Documentation
Everything you need to know to create AI-powered videos with Trumbone.
Workflow Overview
Getting Started
Trumbone turns your ideas into professional videos using AI. Here's how to get up and running in minutes.
Create an account
Create a new project
Describe your vision
Generate, edit, and export
Projects
Projects are the top-level container for all your video work. Each project has its own script, storyboard, characters, and timeline.
Project settings
- Name — A title for your project visible on the dashboard.
- Mode — Choose Standard Video, Music Video (sync to a song), or Freeform Timeline (start from scratch).
- Style description — Describe a visual style (e.g., "cinematic noir", "colorful anime") applied to all generated images.
- Style reference image — Upload an image to use as visual reference for the AI. The AI will match the look and feel.
- Aspect ratio — Choose 16:9 (landscape) or 9:16 (portrait/vertical).
- Resolution — Choose 720p or 1080p for video generation.
- Voiceover — Enable narration to have the AI include voiceover text for each scene.
- Cut scenes — Enable dual-storyline mode for A/B interleaving (see Cut Scene Mode).
AI Script Writing
The AI script generator takes a description of your video concept and creates a structured, scene-by-scene script. It supports multiple modes depending on your project type.
Enter your concept
Set the duration
Generate the script
Review and edit
Script modes
- Standard — General video with scene prompts and optional narration.
- Music Video — Scenes synced to uploaded song beats, lyrics, and sections.
- Cut Scene — Dual A/B storylines that interleave automatically.
Characters
Characters help the AI maintain visual and vocal consistency across scenes. Define your characters once and they'll appear consistently throughout your video.
Character settings
- Name & description — How the character looks and acts. Used by the AI when generating images.
- Reference image — Upload a photo or illustration. The AI uses this to keep the character visually consistent across scenes.
- Role — Main or secondary character, affects how prominently they appear.
- Voice engine & voice — Choose a TTS engine and voice for narration.
- Voice tone — Describe how the character speaks (e.g., "calm and authoritative", "excited and energetic").
- Lip sync — Enable to generate lip-synced video from the character's narration.
- Storyline — In cut scene mode, assign characters to Storyline A, B, or both.
Go to Characters tab
Add a character
Configure voice (optional)
Use in scripts
Import characters from other projects
Click Import Character from Project to reuse characters you've created in other projects. Select a project, then pick the characters you want to import. Their name, description, reference images, voice settings, and lip sync configuration are all copied over.
Storyboard
The storyboard turns your script into a visual preview. Each scene gets an AI-generated image that matches its prompt.
Generate images
Review and compare
Regenerate if needed
Image generation tips
- Upload a style reference image in project settings for the best visual consistency across all scenes.
- Character reference images significantly improve character consistency. Upload clear, well-lit photos.
- The AI generates images at your chosen aspect ratio (16:9 or 9:16).
- Standard quality uses fewer tokens. Pro quality produces more detailed images at a higher token cost.
- When characters are enabled, choose between Consistent (better character likeness) and Creative (more artistic variation) generation models.
Video Generation
Transform your still storyboard images into dynamic video clips with motion and cinematic effects.
Choose your settings
Generate video clips
Review clips
Send to timeline
Video generation details
- Duration — Choose 5s or 10s per clip. 10s clips cost more tokens but give more footage.
- Resolution — 720p is faster and cheaper. 1080p gives higher quality for the same token cost.
- Video generation is asynchronous — you can continue editing while clips process in the background.
- Failed generations are automatically refunded.
Timeline Editor
The timeline is a professional multi-track editor where you arrange your video clips, add audio, transitions, text overlays, and fine-tune your final video.
Timeline Layout
Timeline basics
- Tracks — Your timeline has multiple tracks. Video tracks layer on top of each other; audio tracks mix together.
- Playhead — The vertical line showing the current position. Click on the ruler to move it. The preview updates in real-time.
- Zoom — Use the zoom controls or scroll wheel to zoom in/out on the timeline.
- Snap to grid — Clips snap to other clip edges and the playhead for precise alignment. Toggle snapping on/off with the magnet icon in the toolbar.
- Real-time preview — The built-in playback engine composites all tracks live as you edit.
Range selection (In/Out points)
Drag the purple triangle handles on the ruler to set In and Out points. This defines the playback range and the portion of the timeline that gets exported.
Working with Clips
Clips are the building blocks of your video. Here's how to select, move, trim, and manage them.
Selecting clips
- Click a clip to select it.
- Hold Ctrl (or Cmd on Mac) and click to add clips to your selection.
- Click and drag on an empty area of a track to box-select multiple clips.
Moving and trimming
- Drag a clip left or right to reposition it on the timeline.
- When multiple clips are selected, dragging one moves them all together.
- Hover over the left or right edge of a clip to see the trim cursor. Drag inward to trim.
Clip properties
Select a clip to see its properties in the toolbar: volume, opacity, fade in/out duration, and more. You can adjust these for precise control over each clip's appearance and behavior.
Right-click clip actions
- Delete — Remove the clip from the timeline.
- Duplicate — Create a copy placed immediately after the original.
- Split at Playhead — Split the clip into two at the current playhead position. Shortcut: S.
- Generate Transition — Create an AI transition between this clip and the adjacent one.
- Regenerate Clip — Re-generate the video for a scene-linked clip with the option to edit the prompt first.
- Apply Lip Sync — Generate lip-synced video for the clip (music video mode, 25 tokens).
- Revert Lip Sync — Restore the original video before lip sync was applied.
Importing Media
Bring in video and audio files from your device, other projects, or the media library.
Import files from your device
- Click Add Video or Add Audio in the toolbar, then choose Import File.
- Select one or multiple files at once — they'll be placed end-to-end on the timeline.
- Supported video formats: MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI, MKV.
- Supported audio formats: MP3 (max 10 MB).
Import from other projects
- Click Add Video → From Other Projects to browse generated scene videos from all of your projects.
- Select any scene's video to add it directly to the timeline.
Import a complete timeline
- Right-click on an empty area of any track and select Import Timeline.
- Choose another project to import all of its matching clips (video clips for video tracks, audio clips for audio tracks).
- Imported clips are placed after any existing clips on the track with their relative timing preserved.
Media Library
The Media Library stores all generated and imported media for your project in one place.
Using the Media Library
- Access the Media Library from the sidebar when inside a project, or via Add Video → From Media Library on the timeline.
- Browse all previously generated images, videos, and audio for the current project.
- Click any item to add it to the timeline.
- Media is automatically saved to the library whenever you generate images, videos, or audio.
Text Overlays
Add styled text to your video for titles, subtitles, lower thirds, and annotations.
Adding text clips
- Click the Add Text button in the timeline toolbar.
- A text clip appears on the timeline that you can position and resize.
- Edit text content, font, size, color, background, stroke, shadow, and position.
- Choose from text presets for common styles (title card, lower third, subtitle, etc.).
- Add text animations (fade in, typewriter, slide, etc.) for dynamic effects.
Text styling options
- Font — Choose from available fonts, set weight and style.
- Color — Text color, background color with padding and border radius.
- Effects — Stroke outline, drop shadow, letter spacing, line height.
- Position — Place text anywhere on screen with X/Y coordinates.
- Animation — Choose entrance and exit animations.
AI Transitions
Generate smooth AI-powered transitions between scenes. Instead of simple cuts or crossfades, AI creates a unique video clip that seamlessly blends two scenes together.
Select two adjacent clips
Generate transition
Review
Range-based transitions
- Press I and O to set In and Out points on the ruler marking a 1–5 second range.
- Click Generate Transition in the toolbar to create a transition that morphs between the first and last frames of the selected range.
- This is useful for creating transitions at precise moments without needing two separate clips.
Audio & Music
Add background music, sound effects, or custom audio to your video.
Adding audio
- Click the Add Audio button in the timeline toolbar.
- Upload one or multiple audio files (MP3, max 10 MB each) from your device.
- Audio clips appear on an audio track and can be moved and trimmed like video clips.
- Adjust volume on individual clips using the clip properties panel.
- Mute entire tracks by clicking the mute button on the track header.
AI Voiceover
Generate natural-sounding voiceovers from text using AI text-to-speech. Narration is generated per-scene and automatically placed on the timeline.
Enable voiceover
Generate narration
Choose a voice
Edit on timeline
AI Lip Sync
AI lip sync generates realistic video of characters speaking. The AI takes a character image and audio, and produces a video of the character with synchronized mouth movements.
How lip sync works
- Enable Lip Sync on a character in the Characters tab.
- Generate TTS audio for the character's narration.
- Click Generate Lip Sync on the scene.
- The AI creates a video clip with the character's mouth moving in sync with the audio.
Music Video Mode
Music Video mode lets you create visuals synced to a song. Upload your track and the AI analyzes beats, lyrics, and song sections to generate a perfectly timed visual experience.
Music Video Flow
Audio waveform — scenes sync to song sections
Create a Music Video project
Upload your song
Generate a synced script
Generate visuals and export
Cut Scene Mode
Cut Scene mode lets you create videos with two interleaving storylines (A and B) that alternate throughout the video. This is great for parallel narratives, before/after comparisons, or music videos with performance and story cuts.
Cut Scene Interleaving
Enable cut scenes
Describe each storyline
Assign characters
Choose cut frequency
How it works
The AI generates scenes for both storylines and automatically interleaves them. Each storyline can have its own style reference image for visual differentiation. In music video mode, interleaving is timed to song sections.
AI Song Generation
Don't have a song? Generate one with AI. Create original music for your music videos or background tracks.
Generating songs
- In a Music Video project, click the Generate Song option.
- Describe the style and mood of the song you want.
- The AI generates an original song that you can use in your video.
- You can also import songs from external sources.
- Generated or imported songs are automatically analyzed for beats, BPM, lyrics, and sections.
Project Sharing
Collaborate with others by sharing your projects. Grant view or edit permissions to other Trumbone users.
Sharing a project
- Open your project and go to settings or the share menu.
- Enter the email address of the person you want to share with.
- Choose their permission level: View (read-only) or Edit (full editing access).
- The shared user will see the project in their dashboard.
- You can revoke access at any time.
Exporting
Export your finished video as a high-quality MP4 file.
How to export
- Click the Export button in the timeline toolbar.
- Set your In and Out points on the ruler to define the export range, or leave them to export the full timeline.
- Your video is rendered and an MP4 file is downloaded when complete.
Tips for best results
- Preview your entire video before exporting to catch any issues.
- Make sure all video clips have finished loading (check for loading indicators).
- For longer videos, the export may take a few minutes.
Feed & Explore
Discover videos created by the Trumbone community. The Explore page lets you browse published posts from all creators.
Browsing the feed
- Click Explore in the top navigation to browse the public feed.
- Scroll through video posts from creators across the community.
- Click any post to watch the full video on its dedicated page.
- From a post page, you can follow the creator or browse their profile.
Publishing Posts
Share your exported videos with the Trumbone community by publishing them to the feed.
How to publish
- After exporting a video, you can publish it as a post to the public feed.
- Add a title and description to give your post context.
- A thumbnail is automatically generated from your video. You can customize it by scrubbing through the video and selecting a frame (see Editing Posts).
- Published posts appear on your profile and in the Explore feed.
Editing Posts
Update your published posts at any time to refine how they appear in the feed.
What you can edit
- Title — Change the title displayed on your post.
- Description — Update the description text, including hashtags.
- Thumbnail — Scrub through your video to pick a new frame as the thumbnail. The selected frame is compressed and uploaded automatically.
Hashtags
Use hashtags in your post descriptions to categorize your content and make it discoverable.
Using hashtags
- Add hashtags anywhere in your post description using the # symbol (e.g., #animation, #musicvideo).
- Hashtags become clickable links that lead to a tag page showing all posts with that tag.
- Use relevant hashtags to help other creators find your work.
Following
Follow creators whose work you enjoy to stay connected with the community.
How following works
- Click the Follow button on a creator's post or profile page.
- View your following and followers from your profile.
- Unfollow at any time by clicking the button again.
Profile Settings
Customize your public profile to let the community know who you are.
Profile options
- Username — Change your username from the Settings page. Your username appears on your profile and posts.
- Profile picture — Upload an avatar image. Images are automatically resized and compressed.
- Profile link — Add a link to your website or social media. It's displayed on your public profile for others to see.
Tokens & Pricing
Trumbone uses a token system for AI-powered features. Each generation action costs a set number of tokens. Failed generations are automatically refunded.
Subscription Plans
- 10% off top-ups
- Unlimited storage
- 15% off top-ups
- Priority queue
- Unlimited storage
- 20% off top-ups
- Priority queue
- Unlimited storage
Token packs (one-time purchase)
Your current token balance is shown in the sidebar. Purchase additional tokens from the Tokens page.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Speed up your workflow with these keyboard shortcuts on the timeline.