# What do the vendors say to do for character and scene consistency (reference images, keyframes, seeds, character assets), and where do their recommendations conflict or limit the technique?

- id: art_01M5M9VDR39ZC7QA9EHR0CRT54
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T06, T16, T20 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T11:55:28.891Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5M9VDR39ZC7QA9EHR0CRT54

Vendors give different recipes. Google: up to three reference images of one subject (8 s clips), repeat an unchanged character description in every prompt, reuse a seed. Runway: build the character as an image with References, then animate it with Gen-4; in image-to-video describe motion only and call the subject 'the subject'. OpenAI (retired): input_reference first frame; reusable non-human 'characters' that must be named verbatim in the prompt. Luma: Ray3.14 launched without character consistency or reference images; the Ray 3.2 API offers up to 64 keyframes. Kling: a 'master' image, start/end frames, and subject consistency in 3.0 image-to-video. The main conflict is whether to re-describe the subject (Google text-to-video) or not (Google/Runway image-to-video).

Vendors give different recipes. Google: up to three reference images of one subject (8 s clips), repeat an unchanged character description in every prompt, reuse a seed. Runway: build the character as an image with References, then animate it with Gen-4; in image-to-video describe motion only and call the subject 'the subject'. OpenAI (retired): input_reference first frame; reusable non-human 'characters' that must be named verbatim in the prompt. Luma: Ray3.14 launched without character consistency or reference images; the Ray 3.2 API offers up to 64 keyframes. Kling: a 'master' image, start/end frames, and subject consistency in 3.0 image-to-video. The main conflict is whether to re-describe the subject (Google text-to-video) or not (Google/Runway image-to-video).

Curator qualifications: Curator located every evidence excerpt in the batch work copies (automated exact-prefix match, all present). The re-describe vs do-not-re-describe advice is mode-specific (text-to-video vs image-to-video), as the candidate says.

Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/video/generate-videos-from-references",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/veo/3-1-generate",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/video/best-practice",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/video/generate-videos-from-text",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20261016083106id_/https://help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/40042718905875-Creating-with-Gen-4-Image-References",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20261016083106id_/https:/help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/39789879462419-Gen-4-Video-Prompting-Guide",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260207185825id_/https://help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/43176400374419-Creating-with-Aleph",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/guides/video-generation",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://lumalabs.ai/learning-hub/ray314-user-guide",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.agents.lumalabs.ai/guides/videos/generation/index.md",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://lumalabs.ai/learning-hub/best-practices",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260612042230id_/https:/klingai.com/blog/fix-ai-video-drift-consistency-guide",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260612042130id_/https:/klingai.com/blog/kling-video-3-0-ai-director-features-guide",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://docs.agents.lumalabs.ai/guides/faq/index.md",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20261016041430id_/https://help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/37327109429011-Creating-with-Gen-4-Video",
      "note": "consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20261016083106id_/https://help.runwayml.com/hc/en-us/articles/39789879462419-Gen-4-Video-Prompting-Guide",
      "note": "observed URL (dated/alias form of the cited catalogue source; canonical identity retained)"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260612042230id_/https://klingai.com/blog/fix-ai-video-drift-consistency-guide",
      "note": "observed URL (dated/alias form of the cited catalogue source; canonical identity retained)"
    },
    {
      "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260612042130id_/https://klingai.com/blog/kling-video-3-0-ai-director-features-guide",
      "note": "observed URL (dated/alias form of the cited catalogue source; canonical identity retained)"
    }
  ]
}
```

Evidence claims:
- [sourced_fact] Vendors give different recipes. Google: up to three reference images of one subject (8 s clips), repeat an unchanged character description in every prompt, reuse a seed. Runway: build the character as an image with References, then animate it with Gen-4; in image-to-video describe motion only and call the subject 'the subject'. OpenAI (retired): input_reference first frame; reusable non-human 'characters' that must be named verbatim in the prompt. Luma: Ray3.14 launched without character consistency or reference images; the Ray 3.2 API offers up to 64 keyframes. Kling: a 'master' image, start/end frames, and subject consistency in 3.0 image-to-video. The main conflict is whether to re-describe the subject (Google text-to-video) or not (Google/Runway image-to-video). · locator: consistency; image-to-video; seed; Ray3.14 · source: https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/video/generate-videos-from-references

Rights:
- documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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