Up to now 12 months, searches for “AI video maker” have skyrocketed by over 200%. This isn’t a shocker, as creators in every single place are in search of sooner, smarter methods to show concepts into visuals. In reality, the very thought of such AI instruments was to offer artistic freedom to everybody, whether or not with a videomaking background or not. Into this wave comes Luma AI Ray3, the most recent video-generation mannequin from Luma Labs.
Positioned as a “visible thought accomplice,” Ray3 is constructed to assist creators ideate, storyboard, and refine their movies inside a single interface. Not less than that’s what the corporate goals at, as per its launch announcement. Powered by Ray3 for video and Photon for photos, the system goals to push video creation from experimentation to execution, all in minutes.
I attempted my hand on the new Ray3. Right here, I share all about it, my expertise, and how one can strive it out for your self. Learn on!
What’s Luma AI Ray3?
At its core, Luma AI Ray3 is the most recent improve to Luma Labs’ video-generation mannequin, designed to push previous the boundaries of Ray2. In contrast to earlier iterations that targeted totally on rendering quick clips, Ray3 introduces a unified artistic layer: you’ll be able to ideate, experiment, and direct visible outputs with out leaving the interface.
The system combines two engines below one roof – Ray3 for video and Photon for photos. This pairing means you’ll be able to transfer fluidly between nonetheless photos and movement, treating them as components of the identical artistic course of.
But, probably the most fascinating characteristic Ray3 brings is its reference-driven consistency. The brand new AI video-gen mannequin enables you to lock types or characters throughout a number of pictures, one thing many different AI video makers nonetheless battle with.
Key Options of Luma AI Ray3
Aside from the reference-driven video-making, Ray3 has a number of latest options. Here’s a deep dive into all of those.
1. Boards for Structured Creativity
Ray3 introduces a number of boards – Artboard, Storyboard, and Moodboard. These let creators organise uncooked concepts into structured visuals. As a substitute of leaping straight into video, you’ll be able to form the appear and feel earlier than committing to technology.
2. Modify with Pure Language
Want fast modifications? Merely sort directions like “make it anime” and the mannequin edits your picture or video accordingly. This bridges the hole between skilled modifying instruments and on a regular basis artistic language.
3. Modify with Visible Cues
Probably the most novel options I’ve personally seen in an AI video maker, Ray3, now enables you to modify a video by including visible cues to it. The AI mannequin is ready to interpret these cues and make modifications to your video accordingly.
4. Reference for Type and Character Consistency
Probably the most highly effective additions: reference-based technology. By importing a visible reference, Ray3 can preserve constant types, environments, and even recurring characters throughout a number of outputs. Most AI video makers nonetheless lack this capability.
5. Keyframe Management
Administrators usually suppose when it comes to keyframes, and Ray3 embraces that. By defining a begin and finish body, you’ll be able to let the AI fill within the in-between movement, including a layer of management and predictability to generative video.

6. Brainstorm and Inventive Question
Past video technology, Ray3 doubles as an thought accomplice. Its question system can increase tough prompts into detailed artistic instructions, stopping artistic blocks.
7. Share & Remix
Each undertaking comes with a built-in “behind the scenes” layer. Different creators can see your course of, remix your outputs, and construct collaboratively, making Ray3 as a lot a neighborhood instrument as a manufacturing engine.
8. HDR Technology
Ray3 claims to be the world’s first mannequin that is ready to ship studio-grade HDR movies by native excessive dynamic vary colour technology. The AI video instrument is ready to generate gorgeous HDR movies from textual content prompts, SDR photos, in addition to SDR movies. What’s extra, it may well even export these as 16-bit EXR for seamless integration into professional workflows.
How Does It Work?
Most AI video makers (see the highest 10 right here) generate clips in isolation, however Luma AI Ray3 combines a number of fashions and controls into one pipeline. On the core are two engines working collectively:
- Ray3 (video mannequin): Generates movement sequences, interprets prompts, and handles transitions between frames.
- Photon (picture mannequin): Produces high-quality stills, references, and beginning factors that may movement immediately into video creation.
- Right here’s how the method unfolds while you use Ray3:
- Prompting or Referencing: You start with both a textual content immediate (“make it anime”) or a visible reference (a picture, a method, or a personality).
- Scene Technology: Photon generates the stills, whereas Ray3 animates them into clean movement, making use of lighting, textures, and digicam results.
- Keyframe Path: When you present a begin and finish body, Ray3 fills within the in-betweens, simulating how a director would plan pictures.
- Edits and Modifications: You possibly can iterate immediately utilizing pure language, from fashion swaps to environmental modifications, with out touching conventional modifying software program.
- Collaboration Layer: Your outputs and processes may be shared, remixed, or prolonged by different creators on the platform.
Find out how to Entry Luma AI Ray3
Time wanted: 5 minutes
To get began with Luma AI Ray3, head over to the Dream Machine platform, the place Ray3 is presently out there alongside Photon, the corporate’s picture mannequin. You’ll must create an account, after which you’ll be able to discover Ray3’s workspace immediately in your browser. Merely comply with these steps:
- Go to the Dream Machine platform of Luma Labs right here.
- Create an account or sign up utilizing an current one.
- You will note 3 choices on the display to select from: Create and Modify utilizing a picture, Keyframe with Ray3, and Modify a video.
- To make a brand new video, click on on the Create and Modify choice. It’ll lead you to a storyboard.
- Right here, you’ll be able to enter your immediate to generate the video, in addition to add a reference picture to generate the video round.
- On the underside proper of the immediate window, be sure to choose the Ray3 mannequin and all of the video settings as required.
- As soon as accomplished with the immediate, merely press enter and put the AI to work.
- Your 5-second video shall be generated in round 2 to three minutes. You possibly can then obtain/ share it, or modify it additional utilizing easy prompts in pure language.
In the intervening time, Dream Machine is accessible on each the online and iOS. Ray3, nonetheless, appears to be in a trial mode at current on each.
Ray3 AI Video Maker: Arms-on
We tried the Ray3 for a novel video round a mystical theme utilizing the next immediate:
Generate a sweeping cinematic sequence of a lone wanderer – a tall, cloaked determine with glowing amber eyes – crossing an infinite ocean of clouds on a floating obsidian bridge. Every step sends faint ripples of sunshine by the bridge, as if it’s alive. The digicam glides outward to disclose colossal celestial beings carved of residing starlight, suspended within the sky like historical guardians.
Their silhouettes stretch throughout the heavens, topped with halos of orbiting moons. Because the traveler strikes ahead, the beings slowly flip their heads, illuminating the trail with cascades of golden cosmic hearth.
The traveler stops on the fringe of the bridge, cloak billowing, because the scene erupts in a symphony of auroras, taking pictures stars, and resonant cosmic hums.The temper is epic, surreal, and awe-inspiring – a visible surprise that blends fantasy, sci-fi, and dreamlike fantasy.
Right here is the output that the AI instrument generated:
As you’ll be able to see, the video is kind of distinctive when it comes to high quality. It managed to check a complete new situation as talked about within the immediate, and got here up with fairly a nuanced and correct video accordingly. It even tried to include the finer particulars inside the immediate, just like the lighting on the ft of the determine as he walks on the bridge, in addition to his amber crimson eyes.
Having mentioned that, I can see some inconsistencies within the video too. Among the objects on the far finish are randomly altering shapes all through the video, whereas the celestial beings proven are performing completely random acts. Even the hooded determine is strolling a bit surprisingly, along with his arm completely disappearing from imaginative and prescient after a degree.
Ray3 AI Video Maker: My Expertise
I attempted a number of different movies too, utilizing easy textual content technology prompts in addition to some with reference photos. Whereas Ray3 is ready to catch the final function of the video fairly effectively, it principally tends to fail within the nuances of issues and the finer particulars. A video of a fighter jet flying over Noida, as an example, turned out a completely bizarre output. Your entire shot was shaky, and the jet modified form halfway by the video. Identical with a video of an Indian father-son duo taking part in billiards (pool). The balls on the pool desk appeared to seem out of mid-air after which disappear simply as abruptly.
I did some analysis on how Luma Labs finest suggests the usage of Ray3. As per the corporate, the mannequin works finest with “quick, pure language, easy prompts. Whereas Ray3 tries to be as correct as doable to the immediate given, it’s most comfy with easy and shorter prompts which might be extremely particular. This additionally means the mannequin is healthier suited to movies round objects and environments which have been envisioned earlier than. Give it one thing completely distinctive and tends to fumble in the dead of night.
The place it shines is the only of animations round a reference picture. Merely add the picture you wish to animate, and it gives you a high-quality video output, across the similar, even with out the necessity for a immediate. Living proof, if you happen to add a picture of a canine, it’ll animate it with the canine shaking its head or wagging its tail. No immediate wanted. In case there are modifications, you’ll be able to then point out the identical by follow-up prompts, and Ray3 will get these accomplished too. Fairly simple, and really useful.
Conclusion
Whereas Ray3 is spectacular, I really feel it nonetheless has a protracted method to go as a really perfect AI video maker. The record of latest options it now gives is, little doubt, extraordinarily useful. Animating a picture, including a keyframe, and even modifying a video utilizing pure language or visible cues are gamechangers in some ways. As is its capability to give you HDR movies within the paid model.
However to name it an ideal AI video technology instrument, there’s going to be some time in that.
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