture or everything visible, including layers above. Clone strokes land on a paint layer, so the eraser can take them away.
6. Choose Transform (V), or press Ctrl+T, to move, scale or rotate the selected layer — the original picture included. Drag inside the box to move it, a corner to scale it (hold Shift to change its proportions), or just outside a corner to rotate it. Type exact values in X, Y, W, H and Angle, or nudge the layer with the arrow keys (hold Shift to move 10 px at a time). Enter applies, Esc cancels.
7. Choose Text (T) and click the picture to place a text layer. Type the Words, then set Size, Weight (Regular or Semibold), Font (Sans or Mono) and Colour. Enter applies the words; click another text layer to edit it instead, and use Transform to move or scale it.
8. Choose Shape (U; Shift+U switches between Rectangle and Ellipse) and drag on the picture to draw it — hold Shift for a square or a circle. Set Fill, or tick None for no fill, and an Outline colour and width; a width of 0 draws no outline. Use Transform to move, scale or rotate it.
9. Add adjustment adds Exposure, Contrast, Saturation, Temperature or Curves above the selected layer. It changes everything beneath it — tick Clip to layer below to change only the layer directly beneath. On Curves, click the curve to add a point and drag it; press Delete or double-click a point to remove it, and use the arrow keys to nudge the selected point.
10. Under Add adjustment, the Filters group adds Blur, Sharpen, Noise, Vignette, Black & white or Sepia above the selected layer. Blur, Sharpen, Noise and Vignette have their own Radius or Amount slider; Black & white and Sepia have none — control their strength with the layer's Opacity. Tick Clip to layer below to affect only the layer directly beneath.
11. Choose Rectangle select (M; Shift+M switches it to Ellipse select), Ellipse select, or Lasso (L), then drag to draw a selection — it replaces whatever was selected before. Hold Shift while dragging a rectangle or ellipse to constrain it to a square or circle, and click without dragging to clear the selection. Ctrl+A selects everything, Ctrl+D deselects, and Ctrl+Shift+I inverts it. In Selection, Feather softens the selection's edge, Select all, Deselect and Invert repeat the shortcuts above, and Mask selected layer hides the selected picture or paint layer outside the selection, in one undo step.
12. Type what to change in the prompt bar at the bottom, then click Generate to change the selected area to match your prompt, or Remove to erase what is selected and fill it to match its surroundings — Remove needs a selection. Both show their Estimated cost when you hover over them, on keyboard focus, or press and hold on a touchscreen, and Not enough credit shows if your balance is short. The result arrives as a new layer that only shows inside the selection — Undo removes the layer but does not refund. With no selection, Generate edits the whole picture, and a very large selection warns that more than what you selected may change. With an inverted selection the whole picture is redrawn and only the area outside your selection changes.
13. In Layers, click a layer to select it, double-click it — or focus it and press F2 — to rename it, use the eye to hide it, and the arrows to move it up or down. Opacity and Blend change the selected layer. Add layer adds an empty paint layer.
14. Click Expand canvas… below Layers. Enter a margin in pixels for Top, Right, Bottom and Left — leave a side at 0 to leave it alone — then click Expand. It adds transparent space around the picture; everything already on it stays exactly where it is. Expanding canvas is free.
15. When part of the sheet lies outside the original picture — after Expand canvas…, for example — Fill empty areas appears in the prompt bar. Click it to continue the picture into the empty space; it needs no prompt and no selection, and only the area outside the original picture changes. It shows its Estimated cost when you hover over it, on keyboard focus, or press and hold on a touchscreen, and Not enough credit shows if your balance is short. The result arrives as a new layer called Filled area — Undo removes the layer but does not refund.
16. Click Upscale… below Layers. The whole stack becomes one layer, enlarged to 4K (2160 pixels high). Upscale shows its Estimated cost when you hover over it, on keyboard focus, or press and hold on a touchscreen, and Not enough credit shows if your balance is short. Undo brings the layers back, but does not refund the upscale. Upscale… is unavailable when the picture is already 2160 pixels high or more, because it would not get any larger, or when at 2160 pixels high it would be wider than the editor can hold — crop it narrower first. Hover over the button to see which.
17. Select a picture layer, then click Remove background below Layers to cut its subject out from its background. It shows its Estimated cost when you hover over it, on keyboard focus, or press and hold on a touchscreen, and Not enough credit shows if your balance is short. While it runs, click Cancel: a job that has not started yet is skipped for free, and one already running stops as soon as it can — if a result comes back anyway, it was already charged, so it still lands. The result becomes a mask on the layer rather than a permanent edit, and the picture stays underneath it. With the masked layer selected, a Mask section appears beside Opacity and Blend: Invert keeps the background and hides the subject instead, Feather softens the cut edge, and Remove mask brings the background back — all three are free. Undo removes the mask but does not refund the removal itself. If it could not be applied, choose Apply it again — it is already paid for — or Discard; Save waits until you choose.
18. Undo and Redo step back and forward (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z). While Generate, Remove, Fill empty areas, Upscale or Remove background is running they wait, so the result lands on the picture it was made for.
19. Click Save. The edited picture becomes the sheet, and the previous one is kept — Revert brings it back, with its layers. If you hid Base image, you are asked first: a hidden layer is left out of what you save, so anything no other layer covers comes out transparent. You are also asked first if the original picture no longer covers the whole sheet — moving or scaling it with Transform can leave an edge transparent the same way. Choose Save anyway or Keep editing. While a generation is still running, saving and closing the editor wait for it.

Zoom with Ctrl+= and Ctrl+−, fit with Ctrl+0, see actual pixels with Ctrl+Alt+0, and hold Space to pan with any tool while no control has focus — click the picture first if a slider or field is active. Past the preview's resolution the editor draws the picture sharply. If the picture cannot be opened, click Try again. The image editor needs a wide screen: on a narrow one, use View full size instead.

Remove a character

Hover over the character's card and click ×, or right-click it and choose Delete. If the character has photos, you are asked first: deleting removes all of the character's data and generated images. Duplicate, on the same menu, makes a copy to vary.