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Workflows & Recipes

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Complete, step-by-step workflows for common goals.

• Stylize a live-action shot
• Replace a character
• Edit a specific element
• Multi-pass pipeline (character + style + upscale)

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Recipe: Stylize a live-action shot

Goal: change the visual style of acted footage while preserving the actor’s performance, lip sync, and expressions. Model: Mago Style Transfer.

1. Upload the source video to a new shot.
2. Open Modify Frame. Select a representative frame (usually one where the actor’s face is visible).
3. Choose GPT Image 2. Write an instruction prompt with strong preservation: “Change the visual style to oil painting with thick brushstrokes. Keep the character, composition, lighting, and proportions intact.”
4. Generate. Iterate until the frame matches the intended look.
5. Click Use this — the frame becomes the reference for the next render.
6. Switch to Render Video. Pick Mago Style Transfer.
7. Write a short descriptive prompt: “An oil painting with thick visible brushstrokes, warm earth tones, painterly background.”
8. Set Video input strength to 0.8 to preserve the likeness of your actor.
9. Select an 80–150 frame range. Click Generate.
10. Review. Compare against the source with the split slider. Verify lip sync.
11. If satisfied, switch to Generate Full Clip. If not, adjust Video input strength or the reference image and re-render.

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Recipe: Replace a character

Goal: swap the character in a shot with a different character. Model: Mago Character or Kling 3.0 Motion Control.

1. Upload the source video.
2. In Modify Frame, generate the new character matching the source pose. Use GPT Image 2: “Replace the character with [new character description]. Keep the same pose, framing, and background.”
3. Iterate until the new character looks right and the pose matches.
4. Click Use this.
5. Switch to Render Video. Pick Mago Character.
6. Confirm the reference image is set.
7. Configure: Pose strength (lower for exact tracking), Face strength, Masking prompt to identify the character (“person”, “woman in red”).
8. If the new character has features beyond the original silhouette (horns, spiky hair, flowing clothes), increase Grow mask to 15–25.
9. Test on a small range. Verify face tracking, body tracking, and overall identity.
10. Adjust Face crop resolution if eyes appear closed; Grow mask if features are clipped.
11. Once satisfied, render the full clip.

💡 Alternative for lip sync — If lip sync is critical, use Kling 3.0 Motion Control instead. Use a Modify Frame reference and leave the prompt empty at first.

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Recipe: Edit a specific element

Goal: change one element (a prop, clothing, an object) while leaving everything else untouched. Model: Mago Inpaint.

1. Open the Mask workspace.
2. Use Prompts or Points to mask the element. E.g. “red car”.
3. Generate. Compare the mask against the source with the slider. Verify coverage.
4. If too tight, increase Expand. If edges look hard, increase Blur.
5. Switch to Modify Frame. Generate a reference image showing what the element should become.
6. Click Use this.
7. Switch to Render Video. Pick Mago Inpaint.
8. Select the mask track and the reference image.
9. Write a descriptive prompt for the scene as it should look after the edit. E.g. “A blue sedan in the parking lot.”
10. Render on a test range. Verify the unmasked regions are preserved.
11. If unmasked regions show slight changes (brightness shift), plan to composite externally with the downloaded mask for pixel-perfect preservation.

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Recipe: Multi-pass pipeline

Goal: replace a character, apply a style, then upscale to high resolution. The flagship multi-pass workflow.

1. Pass 1 (Modify Frame): generate the new character reference matching the source pose.
2. Pass 1 (Render, Mago Character): replace the character. Get the motion right. Lower resolution (1280) is fine.
3. On the render track, click Edit this Render — the render becomes the source for the next pass.
4. Pass 2 (Modify Frame): take a frame from the character-replaced render. Apply the target visual style with GPT Image 2 and strong preservation directives.
5. Click Use this.
6. Pass 2 (Render, Mago Style Transfer): apply the style to the character-replaced render, using the stylized frame as reference.
7. On the stylized result, click Edit this Render again.
8. Pass 3 (Upscale): Upscaler ×2 for clean enlargement, or Creative Upscaler at denoise 0.3–0.5 for detail.
9. Result: a high-resolution, stylized, character-replaced render — produced through controllable, independently iterable steps.

📐 Why multi-pass — Doing everything at once is unreliable: the models start fighting each other, and there’s no way to fix one step without redoing all of it. Multi-pass takes longer but is dramatically more controllable for production work.

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Model selection quick reference

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