An AI storyboard generator that draws from your script

What a storyboard is for

A storyboard answers one question per shot: what does the camera see? How wide, from where, who is in frame, and does it move. Done well, it catches the problems that are expensive to fix later: a scene with no establishing shot, a line delivered off-screen, two cuts that jump because the subject barely changed size.

In AI production the storyboard matters even more, because each still often becomes the first frame of a video shot. If the still is wrong, the video inherits it. Approving the storyboard first is the cheapest way to avoid paying for the same shot three times.

Why most AI storyboards fall apart

A storyboard made by prompting an image model one frame at a time looks fine frame by frame and wrong as a sequence. The lead's hair changes between panels, the kitchen gains a window, and the mug on the table turns into a glass. Each picture was generated from words alone, and words leave room for the model to invent.

The other gap is the link to the script. A storyboard that doesn't know which line is spoken in which shot can't tell you that a line is too long for a three-second close-up, or that a character speaks while out of frame.

Shape is the third trap. A board drawn square and cropped later loses whatever was staged at the edges. A vertical drama needs its frames composed for 9:16 from the start, with faces large, the action centered and room above heads for captions. So draw the board in the shape people will watch it in. If you need both shapes, a Hybrid project makes a 9:16 and a 16:9 version of the same story, each framed for its own screen.

How ShowMaker builds the board

Every character, location and prop exists once in the project as an @reference with its own reference stills. When a shot names them, those images go to the model with the prompt, so the same face and the same room come back in every panel.

Shots stay attached to the script. Each one knows its scene, its dialogue line and its action beat. Checks run on every shot. A line too long for the shot, or a frame showing something the text never mentioned, is flagged on the card. Shoot with AI takes a plain note like "make her face the camera". It redraws the frame and writes the motion prompt, and it shows the credit cost first.

• Shot size and camera move on every shot.
• A still per shot, drawn from the cast and location references.
• Script, shots and frames side by side in Scene Flow.

From storyboard to animatic to video

Once the board is drawn and the voices are recorded, ShowMaker cuts a narrated animatic: still-motion over each frame with the dialogue playing. It's free, and it's the quickest way to find a scene that drags or a cut that doesn't work.

When the animatic works, each shot can be rendered as video on the model that fits it. Since you approved the frames first, you are rendering pictures you already like.

Here is a good order for reviewing a board. Check the first and last shot of each scene, since those carry the cut in and out. Check that every dialogue shot shows the speaker or a planned reaction. Look for two shots in a row of the same size on the same subject, which will read as a jump. Then watch the animatic once without stopping, the way a viewer would. Fix what bothers you at the still, where a redraw costs a fraction of a video render. Last, pick the model for each shot: cheaper for wides and cutaways, premium for close dialogue.