Do you need practical AI implementation for your visuals?!

PLUS: Super promising new "all-in-one" AI platform, and the real AI agents are here!

Good Thursday, my fellow soloists!

This week we have a lot of cool stuff (and, I would say, important news) to dive into!

Coolest AI tool of the week!

Character-3 by Hedra, supposedly the first-ever "omnimodal" model

Hedra launches Character-3 omnimodal AI model and Studio platform for video generation.

Omnimodal? It claims to reason across image, text, and audio simultaneously for smarter videos. I'll believe it when I see it!

Now it apparently makes reasoning between different formats dead simple by combining Character-3 with other top AI tools in one place. It promises text-to-video, audio-to-video, and character creation too.

But this is not all. Hedra was already a very cool tool to integrate voice into 2D images (watch video here) and now, as we can see in this video, it really goes a step further in terms of emotion control and dynamic backgrounds.

Watch this video to see it by yourself.

Character-3 might raise the bar with emotional character control and no more juggling twenty different interfaces.

Stay tuned for tutorials about it!

Now let’s take a look at these important news stories, and at the end, we'll explore a fresh perspective on visual content that will give your brand strategy a competitive edge! A sneak peek right here:

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Image and video generation technologies

🛠️ AI Art Technology and Tools

  • Luma Labs introduced three new features to its Ray2 video model, with Keyframes, Extend, and Loop offering more control over generations, and drops Ray 2 Flash with 3x speed, 3x savings, and frontier model efficiency gains

📈 Market trends and Industry Impact

  • Sony Reportedly Developing AI-Powered PlayStation Characters

My Broader AI News pics so you’re in the loop

This week, OpenAI shows us their true vision of "democratizing" AI - premium agents at just $2,000-$20,000 monthly. AI for everyone! (If "everyone" means the 1%.) Anyway, here are 3 MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS every creator, filmmaker, and human should know about, because trust me, they're coming for us all.

  • First BIG thing: What is MCP & why it's a big (huge) deal by John Rush

  • Second BIG thing: What is vibe coding?

  • Third BIG thing: Manus and the "DeepSeek moment" for autonomous AI agents. China's new AI agent creates global buzz!

    • With lesser-known labs developing increasingly sophisticated autonomous systems, this groundbreaking advancement sets a new standard in the field.

    • The agent navigates the web, writes code, and creates visuals with apparent capabilities on freelance platforms, managing complex workflows with minimal supervision.

The Problem with Stock Footage

REAL APPLICATION OF MIDJOURNEY'S MOODBOARDS

First, stock footage libraries are doomed to disappear.

Second, they once served as convenient, budget-friendly visual solutions. But they come with significant creative constraints.

Imagine you have a brand, and you need visuals to bring it to life. You've thoughtfully decided your voice and look, and you selected your colors (as you should!). It looks great! Then, your miserable financial situation limits your options to hire a decent cinematographer, leaving you with the only convenient solution: stock photos.

Let's compare how these two options would look side by side.

The cheap option: Stock photos your cousin has screenshotted

The expensive option: Hire a decent cinematographer

Ughhh, let's go with the cheap option, then...

Why Stock Photos Fall Short

  • They look generic: Audiences can detect stock footage from a mile away, making distinctive visual storytelling nearly impossible.

  • Inconsistency issues: Stock images vary in style, lighting, and color, making a cohesive visual strategy difficult.

  • Creative constraints: You’re stuck choosing from a limited selection instead of getting the perfect image for your brand.

If you've ever spent hours searching for a stock image that truly represents your brand's unique voice, you understand the frustration.

But here's the catch!

What you saw before wasn’t the work of a decent cinematographer. Those were AI-generated images, created by a text-to-image video model, in this case, Midjourney.

I suppose you saw that coming...

AI-Generated Imagery is Revolutionizing Visual Content

AI offers creatives an entirely fresh approach to visual development: customized, adaptable, and brand-aligned.

  1. Consistent Visual Language: With AI, you maintain complete control over style, color palette, and mood, ensuring visual harmony across all content.

  2. Rapid Visual Exploration: AI "moodboards" let you instantly test different visual directions, helping refine your creative approach before production begins.

Ready to Transform Your Visual Strategy?

Quick tips to get started:

  • Start prompting what you want (scenes + your brand themes, style, look, etc.) or with a reference image. The goal is to guide the AI by providing a strong visual foundation and keeping it consistent across visuals.

1- Prompt or 2- Use reference image

  • Utilize negative prompts: Eliminate unwanted elements and enhance output quality.

  • Create a cohesive series: Add your generated images that fit your vision + references into a moodboard, and use its profile to generate more like them. No more random, disconnected images!

Click personalize and create a moodboard with your favorite images. Then, use it in your new prompts to generate consistency in your visuals.

Recommended tools for this endeavor: Midjourney’s moodboard feature and Leonardo’s Flow State.

I hope that this news, tools, and insights help you prepare for the future!

Have a really nice end of the week and weekend.

Stay kind.

Rafa Tirado