We see everywhere how AI is going to replace us and the dangers of AI. Runway AI made me feel very hopeful in this regard. I could see firsthand that AI lets you be creative freely.
It was by far the most fun AI program I have used. The best way to describe it would be “AI as your playground.”
So, let’s get to know this tool better!
Runway offers a variety of AI-powered creative tools, with Gen-1 and Gen-2 being the most sophisticated tools.
Gen-1
With Runway’s Gen-1 AI tool, you can create new, stylized versions of your videos. After choosing an input video, you can preview and modify parameters like prompt weight and structural consistency.
You can also select a style reference (via a picture, text prompt, or preset). With the ability to create videos up to 15 seconds long, the tool offers a versatile and imaginative approach to rethinking video material.
How Does it work?
The dashboard has a drag-and-drop area labeled “Drag and drop me here,” where you can upload your video.
In the free version, I experimented with a mountain video and used the prompting section to add rainbows to it. The result was quite good!
With higher subscription choices, you will get access to Runway Gen-1’s sophisticated settings. You have more control over the resulting video’s style, coherence, and affected areas thanks to these choices. Here are some of the parameters for advanced plans:
Structural consistency: This parameter determines how much the structure of the output video deviates from the original. Lower values will keep the result more similar to the source video, while higher values (0 to 5) will provide an output that is more visually unique.
weight: The importance of keeping the style of your reference image consistent is indicated by this option. Greater values (7.5 to 12.5) will cause the created video to give the source video’s style more weight than its content.
Seed: This configuration serves as a special identification for a certain random generation method. By locking the seed value, you can experiment with different parameters without sacrificing the overall consistency of the style in the final product, or you can replicate the same style over many clips.
Gen-2
You can create videos using Gen-2 by Runway by using text prompts or pictures. It is possible to produce up to 16-second films with customized options like upscaling and frame interpolation by uploading a picture or writing a detailed text prompt.
To improve video production, Gen-2 also provides sophisticated controls like motion brushes and camera adjustments.
Here are my results:
How Does It Work?
The dashboard is incredibly intuitive and full of tutorials on how to use every tool. You can easily create films from text or images.
With controls for quality (720p, 2K), prompt weight, and negative prompts for sample photos, you can submit an image or write a prompt for a scene. There are options for frame interpolation, and a preset seed for consistency, among other parameters.
The motion brush tool allows you to fine-tune certain video sections for even more flexibility, while the camera motion controls allow modifications in the horizontal, vertical, pan, roll, tilt, and zoom directions.
Generative Audio
Using Text to Speech, Lip Sync, and Custom Voices, you can add dialogue and voiceovers to videos with Runway’s Generative Audio tool. You can produce audio samples, choose a voice, and write a script.
With Custom Voices, you can create customized voice options for text-to-speech. And, with Lip Sync, you can animate still characters by adding speech.
Here are my results for using Generative Audio. I asked one of the characters, Armondo, in this case, to redo the monologue from The Lord of the Rings.
Dashboard
Video Result
Runway’s Generative Audio dashboard provides many choices for producing and editing voiceovers for videos. You can record or upload audio, make your own custom voices, and choose from a large library of pre-recorded voices that are divided into categories based on attributes like gender, age, tone, and accent.
You can also contribute face assets (pictures or videos) to animation with lip-syncing capabilities, enabling the generated conversation to bring characters to life. With video projects, this tool makes it easier to have precise control over audio and visual synchronization.
Text-to-Image
With Runway’s Text to Image feature, you can turn text prompts into images. You can change parameters like resolution, prompt weight, and style after creating a prompt. Negative prompting is one of the advanced alternatives for more precise management.
You can create one or more photos based on their descriptions after configuring their preferences. This tool is a component of Runway’s creative AI toolkit, which facilitates the efficient creation of visual content by users.
Here are my results. I wanted AI to generate pictures of characters from one of my favorite books, “The Dispossessed”. The book has never been adapted into a movie, so I thought this could really be a case for AI to show its quality.
Results of Text-to-Image Generation
Having used many other tools for text-to-image generation, I could say the quality is really impressive in Runway AI
You can provide prompts with descriptive text to generate images. In the dashboard, you can customize the prompt weight, style, and resolution or choose from pre-made examples.
There are options to select the number of outputs, and they can train their models to get customized outcomes. The dashboard offers additional options for fine control over the generated graphics and offers suggestions for prompts that work well.
Prompting Tips
For text-to-image conversion, keep prompts simple, use style modifiers like “in the style of” with adjectives, and change prompt weight in advanced settings for further control.
To change the structure of an existing image, describe it differently or remove descriptors completely. Finally, remember that the order of the words is important. Words toward the beginning of the prompt carry more weight than words near the end of it.
Frame Interpolation
Runway’s Frame Interpolation feature enables you to generate smooth films from a series of still pictures. You can select a series of photos, define variables such as clip duration and transition time, and then create the video.
This approach can be fine-tuned to provide realistic or experimental outcomes based on the images’ resemblance or dynamism. I tried to use as many similar images as possible, however, I still think the quality wasn’t the best.
I thought pictures could be animated better because I had already seen the capabilities of tools to animate images in image-to-video transitions. However, this feature can also be interesting to use in some cases.
Results of Frame Interpolation
Upscale Image
This feature is for increasing the resolution of images. It improves the quality of the image without sacrificing clarity, making it appropriate for detailed printing and high-definition displays.
However, I think I have seen better tools for upscaling images. Check out the last article for reference: 15 Best AI Image Enhancer Tools. My results are below; as you can see, there isn’t a big difference between the upscaled image and the original one.
Original image
Upscaled Image
Besides all of these main features of Runway AI, I also want to talk about some of the other separate functionalities.
Remove the Background
With the use of this program, you can automatically isolate the topic of an image by removing the background from it. It is very helpful for producing business-like images for product listings, presentations, and other creative endeavors where the subject needs to be isolated from its surroundings.
Infinite Picture
You can smoothly extend images in every direction with Infinite Image. With the help of this tool, you can enlarge backdrops, create panoramic scenes, and combine smaller photos to create larger canvases that have no obvious borders.
Erase and Replace
By removing some parts of an image and adding new ones, you can alter particular regions of the image. This tool can be used to add new objects to an existing scene smoothly, remove undesired elements from photos, or correct existing ones.
Backdrop Remix
With Backdrop Remix, you can alter an image’s background without affecting the image’s content. This is very helpful for marketing materials, or any situation where a fresh environment is required without changing the core theme.
Image Variation
Using a variety of styles and edits, this function creates many variations of an image. Finding the ideal visual representation for a project and experimenting with innovative alternatives is made easy with it.
3D Texture & Capture
With the help of these tools, you can turn 2D photographs into 3D models and add textures to them. They come in handy for projects requiring realistic 3D representations from flat photos, such as game design and animation.
Inpainting
Parts of an image that are damaged or missing can be repaired with inpainting. This tool is ideal for photo restoration or image enhancement because it can blend the surrounding area perfectly to fill in gaps or remove undesired objects.
Color Grade (LUT)
This program uses Look-Up Tables (LUTs) to apply color grading to photos. It’s necessary to get the required cinematic effect, enhance photos with certain color tones, and improve visual aesthetics.
Super-Slow Motion
High-quality slow-motion videos are produced by Super-Slow Motion. It evens out motion by producing more frames, which enables detailed and dramatic slow-motion effects in videos.
Blue Faces
By obscuring people’s faces in pictures and videos, Blur Faces helps people become anonymous. This is essential for maintaining privacy when sharing any kind of media online or in public, including images and videos.
Depth of Field
With the help of this tool, you can mimic the depth of field effect in photos, giving the main subject great focus and the surrounding area fuzzy. It helps portraits look better and produces images that look professional.
With all these features in mind, lastly, let’s check the pricing of the Runway Ml.
Pricing
Basic Plan
For those who want to test out Runway’s AI capabilities and content production features without having to pay anything, the Basic plan is great. A total of 125 credits are included, which can be applied to 25 image generations, 8 Gen-1 video seconds, or 25 seconds of Gen-2 video.
On the other hand, it prohibits the removal of watermarks from Gen-1 and Gen-2 outputs, upscaling resolution, and buying more credits. The plan includes support for three video projects, five gigabytes of assets, 720p video editor exports, Gen-1 videos up to four seconds, and Gen-2 films up to sixteen seconds via Extend Video.
Standard Plan
The Standard plan, which costs $12 per user per month when billed annually, is appropriate for individuals and small teams who require additional access and export capabilities. It permits watermark removal and upscaling resolution, and it offers 625 credits each month.
This package includes limitless video projects, 100GB of assets, 4K video exports, 2K picture exports, complete 3D texture options, and support for Gen-1 and Gen-2 videos up to 15 seconds and 16 seconds, respectively, via Extend Video.
Pro Plan
Teams requiring extensive functionality can opt for the Pro package, which costs $28 per user each month and is payable annually. Along with all Standard capabilities, 500GB of assets, PNG and ProRes video exports, and the capacity to generate voices for Text-to-Speech and Lip Sync, it offers 2250 credits every month.
Unlimited Plan
The Unlimited plan provides all the benefits of the Pro plan along with the flexibility of unlimited video generation for $76 per user per month, payable annually. In addition to resetting 2250 credits every month for high-priority assignments, it offers an infinite number of Gen-1 and Gen-2 generations in Explore Mode. This plan is designed for those who need full access to all of Runway’s features without any limitations.
Conclusion
I think Runway is one of the best generative AI tools available at the moment and you should start experimenting with it. Of course, there are features that could need improving, but overall, especially with video and image generation, it has great quality and a great algorithm.
I could say two things about it that are great: first of all, all of these creative AI capabilities are gathered under one platform, which makes it very efficient to work on projects. Secondly, the platform is very intuitive, so learning to use it is incredibly fast and easy.
So, give it a go! Generate some amazing AI art!
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