Introduction
Story Panels expands the world and narrative of any image by generating new shots that continue or extend the story. Upload an image and describe the new scenes or sequence you want to explore, and Story Panels produces panel-style outputs that carry the visual world forward.
It's built for filmmakers, storyboard artists, comic creators, and narrative designers who want to rapidly develop a visual story from a single starting image.
Prerequisites
Before using Story Panels, you'll need:
- An input image — any photo, illustration, or visual that establishes the world or story you want to expand
- A text prompt — a description of the new shots or scenes you want generated
This app requires credits to run and does not support infinite generations in Explore Mode.
Step 1 — Accessing Story Panels
Story Panels lives in the Apps section of Runway. You can get there two ways:
- Navigate to Apps in the left sidebar, then browse to find Story Panels
- Use the search bar at the top of the Apps panel and type Story Panels
Select the app to open it.
Step 2 — Adding the inputs
Story Panels has two inputs, both of which are required.
Input Prompt
In the prompt field, describe the new shots or scenes you want Story Panels to generate. This can be directional — a narrative beat, a new location, a shift in action — or more open-ended to let the app interpret the world of your image. The prompt field supports up to 1000 characters, but Story Panels is optimized for this use case, so a focused description is enough to get strong results.
Input Image
Upload the image you want to expand from using the Select button. This is the visual anchor for the story — Story Panels will build new panels that extend the world and narrative established by this image.
Step 3 — Generating with Story Panels
Before generating, confirm:
- Your input prompt has been filled in
- Your input image has been uploaded
- Both inputs are required — the Generate button will not be active until both are provided
Once everything looks good, select Generate. Story Panels uses up to 48 credits per generation and outputs 2 panels.
Example outputs
| Input Image | Prompt | Output |
|---|---|---|
| New shots in the sequence — she boards the plane as storm clouds roll in |
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| The figure turns the corner and disappears into the crowd |
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Next steps
You've used Story Panels to expand an image into new narrative scenes. From here, you might explore:
- Panel Upscaler — Built specifically to upscale the individual images produced by Story Panels to take your panels to final quality.
- Cinematic Brainstorm — Upload one of your panels and generate 9 cinematic scene variations to continue developing the visual world before moving to animation.