Compose with Image Studio and Video Studio

The Anatomy reference sheets workflow works. In this lesson you make it readable for the next person, with named and colored groups and a sticky note, then put the four sheets side by side on one reference sheet with the Image Studio composer node. Image Studio doesn't generate anything: it places images you already have, so the layout is exact and repeats on every run.

Before you start

• The workflow from the earlier lessons, with its four sheets already generated: 4. Output C - Anatomy, 4. Output B - Pencil, 4. Output A - Gray Sculpt and 4. Output D - Textured. See Batches, loops and logic.
• Where it lives. Workflows › Workflows in the top bar, Project tab.
• Two kinds of tidy. Groups and sticky notes change nothing in a run; they make the graph easy to read. A composer node is part of the run: its layout applies to every image that flows through it.

Step 1: Open the workflow and make room

Open Anatomy reference sheets from the Project tab and click Switch to Edit Mode. The four sheets are still on their nodes: the workflow saves as you work, results included.

Press Cmd+0 to fit the graph, then minus for some room. Nudge two of the sheets down so nothing overlaps.

Step 2: Group the style prompts

Choose the Select tool (the arrow in the right toolbar) and drag a box around the four style prompts. A Create Group button appears over the selection; click it or press Cmd+G.

Step 3: Name and color the group

Hover the group to show its toolbar, and open its ... menu:

• Run This Group runs only the nodes inside.
• Rename changes the label at the top of the group. You can also click the label.
• Duplicate copies the group and its nodes.
• Color gives the group a color.
• Clear Node Contents empties the prompts, inputs and results of the nodes inside.
• Collapse Nodes folds the nodes down to their title bars.
• Ungroup removes the group and keeps the nodes.

Name this one 2. Style Prompts and give it a color. Group labels show in capitals on the canvas.

Step 4: Group the rest

Do the same for the other columns, each with its own color:

1. The four Prompt Builders: 3. Prompt Assembly.
2. The four generators: 4. Outputs.
3. The character and the framing rule: 1. Input.

Number the groups so the reading order is obvious: input, style prompts, prompt assembly, outputs, from left to right.

Step 5: Leave a note

Press Shift+N for a sticky note. Say what the workflow does and what to edit, for example how to read it (left to right), what goes in, and the four sheets that come out. Sticky notes don't process anything; they are there for the next person.

The note, as typed:

HOW THIS WORKFLOW WORKS - read left to right

Turns ONE character illustration into 4 artist reference sheets: a gray sculpt, a pencil sketch, a pencil sketch with anatomy overlay, and a fully textured sculpt.

1. INPUT: drop your character image. The Full Body + 9:16 text forces a full-body 9:16 frame; delete its text to keep the original framing.
2. STYLE PROMPTS: one prompt per look. Edit these to change a look.
3. PROMPT ASSEMBLY: each builder joins one style with the framing rule. Nothing to edit.
4. OUTPUTS: four generators, each built from the sheet before it. Press Run.

Step 6: Add Image Studio

Open the node list with + in the right toolbar. Under Composers there are two nodes: Video Studio for clips, and Image Studio for images. Add Image Studio.

Step 7: Wire in the four sheets

Wire the four sheets into Image Studio 1 in reading order: anatomy, pencil, gray sculpt, textured. A new layer port appears each time you connect one. The order of the wires is the order of the layers: the first input is the bottom layer, and each later one goes on top.

Step 8: Set the canvas first

Click Edit Image on the node. The editor has the Layers list on the left (Canvas, then Layer 1 to Layer 4), the preview in the middle and the settings of the selected item on the right.

Select Canvas and set its Dimensions first. Here each sheet is 941 × 1672, so four sheets side by side need W 3764 (4 × 941) and H 1672. If you skip this, the canvas keeps the size of the first layer and the other sheets fall outside it.

Step 9: Place each layer with exact numbers

Select each layer and type its position under Transform:

Each sheet sits one width to the right of the last. Typed numbers, not dragging, are what make every run land in the same place.

The settings panel of a layer has more than position:

• Transform: Position (X, Y), Dimensions (W, H) with Keep aspect ratio, Fit to canvas, Scale, an Alignment grid of nine points, and Rotation.
• Appearance: Opacity, 0 to 100.
• Effects: Blur, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Grayscale and Border radius.

Click Save & Close. Cancel leaves without keeping the changes.

Step 10: Run just this node

Select the Image Studio node and press Cmd+Enter to run only the selected node. The four sheets are already made, so nothing else runs. A few seconds later you have one reference sheet, ready to share.

The sheet stays on the node, like every result, and the workflow saves as you work.

Image Studio in detail

Because Image Studio lives inside the workflow, the layout you build applies to every image that flows through it. Run the workflow on a new character, or inside a Loop over a cast, and every sheet lands in the same place at the same size.

• Layer order: the connection order sets the stack. Input 0 is the bottom.
• Work at the final size. Set the canvas to the size you deliver. Scaling a finished composite up softens every layer.
• Keep input sizes the same from run to run, or a layer shifts when one input arrives bigger.
• Use transparent cut-outs for a subject over a background: remove the background first, so it arrives as a PNG with transparency.

Good uses: several generated views side by side, a subject over a generated background, a logo or border at fixed coordinates, a product with text and background.

Video Studio

Video Studio works the same way for clips: a timeline inside a node, with audio as a layer.

It gives three outputs: Output (the clip), First Frame and Last Frame (images). Feed Last Frame into the first frame of a next Video Generator to continue a shot.

The editor has the layers on the left, the preview with the timeline in the middle and the properties on the right: the same Transform, Opacity and effects as Image Studio, applied over the whole clip.

• Match durations. If the background clip is shorter than the foreground, the foreground ends up over nothing.
• Keep the layer count low. Compose stable parts in one Video Studio and feed the result into another as one layer.
• Match tone between clips from different models with Brightness, Contrast and Saturation.
• Play it at normal speed before you run, to catch timing problems.

Common problems

What's next

The workflow is finished and easy to read. In Publish a workflow as an App you hand it to the team as an App, so anyone can run it without touching the graph. For every node and port, see the nodes reference.