Creator media, cinematics, and preview

Last verified: 2026-10-04

Story, character, and location assets

Upload only media you own or are authorized to use. Story assets serve the Story draft; independent Characters own their images in the top-level Character library, while location asset sections associate eligible Story items with their locations. Choose representative images that match the published canon and add useful alternative text or metadata where the editor offers it. Assets retain type, ownership, review, and usage information. Rejected media cannot become a representative image or published story asset, and deleting a referenced asset requires removing or replacing its uses first.

Character chat animation

In a character's editor, open Chat animation to arrange image frames into resting, waiting, and reply sequences. Each frame can select one part of a sprite sheet. Preview the whole movement, then add ordered branches for emotion, intent, intensity, relationship, and the character's previous posture. Replies finish in a resting sequence so the character keeps an appropriate expression between messages. Save the animation, approve its images and publish the Character's presentation from its editor. Attached Stories use that approved presentation in character chat without requiring another whole-Story publication.

For a generated transparent character sheet, review the actual poses and choose Keep for animation to approve it as a reusable source. This preserves the character's profile picture. Review identity, clothes, hands, framing, and transitions before using the source; approval alone does not establish animation quality. Readers can turn motion off, and their device's reduced-motion preference is respected.

Cinematic voice profiles

Cinematic voice profiles assign one of Mystrix's reviewed voices, rendered on Mystrix's own voice box, to characters and the narrator. A character's selected logical voice is persisted and reused throughout the Story, so episode order and later publication do not silently recast that character. Preview a profile before relying on it. Provider selection and tuning controls such as speed, pitch, warmth, intensity, accent, and emotion are not Creator controls: Mystrix applies one fixed consistency recipe. Voice presentation does not change dialogue text or narrative state. Exact recordings can be attached to a selected locked script line through the separate performance workflow; this does not create a custom voice model. Generated clips are cached for playback and matching speech recipes rather than synthesized again on every listen.

Cinematic music library

The music library uses eligible audio assets and their mood tags, loop and normalization settings, transitions, and location assignments. Preview a track and check where it is used before changing or deleting it. Ducking, fades, cuts, swells, and stingers shape presentation but do not create a story event, choice, or state effect.

Generate a sound effect

In a Story's sound-effect picker or asset manager, choose Generate sound effect, describe the sound you want, and pick a duration of 10 seconds or less. Mystrix generates one short effect on its own voice box and saves it to the Story's ordinary asset library, where you can place it on a cinematic beat and preview it like any other sound. Your description stays on Mystrix's own servers and is never sent to a third party. The box renders one job at a time, so a sound can take a few minutes when it is busy. Ordinary generation has daily render-time and request allowances; an authorized house Story uses house capacity instead. A generated sound is never added to Public sounds unless you explicitly share it as described below.

Public sound effects

In a Story's sound-effect picker or asset manager, choose Public sounds to search, preview, and add an effect another creator has shared. The effect is copied into your Story's ordinary asset library; you can then place it on the intended cinematic beat. Using a public sound does not share any of your own sounds.

To contribute an eligible effect you added yourself, uploaded or generated, open that sound in the asset inspector and choose Share with creators. Review its public title, then accept the reuse statement and share it. Sounds are never added to Public sounds by upload, generation, metadata edits, or Story publication alone. Remove from pool stops new discovery and use; copies already added to other Stories remain there. Do not include private information in a public title or sound. Report a shared sound from its catalogue row if it may violate the content rules. If sharing, adding, previewing, removing, or reporting a sound is refused, the message explains the reason in your language: the sound is unavailable, it changed or is busy (reload and try again), its public title or reuse statement needs review, or it cannot be shared or reused.

Cinematic scene frames

Scene frames use image assets as location defaults, layered backgrounds, or triggered visuals. Choose a frame type, duration, transition, and explicit trigger: beat reached, choice selected, a time gate, or manual activation. Keep layers and triggers consistent with visual canon, and verify that the underlying story condition is actually reachable.

Cinematic events

Cinematic events coordinate camera intent, characters, locations, dialogue direction, visual assets, and sound around an authored story moment. They can stage a beat or consequence, but they must not replace a required reader decision or create a contradictory source of canon. Review the event in story order and keep its linked media eligible for publication.

Beats and speaking order

Open Beats directly from the Story sidebar. Select the event and beat, then arrange the character and narrator lines in their speaking order. Narration is used only where explicitly assigned. Use Visual editing to place visual changes against their intended spoken line; the local preview stays available. Save commits the script and visual composition together. Image generation and AI Quick Fix use the current beat; review their result before saving.

Beat-level full-frame video

A locked beat can use one finite full-frame MP4 instead of separate voice and layered Stage choreography. In the ordinary Timeline beat card, choose an approved ready Story video or upload an MP4, preview it, provide its language and visual description, set the start and end time of each spoken line, name the rights holder, choose your authority, and confirm the rights statement before selecting Upload and attach video. Reloading the Timeline shows the same sealed clip identity and media facts.

The clip must be a 16:9 H.264 MP4 with supported AAC program audio (or be explicitly silent). A beat cannot keep both a video and a separate voice performance, and it cannot bind a video while it still owns Stage cues. Remove video unbinds the performance without deleting the reusable Story asset or changing the beat's locked speaking sequence. In Reader playback the clip owns the full visual plane and its finite clock; buffering pauses progress, the clip never loops, and Retry or explicit Skip remain available after media failure.

Reviewed Story visual inventory

Upload complete scene images in Mystrix Studio or, where the image controls are enabled, explicitly request generation or refinement with an OpenAI, Gemini, or Z.ai key entered in the open editor, or use the Mystrix image service. Z.ai GLM-Image works from the written brief alone and produces full scenes only, not transparent artwork; its quality check still compares against your references. The key is needed again after the session ends. Review a private candidate before applying its finished frame to the intended event. Use Load more in the image source picker to browse the remaining eligible images. Attached Characters contribute approved images; borrowed Characters contribute only images in their accepted publication while the grant permits use. Unavailable Character images stay hidden without hiding later eligible Story images. The Smagik house account can choose Included house images in the same model menu or select that same model through the Creator API with `funding: house`. This built-in connection is exclusive to Smagik. It supports full scenes and transparent source artwork, with a separate quality check and no cash charge. Independent jobs run concurrently as worker resources allow. No house-image concurrency setting or two-job limit is required; API-provider concurrency and request-rate allowances do not cap this connection. Provider subscription limits still apply. House-funded images are not subject to paid-account image request-count caps. They are available for explicit generation and sequences. A service restart can recover the same completed house-image result without generating it again. An uncertain outcome remains explicit; review its status before starting another request. Publication may also apply an already reviewed house-owned scene image when its exact role and Story-event scope match.

Where enabled, the beat's compact Image control can turn its saved description into a sequence from beginning to end. Extra direction, frame count, speed and looping are optional; the default plays once and holds the ending. Review the full sequence before using it. Character, location and World editors also have one saved art prompt. Approved examples guide later generation. Character movement sequences can be saved and selected in another beat. Generated consistency is checked, not guaranteed; unresolved results stop for review.

Each player receives a bounded immutable artwork snapshot. A session that already started is not silently switched to a later upload or selection. Uploaded images and reduced video poster frames may be sent to DeepSeek only for safety verification; DeepSeek returns safety scores and does not generate or edit the image. That upload-verification input is not sent to OpenAI, Gemini, or Z.ai; an explicit generation request sends only its prepared brief and creator-selected references.

Visual inventory is presentation only: it cannot create story events, choices, state changes, overlays, hotspots, or reader interaction targets. Creator-authored cinematic triggers and interactive overlays remain separate authoring decisions.

Episode preview

Open Preview to screen a saved draft episode or select an exact Ready publication. Press Play; the player advances through the reached authored beats and events automatically. At a branch it pauses for your explicit choice, then follows the selected authored route and its effects. Conditional beats are included in authored order so you can review their material too. Each screening starts with empty simulated state, including when you start from a selected event; it does not recreate a Reader's existing session.

Use the timeline to seek anywhere in the episode, Restart to return to the beginning, the audio control to mute or unmute, and the fullscreen control to expand the same player. These controls work on desktop, phones and tablets, including phone landscape. Browsers without the native fullscreen API expand the player to the available screen. Captions use the prepared speech or video timing. The player displays integrated authored visuals and plays available matching prepared speech, music, ambience and effects. Missing speech is visibly silent and uses the text clock. It does not display separate portrait cards or debugging panels.

Preparation happens inside the player. If media cannot be prepared or loaded, an inline error and Retry replace playback. Changes to the saved draft during preparation require a fresh load. An empty episode is identified explicitly. Preview never silently skips an unfinished event.

An episode Preview URL screens that episode; the Story-level Preview link opens the first episode in authored season/episode order. Back to Beats opens the first event of the screened episode once it is loaded; a published screening links to its read-only Timeline instead. Preview from here preserves the selected event and publication. Save changes in the editor before opening Preview. Screening reads prepared speech only; it never synthesizes or repairs speech, creates a gameplay session, or changes scripts, Story state or publication. Missing or invalid publication authority is refused rather than replaced with draft content.

Documentary and instructional Stories retain their dedicated Review workspaces. Native interactive preview sessions retain their existing API; this page is the complete episode screening surface.