Verified purchaser
Great idea, but still needs work
I recently purchased a Lifetime license via AppSumo, and have been experimenting with creating short videos for my fantasy novels.
Pros: Reelcraft is a fun tool to work with, with an easy-to-use UI. I really like having a variety of art styles and narrator voiceovers to choose from, as well as the ability to upload my own music and voices. Thank you, also, for offering a vertical video option (for FB Reels, etc.). The generated artwork is pretty and I like having the option to upload my own music for soundtracks.
Issues/Wishlist Items
1. It would be really nice to have an intermediate stage between “input a story idea” and “Here’s the video!” to allow for fine-tuning character descriptions, storyboards, etc. before the video generates.
Once the initial video is created, you can go back and update Story elements, such as Character descriptions, as well as edit the AI prompts and Storyboards. Would be very helpful if the AI generated the Storyboards, Character Descriptions, and Prompts, then stopped the workflow to give the user a chance to review and edit the generated material before continuing on to the video generation step.
2. Regenerating videos is REALLY unbearably slow. I made some changes to my video’s character descriptions this morning and clicked Regenerate Character Descriptions… it’s been 5.5 hours so far, and the Storyboard is still processing. (Video is only 1 minute 40 seconds long…). My previous attempt to regenerate this video took 2+ days, and I finally had to contact Support on Day 3 to help. (Support was very responsive, BTW!)
Right now, this is the most serious problem with Reelcraft. Having the regeneration process churning away for hours for even minor edits and changes really impedes the usefulness of this product.
3. It would be nice to have a Pause or Stop button for generating/regenerating videos… I clicked Regenerate, then saw that none of the updates I’d made to the Character Descriptions had been saved. I would love to be able to stop the video generation and make those changes again instead of waiting hours for the video to regenerate before I can make more changes and regenerate again.
4. The AI is inconsistent in generating character designs from scene to scene and frequently ignores instructions in the scene prompts. For example, the main character keeps changing hair color from scene to scene, and a scene that was supposed to feature this female character and a male character ended up with the female character surrounded by random women.
5. It would be nice to be able to add a blank scene at the end of the storyboard, with the ability to upload custom images to populate the blank scene. For example, if I'm creating a book trailer, I'd love to be able to append a final custom image of my book's cover art.
Great product and with a few more tweaks (and a reasonable generation/regeneratio time), I can see this becoming one of my more useful marketing tools for my novels. In the meanwhile, I’m having a lot of fun playing with the possibilities!
Gaurav_ReelCraft
Jul 20, 2024"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Hi kwelss67,
Thank you so much for your detailed review and for purchasing a Lifetime license via AppSumo. We're thrilled to hear that you're enjoying using ReelCraft for your fantasy novel videos. Your feedback is incredibly valuable, and we appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
Pros-
It's fantastic to know that you find ReelCraft fun and easy to use. We put a lot of effort into making the UI intuitive and offering a variety of art styles and narrator voiceovers. We're glad you're enjoying the vertical video option and the ability to upload your own music and voices.
Issues/Wishlist Items-
Intermediate Stage for Fine-Tuning-
We're excited to share that we already offer this feature in our Tier 3 plan, known as Pro Mode. Pro Mode allows for step-by-step storytelling, giving you complete control over every aspect of your video. You can review and edit character descriptions, storyboards, and AI prompts before generating your final video. This ensures that your vision is perfectly realized and allows for detailed adjustments along the way.
Slow Regeneration Process-
We understand the frustration with the regeneration times. Compared to other text-to-video platforms that take 3-4 minutes to generate a 4-second clip, ReelCraft generates your entire video in 12-15 minutes. However, we acknowledge the need for improvement and are actively working on optimizing our processing times to make this faster and more efficient.
Pause or Stop Button-
We are making significant improvements to this process. Instead of rendering the entire video if you change any part of the scene, we are adding a regenerate button that will allow you to change the specific image/animation and quickly regenerate it. This feature is coming as soon as next week, giving you more control and saving you valuable time.
Inconsistent AI Character Designs-
The inconsistency in character designs is a significant issue, and we’re continuously working to improve our AI's accuracy. Ensuring that character appearances remain consistent across scenes is a top priority for us, and we're committed to making our AI produce more reliable results. We have significantly improved character consistency in our newer model. Do try them out!
Adding a Blank Scene-
Adding a blank scene at the end of the storyboard with the ability to upload custom images is a fantastic suggestion. This feature would be incredibly useful for creating book trailers and other custom content, and we’ll explore how to implement it.
Upcoming Improvements-
We have exciting updates on our ReelCraft Roadmap- https://trello.com/b/NcZM8ICl/reelcraft-roadmap, including dynamic subtitle options, and better organization for generated files.
We’re also working on pre-configuring logos to appear on all videos, improving character consistency, and enabling faster regeneration of animations.
Thank you for being part of the ReelCraft community and for your insightful suggestions. We’re committed to continuous improvement, and your feedback is invaluable in helping us prioritize our next steps.
Happy creating, and we can't wait to see the amazing videos you’ll produce next with ReelCraft!
Best regards,
Gaurav Henry
Co-Founder, ReelCraft