Storyboard

Storyboard (beta) lays out a scene frame by frame on storyboard pages. Each frame has a sketch and a render, each with all its versions, and notes for its action, dialogue, sound, camera and duration. Draw the frames or fill them with images, render them in Create, and turn a run of rendered frames into one clip.

Create a storyboard

Choose a project in the header, then click Create a storyboard. The new storyboard, named Storyboard 1, 2 and so on, opens with six empty 16:9 frames on one page. Click its name at the top of the left panel to rename it.

The timeline at the bottom of the Storyboard home lists the project’s storyboards. With All Projects selected, it lists every project’s: open one from there, or choose a project to create one. Right-click a storyboard on the timeline for Open, Make a copy, Move to project and Delete. A storyboard moves to another project with all its frames.

Storyboards you open stay as tabs above the board. A dot on a tab means the storyboard has changes that no saved version holds yet.

Pages

A storyboard is laid out as landscape A4 pages, like a printed storyboard sheet. The header of each page shows the project, the storyboard’s name and its total duration. The footer shows who it is by (the team in a team workspace, or your account), the date, the version and the page number.

The two menus at the right of the tool bar set the layout:

• How many frames each page holds, from 1 per page to 20 per page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16 or 20.
• The ratio of every frame of the storyboard: 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 or 1:1.

Change either at any time: the same frames are laid out again, and nothing is lost. Hylope arranges each page to give the frames as much room as it can, with the notes underneath.

Add frames

• Click Add frame, the cell after the last frame, to add an empty frame after the selected one, or at the end.
• Hover an empty frame for three choices: the upload icon adds an image from your computer, Gallery opens the gallery so you can drag an image onto the frame, and Draw opens the frame to draw in it.
• Drag an image from the gallery onto a frame, or drop an image file from your computer on it. Files you add this way are saved to your references.
• Drop several images at once on a frame, or on Add frame: the first fills that frame, and the others fill new frames after it, in the order you dropped them.

Drag a frame onto another to move it: it lands before that frame from its left half, or after it from its right half. To remove a frame, hover it and click the trash icon beside its duration, or select it and press Delete.

A storyboard holds up to 500 frames. An image that already belongs to a key asset cannot be added to a frame.

Sketch, Render and Latest

Each frame has two stages: its Sketch and its Render. Each stage keeps every version you put in it, and shows one of them.

The switch at the top left of the tool bar sets what every frame shows:

An image dropped on a frame goes to the stage it most likely belongs in: a drawing (a Compose scene or an Image > Sketch result) to the Sketch, any other image, uploads included, to the Render. Right after, the frame shows Use as: choose the other stage to move the image there. Several images dropped at once go to the stage the board shows, or under Latest, to the stage each one most likely belongs in.

Double-click a frame showing its sketch to draw in it. Double-click a frame showing its render to open the render in the lightbox.

A frame’s settings

Select a frame to open its panel on the right, Frame 1, Frame 2 and so on:

• Sketch and Render switch the panel between the frame’s two stages.
• The duration menu sets how long the frame lasts, from 1 to 10 seconds. A frame lasts 3 seconds until you change it. Each frame’s duration shows above it, and the storyboard’s total at the top of every page.
• The picture shows large, with its versions below it. Pick the version the frame shows from the list, or step with the arrows. Remove takes the version shown off the frame; it stays in your gallery. A version that a saved version of the storyboard shows cannot be removed. On a sketch, Draw opens the frame to draw in it.

The notes come under the picture:

• Action: what happens in the frame. Type @ to add snippets, such as a character or a place, and the frame’s references as @ref1, @ref2 and so on. You can also write the action on the board: click the words under the frame.
• Audio: the Dialogue and the Sound of the frame. A dot on the tab means it holds some.
• Camera: a snippet for each of Framing, Camera Motion, Lighting, Camera, Style and FX. On the board, they show as small squares over the frame’s picture.

The action and camera snippets belong to the sketch, and the render follows them: with Render selected, the panel reads Same as sketch. Change them with Render selected to give the render its own, used when a clip is made from it. The panel then reads Render has its own on the sketch, and Reset to sketch on the render takes the sketch’s back. The dialogue, the sound and the duration belong to the frame, whatever the stage.

References

References are the images the frames can name: characters, places, products, a style.

• Shared references, in the left panel while a storyboard is open, are for every frame of the storyboard. They are numbered @ref1, @ref2 and so on.
• Additional references belong to one frame. Add them in the References tab of a frame you draw in. They are numbered after the shared ones.

A storyboard holds up to 12 shared references, and each frame up to 12 of its own. Improve sketch, Image > Sketch and Video’s start frame use them with the frame, under the same numbers.

Draw in a frame

Double-click a sketch, or click Draw on a frame, to open it in the Compose editor, with the Storyboard Pen selected. The canvas is the storyboard’s frame size, and the layers, tools and effects are Compose’s. An image already on the frame’s sketch opens as a layer to draw over. The References tab beside Layers holds the shared references and the frame’s own.

Saving stores the drawing on the frame’s Sketch, and each save is a new version of it. The arrow at the top left goes back to the storyboard, saving any unsaved changes first.

Improve sketch redraws the frame as a finished storyboard frame. Its description starts from the frame’s action and camera snippets, or from the description you last wrote for this frame. Name references in it with @ref1, @ref2 and so on, choose a model and click Generate. The result becomes the next version of the frame’s Sketch, with your drawing kept underneath, hidden. This uses credits.

Render in Image > Sketch

Render frames in Create’s Image > Sketch:

1. On the Sketch Source card, click Storyboard and choose one of the project’s storyboards. You can also drag a storyboard’s Sketches card from the gallery onto the card.
2. The first frame with a sketch loads. Choose another under Select frame, in the card’s band.
3. Loading a frame starts the prompt from its notes, and sets the reference cards to the storyboard’s shared references, then the frame’s own.
4. Click Generate. The result is saved to the gallery, and added to the frame’s Render as its next version.

To render several frames at once, turn on Batch variants on the card, then pick the frames under Frames to render, or click All frames with a sketch. A batch renders up to 9 frames, one job each. The prompt bar then holds what every frame shares, and each frame’s own notes come first in its job.

Image > Sketch does not draw on a storyboard frame. Edit in Storyboard opens the frame in Storyboard to draw on it or improve it.

Animate in Video

A clip is made from rendered frames. A frame without a render is shown, but not used.

Start a clip from one frame. In Video > Start Frame, click Storyboard on the start frame card and choose a storyboard. Its first rendered frame loads, and the card’s band picks another. The prompt starts from the render’s notes, with the dialogue and sound when the clip has sound, and the clip lasts as long as the frame, fitted to what the model offers. On a model that takes reference images, the reference cards are set to the frame’s.

Make one clip from several frames. Video > Storyboard turns a group of frames into one multi-shot clip, a shot per frame. It offers the models that make multi-shot clips.

1. On the Storyboard card, choose a storyboard.
2. Pick a group of frames in the card’s band, such as Frames 1–6. A group holds up to 6 frames, fewer when the model takes fewer shots or fewer reference images.
3. Each rendered frame becomes a shot: its render as the shot’s reference, the render’s action and camera snippets as its words, with the dialogue and sound when the clip has sound, and the frame’s duration as its length.

The reference cards are each frame’s render, named Frame 1, Frame 2 and so on, then the references the frames’ notes name, named Ref 1, Ref 2 and so on. References past what the model takes are left out, and a notice says so. After you change the storyboard, hover the card and click its refresh button, Load these frames again from the storyboard, to load the group again.

Versions

Every change is saved as you make it, and everyone on the project sees it. Versions keep the storyboard as it was at a given point. The saving controls sit in the tool bar, as in Compose:

• Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S) updates the version on screen. The first save makes v1.
• Save as New Version (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+S) keeps it and adds the next one.
• Create a Copy starts a separate storyboard with frames of its own. Make a copy, on the timeline’s right-click menu, does the same.
• The version button (v1, v2 and so on) opens a saved version: the storyboard goes back to it as it was saved. If it has changes that no version holds, Hylope asks first.
• Set active marks the version on screen as the one that stands for the storyboard. It then reads Active.

Export a PDF

Export downloads the pages as an A4 landscape PDF, named after the project, the storyboard and the version. It is in print colors: white paper, black text, no buttons. The frames show what the board shows: their sketch, their render, or the latest. The notes print as words alone: the action, the dialogue in quotes and the sound. Snippets and @ref mentions are left out, and the camera snippets do not print.

In the gallery

• A storyboard’s frame pictures stay in your gallery. They are grouped in two cards, its Sketches and its Renders, each labeled with the storyboard’s name.
• Under Project Key Assets, the Storyboard group holds each storyboard’s Sketches and Renders as two key assets, with a picture for each frame, in board order.
• A frame’s picture shows its storyboard’s name and its frame number. Open Storyboard, in its lightbox or its right-click menu, opens the storyboard.

Trash

Delete, on the storyboard’s right-click menu or the trash icon at the top of the left panel, moves a storyboard to the trash with its frames. The images in them stay in your gallery.

To see the storyboards in the trash, open the gallery on the Storyboard home and turn on its trash filter: the timeline then lists the project’s storyboards in the trash. Right-click one to Restore it, or to Delete for good: its frames and versions are deleted for good, and the images in them stay in your gallery.

Permissions

The workspace owner and the project’s Creators can edit its storyboards. Viewers see them read only: they can switch what the frames show and export the PDF, but not change frames, notes, references or versions.

Keyboard shortcuts

Undo takes back your last change to a frame’s notes, one field at a time, and selects that frame. While you are still writing in a field, it undoes your typing there. Other changes, such as removing a frame or placing a picture, cannot be undone, and Undo does not go back past them, whoever made them.

Inside a frame, the Compose shortcuts apply.